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A heat pump working a long heating season runs hardest exactly when its capacity is most strained: outdoor temperatures drop, the refrigerant circuit works against a steeper gradient, and the compressor cycles more to hold setpoint. Homes in Fremont County, CO run heat about nine months a year, from September through May. Contractors diagnosing a heat pump repair here check the reversing valve early, because it switches the system between modes and accumulates wear on both sides of the year. Refrigerant charge also shifts under sustained cold-weather load in ways that a visual inspection alone will not catch.
Ductwork in houses this old carries a history that a repair call can expose fast. Flex runs spliced into original metal trunk lines, joints that have separated behind drywall, returns sized for equipment long gone. Half the homes in Fremont County, Colorado were built in 1981 or earlier (2020-2024 ACS 5-year). A contractor opening a heat pump here will often find that what the system is doing wrong traces back to what the ducts are delivering, or failing to. That is a different repair scope than the unit alone would suggest, and it changes what gets ordered and what gets done.
The Parts of a Heat Pump a Contractor Checks First
The outdoor unit is the piece most homeowners can point to right away, sitting on a pad beside the house. Inside its cabinet are the compressor and the outdoor coil, and when a heat pump stops doing its job, those two components are where a contractor looks first. A failed compressor or a damaged coil will shut down the whole system.
Inside the house, the air handler holds the indoor coil and the blower fan that pushes conditioned air through the home. Running between the two units is the refrigerant line set, and alongside the air handler sits the reversing valve, which is the part that lets a heat pump move heat in either direction. A fault in the reversing valve or a refrigerant leak in the line set will show up as the system blowing the wrong temperature air.
The drawing shows the general layout of these components, and a licensed contractor determines what applies to your specific house and system.
Get matched in Fremont CountyFremont County, Colorado, by the numbers
487 severe weather events were recorded in Fremont County, Colorado between 2015 and 2024.
NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database, bulk CSV export, events 2015-01-01 through 2024-12-31.Half the homes in Fremont County, Colorado were built in 1981 or earlier (2020-2024 ACS 5-year).
U.S. Census Bureau, 2020-2024 American Community Survey 5-Year EstimatesFremont County, Colorado holds 20,605 housing units (2020-2024 ACS 5-year).
U.S. Census Bureau, 2020-2024 American Community Survey 5-Year EstimatesOwners occupy 75.6% of the occupied homes in Fremont County, Colorado (2020-2024 ACS 5-year).
U.S. Census Bureau, 2020-2024 American Community Survey 5-Year EstimatesSevere Weather Events in Fremont County
Fremont County's climate puts real stress on heat pump systems, which work hardest precisely when conditions outside are most extreme. How often that stress arrives shapes how much repair demand local equipment faces.
487 severe weather events, 2015–2024. Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database.