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A heat pump outside in Waxahachie takes a beating, and not just from heat and cold. Ellis County saw 133 hail events between 2015 and 2024, and every one of those is a chance for the outdoor unit to take a hit. Hail bends the fins on the coil, and bent fins choke off airflow the system needs to work right. A unit that's been through a few storms can run down well before it should, and the cause isn't always obvious from a quick look. If your heat pump is struggling, it's worth having someone check the coil and the fins, not just the parts that are easy to get to.
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
November is the first month heat runs here.
Whatever your heat pump has been hiding since spring shows up the first cold snap.
Most heat pump problems in Waxahachie are not storm damage. They are the same wear every heat pump sees, like a capacitor going weak or a contactor pitting after years of cycling on and off. That matters here because of what it costs to run one. Texas homes paid about 14.94 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2024, and a heat pump losing efficiency from a worn part burns more of that every month it goes unfixed. The fix is usually straightforward once a contractor gets the panel off and checks the electrical components, not just the coil.
If your heat pump came with the house, there's a good chance age isn't the problem. Half the homes in Ellis County were built in 2002 or later, and a system that age still has plenty of working life left in it. A weak capacitor or a pitted contactor is a repair, not a reason to replace a unit that's barely middle aged.
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This runs most of the year here, cooling through the summer and carrying the heat load once it turns cold. That's a lot of hours on the coil, and a coil that took hail damage years ago doesn't get a break to show it. The bent fins keep choking airflow every single cycle, not just when a storm rolls through. If yours has been running long hours without a real look at the coil, have someone check it before the wear turns into a breakdown.
A heat pump has a reversing valve that switches it between heating and cooling, and that part has no equivalent in a regular air conditioner. When it sticks, the system can get stuck in one mode, blowing cool air when it should be heating, or it won't switch at all. A stuck reversing valve is one of the more common reasons a heat pump stops heating even though the outdoor unit is still running.
In cold weather, a heat pump has to melt frost off the outdoor coil on a regular cycle, and that depends on a defrost thermostat or sensor doing its job. When that sensor fails, frost builds up on the coil and chokes airflow the same way bent fins do, except now it's getting worse every cycle instead of staying the same. A unit that ices over outside in cold weather usually has a defrost problem, not a refrigerant problem.
A heat pump that's struggling doesn't fix itself by staying on. A weak capacitor makes the compressor work harder to start each cycle, and that strain is what kills a compressor early. A failing contactor arcs a little more each time it closes, and that pitting only gets worse with more cycles, never better. Low refrigerant from a slow leak means the compressor runs hotter than it should, every single cycle, until it burns out. None of these fix themselves by running longer. The part that's already failing just fails faster, and it usually takes the compressor down with it when it finally goes.
A compressor failure is usually the line between repair and replacement. The compressor is sealed, and nobody opens it up to fix what's inside it. If it's seized or shorted, the whole outdoor unit gets replaced, not just that part. Everything else on a heat pump, the capacitor, the contactor, the reversing valve, the defrost sensor, gets swapped out on its own without touching the rest of the system. A heat pump that starts, runs, and holds steady is worth fixing almost every time. One that hums and trips the breaker without starting, or won't start at all, is a different conversation, and that's true no matter how old the unit is.
