Heat Pump Repair in College Park, Maryland
Prince George's County · 24 hour emergency service
Heat pump repair, replacement and maintenance in College Park, from all-electric student rentals near campus to the ramblers in College Park Woods. When the owner buys the equipment and the tenant pays Pepco, how the system is set up matters twice.
Why people here call us.
College Park has a split incentive built into much of its housing, and heat pumps are where it shows up most clearly. The owner buys and maintains the equipment. The tenant pays the Pepco bill. A heat pump that has lost its compressor and is heating on electric strips will hold a house at 68 degrees all winter, so nothing gets reported and the cost lands on whoever is renting.
That is why we look first at whether the compressor is doing work, not at whether the air coming out feels warm. The other pattern here is seasonal. Systems sit idle through a whole summer or a whole winter break, then get asked to run at full load on the first cold week of the semester, and parts that were marginal in May fail in October.
Bedrooms carved out of attics and basements add load the original system never accounted for, which pushes a marginal heat pump onto its strips even sooner. We diagnose properly, document what we found, and give owners a clear picture of repair versus replacement.
What College Park homes ask of this job.
College Park splits into three heat pump pictures. Around the campus edge in Calvert Hills, Old Town and Lakeland in 20740 the stock is 1920s through 1950s bungalows, capes and small colonials, most on their second or third system and many converted to student rentals with bedrooms carved out of attics and basements.
Those attic rooms are usually served by a single supply run through an uninsulated knee wall, and a heat pump at 100 degree supply air cannot overcome that the way a furnace briefly could. North of campus in Hollywood, Berwyn, Daniels Park and College Park Woods the housing is later, 1950s and 1960s ramblers and split-levels with more owner occupancy, and a good share are all-electric with heat pumps now in their third generation.
Along Baltimore Ave the last fifteen years brought large mid-rise apartment buildings running fan coils and packaged equipment, where service access is scheduled by the building rather than the resident. All of it is Pepco territory, so heating cost is an electricity conversation here, not a gas one, and thermostat setup has a direct effect on what someone pays in January. Gas reaches some of these blocks, but it rarely reaches the rentals.
The problems that keep coming up.
- Attic bedrooms in Calvert Hills rentals that never warm up, so the thermostat downstairs keeps calling and the electric strips run for hours at a time.
- Heat pumps that sat idle through winter break and fail on the first cold week, usually on a contactor, a capacitor or a seized outdoor fan motor.
- Older R-22 heat pumps in Hollywood and Berwyn losing charge slowly, where heating capacity fades first and refrigerant cost outweighs another repair.
- Baltimore Ave mid-rise fan coils and packaged units with dirty coils and clogged drain pans because no service access has ever been scheduled.
- Tenants running space heaters to cover a heat pump that quietly lost its compressor, which raises the bill and hides the actual failure for months.
How the appointment runs.
On a College Park call we confirm what is actually producing the heat: compressor amp draw, strip heater draw, refrigerant charge by superheat and subcool, temperature split, reversing valve, defrost control and outdoor sensors, then filter, return path and static pressure. On a rental we photograph and write up the findings so an owner who is not on site can decide without a second visit.
Access is the part worth planning. Student rentals mean coordinating with tenants, and the panel and air handler are often in a basement that has been partly converted to a bedroom. Off-street parking on the Calvert Hills and Old Town streets is limited, particularly during the semester. In the Baltimore Ave buildings the fan coil or packaged unit sits above a ceiling or in a closet, and management controls the service window and the elevator, which we arrange in advance.
What decides the scope here.
Heat pumps in College Park sit on top of a split incentive, and that is genuinely the thing that decides what these jobs look like. The owner buys and repairs the equipment. The tenant pays Pepco. So the failure that costs the most money is the one nobody reports, because the house stays warm while auxiliary electric strip heat carries the entire load.
A dead compressor, a stuck reversing valve, a failed defrost board or a thermostat that was replaced with a conventional model wired to run strips will all produce a comfortable house and an enormous bill, and the tenant paying it usually assumes electric heat is simply expensive. That is why we check compressor amp draw and strip heater draw on every visit here rather than only when someone complains.
On the parts side, capacitors, contactors, fan motors and thermostats are same-visit work, defrost boards and reversing valves are ordered, and a failed compressor on an older unit changes the conversation entirely. Panel capacity is the last constraint, because a lot of the older housing near campus was not wired for a heat pump plus a strip heat package.
When this goes wrong in College Park.
January is when the truth arrives, and it arrives as a bill rather than as a breakdown. A heat pump that lost its compressor in November keeps the house warm on strip heat through December, and the first anyone hears about it is a tenant asking why their electric bill tripled. If you own here, that call is worth treating as a fault report rather than a complaint about rates.
Winter break compounds it, because a house left empty for weeks with a thermostat set wrong can run strips continuously against an open setback with nobody in the building. February is when disputes about it start. The other end of the year is quieter and more useful: April and October are the only times both heating and cooling can be tested properly in a single visit, which is the only way a reversing valve or defrost fault gets found before the season that depends on it.
Working in College Park.
Home Comfort Air Services is based in Silver Spring at 9737 Mount Pisgah Rd, 20903, a short drive to College Park by New Hampshire Ave or the Beltway. Yosef started the company in 2014 after working as a service technician, and it is still family owned and operated. We are NATE certified, Carrier authorized, BBB accredited with an A+ rating and ACCA members, licensed in Maryland under MD70918, and we participate in the Pepco and BGE residential rebate programs.
We are used to working with owners and property managers on rental properties, including scheduling around tenants and documenting findings clearly. Military and senior customers get 10% off any repair, and a complete heating and cooling system installation comes with $150 off, with financing available.
Common questions.
I own a rental here. How do I keep strip heat from running constantly?
Two things do most of the work. First, keep the equipment healthy, since a failed compressor or a defrost fault forces strip heat no matter how the tenant behaves. Second, have the thermostat set up correctly for a heat pump, with proper staging and a lockout so auxiliary heat is not triggered by every setback recovery. Annual maintenance catches both.
The house sat empty all summer. What should I check before the semester?
Get the system serviced before the first cold week rather than after it. Idle equipment collects dust, capacitors weaken, contactors pit, condensate traps dry out, and outdoor coils fill with debris. A fall visit covers charge, electrical components, the defrost cycle and the filter, and it prevents most of the emergency calls we take here in October.
Can a heat pump keep an old Old Town rental warm in January?
It can, if the house supports it. The limits are usually the envelope and the ductwork, not the equipment. An uninsulated attic bedroom fed by one long supply run will stay cold no matter what sits in the basement. We look at insulation, duct and returns as part of the recommendation, because those determine how often the strips have to run.
My tenant says the heat is enormously expensive. Is the system broken?
Often, yes, and it is worth checking rather than dismissing. A working heat pump should carry most of a Maryland winter on its own and only lean on auxiliary electric heat during the coldest mornings. If the bill has tripled, the usual causes are a compressor that has failed, a reversing valve stuck in the wrong mode, a defrost control that is not working, or a thermostat that was swapped for one that does not know how to stage a heat pump. All four leave the house warm and the strips running, which is exactly why nobody reports them as a breakdown.
Can I stop emergency heat being left on at the thermostat?
To a degree, yes. Emergency heat is a manual setting intended for when the heat pump itself has failed, and left on it runs the most expensive heat in the house continuously. Locking thermostats and models with limited user access exist and are common in rentals, and we can fit and configure them. The more durable fix is usually correct configuration in the first place, since people reach for emergency heat when the system feels like it is not keeping up, and that feeling normally traces to a real fault or a badly set balance point.
Do Pepco rebates apply to equipment in a rental property?
Generally the residential programs are tied to the property and the equipment rather than to who occupies it, and Pepco runs rebates on qualifying high efficiency heat pumps under EmPOWER Maryland. Eligibility depends on the rating of the specific matched indoor and outdoor combination, and some programs require a participating contractor and documentation within a set window. We will confirm what your equipment qualifies for before you commit. The federal Section 25C credit ended for equipment placed in service after December 31, 2025.