Heat pump repair in Memphis, TN

Your heat pump can fail without your house getting cold

This is the part Memphis heat-pump pages leave out, and here it bites harder than anywhere. When a heat pump's compressor, reversing valve, defrost board or refrigerant charge fails in winter, the system does not simply stop — the electric resistance strips behind the indoor coil take over and keep the house warm. Nothing beeps. No room goes cold. The thermostat shows only a small AUX or EM HEAT indicator that most people have never had a reason to look at.

The evidence arrives weeks later, on the MLGW bill. Both governing tariffs are published, so the size of it is arithmetic rather than opinion. Gas is billed at a $0.583/ccf base plus the monthly Purchased Gas Adjustment — about 91¢ per therm all-in last winter; electricity runs a 9.6¢/kWh Schedule RS winter rate plus the TVA Fuel Cost Adjustment, roughly 12.73¢/kWh delivered. Converted to one million BTU actually delivered into the house:

Read the top and bottom rows together. The city's least-cost heat, a condensing gas furnace, delivers a million BTU for about $9.51; a healthy heat pump does it for about $12.43; the strips that cover for a broken heat pump do it for about $37.29 — roughly 3.0 times the working heat pump and nearly 3.9 times the gas. This is the Nashville problem with the Memphis reversal folded in: up there a healthy heat pump was the least expensive heat in town, so a failure only cost you against yourself; here cheap MLGW gas already beats the heat pump, so a home coasting on backup strips is paying a penalty against every way to heat the house. A Memphis homeowner whose backup heat has quietly taken over is not inconvenienced. They are being billed the most expensive heat in the city, silently, for as long as it takes them to notice.

None of this is a savings promise — it is what MLGW's two tariffs say today, and both the PGA and the fuel adjustment move monthly. If your AUX light is lit right now, (888) 810-2291 costs nothing to dial.

The only machine in your house that works hard in both expensive seasons — and here summer is the long one

TVA prices the power it sells through MLGW higher in summer, June through September, and in winter, December through March, and lower through the transitional shoulders — April–May and October–November. Sit that beside what each machine does. A gas furnace only works in one of those expensive windows. A plain air conditioner only works in the other. A heat pump works in both, and idles almost entirely through the two cheap ones. But Memphis is not Nashville: this is a cooling-led county — 2,109 cooling degree-days, the largest load on our map, against 2,949 heating — so the summer window is the long, heavy one, and the machine spends far more of its billed life cooling than heating.

Two things follow. First, a marginal fault on this equipment — a slightly low charge, a dirty coil, a weakening capacitor, a reversing valve starting to hang — is being billed at the highest rate of the year for the many months the machine is cooling, not the few it is heating. There is no long cheap season in which a Memphis heat pump quietly wastes energy. Second, and more usefully: the shoulder months are the sensible windows to book a repair or a tune-up. The equipment is idle, so a technician can take the time to test both modes properly; the rate is at its floor; and it is the same stretch when calendars are open rather than stacked behind the first freeze or the first 95°F afternoon.

The monthly fuel-cost adjustment moves independently of all this, which is why the figures on this page are dated rather than presented as fixed.

Why Memphis heat pumps are worn by the summer, not the deep cold

Not from cold, exactly. Memphis's winter design temperature is 18°F, but January averages a 49.5°F high and a 33.3°F low — a milder winter even than Nashville's — which means a local heat pump spends almost the whole heating season above its balance point, working as a heat pump rather than handing the job to the strips. Frost and defrost in the 32–40°F band still happen, but for fewer hours than the colder cities see. The stress that actually ages a Memphis heat pump is the cooling season.

With 2,109 cooling degree-days — the largest load anywhere we cover — falling on the same compressor, reversing valve and coil that also carry the winter, the runtime is close to year-round and weighted toward summer. So the signature Memphis failures are compressor, capacitor, contactor and reversing-valve wear driven by a long, brutal cooling runtime, with defrost-board and reversing-valve faults surfacing on the short winter as the mode-switch symptom. That dual-season, cooling-heavy duty is the honest reason the market quotes a heat pump's life span shorter than a furnace's — one national chain says 10 to 15 years — and it is why a "not cooling" call in July and a "not heating" call in January are so often the same worn part, found six months apart.

What are the most common heat pump problems in Memphis homes?

Eight signs cover most heat pump calls here, each linked to the national guide that walks it through. They are ordered by what this machine actually does when it goes wrong, with the silent one at the top — because the failure that leaves your house warm is the one people wait longest to report — and with the summer faults given their due, since this is a cooling-led county.

One distinction worth carrying into the call: frost on the coil on a 35°F morning is a defrost cycle doing its job; ice still caked on an hour later is a defrost fault. The first is the machine working, the second is the machine asking for help.

What heat pump repairs do Memphis contractors handle?

Twelve residential heat pump repair types are in scope, from a ten-minute capacitor swap to the reversing-valve job that reopens the replacement question. Several of these exist on no other system in the house — which is exactly why, in a coin-flip county, a "furnace guy" and a heat pump call are not always the same visit. Each line flags whether the part usually rides the truck or has to be ordered.

Reversing valve or solenoid

The part that switches the machine between heating and cooling. Sealed-system work: recover, braze, evacuate, recharge. Usually ordered; the market band is around $400–$900.

Defrost control board

The winter-specific brain that decides when to melt the coil. When it fails you get ice that never clears, or a unit that defrosts constantly.

Defrost sensor or thermostat

The small sensor telling the board how cold the coil actually is. Cheap, frequently the real culprit behind an "iced-up" call.

Auxiliary heat strips & sequencer

The resistance backup and the relay staging it. A failed sequencer either strands you without backup or leaves it running when it should not — the silent-bill scenario.

Capacitor

The classic no-start: compressor hums, outdoor fan sits still. Truck stock, minutes to change — and the first casualty of a hard Memphis summer.

Contactor

Pitted or welded contacts from years of cycling — a heat pump switches far more often than a cooling-only unit. Usually stocked.

Compressor

The expensive verdict rather than a routine part, and the one a long cooling runtime wears toward. On any older unit this is where the replacement conversation begins.

Refrigerant leak search & repair

Finding the leak, not merely topping it up — a recharge with no search is a bill that returns next season.

Expansion valve (TXV) or metering device

Poor performance in one mode and not the other is often here rather than in the compressor.

Crankcase heater

Keeps refrigerant out of the compressor oil on cold nights; a failed one shortens compressor life quietly.

Blower motor & air handler faults

Weak airflow makes a healthy heat pump look broken and can freeze the indoor coil. ECM versions wait on an order.

Thermostat repair, replacement or staging

Heat pumps need a thermostat that understands staging and auxiliary lockout — the wrong one calls for strips far too eagerly.

One line dispatches every one of the twelve, whatever the hour — and the chart below prices the common ones for Memphis.

Before you call for heat pump repair in Memphis, what's worth checking?

Five checks clear the false alarms and cost nothing to run. None of them touches the refrigerant circuit — that is licensed, EPA-certified territory. The first one on the list is worth more than the rest combined in this city, because a thermostat left on emergency heat looks exactly like a broken heat pump and bills like one too — at roughly three times any other heat in Memphis.

1. Thermostat mode: set to HEAT, not EM HEAT. Emergency heat locks the system onto the resistance strips, and at the numbers above that is the single most expensive setting in a Memphis house — dearer than running a gas furnace three times over. If someone flipped it in a cold snap and never flipped it back, you have found the bill.
2. Filter: change it yourself. Starved airflow makes a heat pump short-cycle and can freeze the indoor coil, and this machine moves air twelve months a year against the biggest cooling load we cover. If a fresh filter fixes it, you kept a service fee.
3. Both breakers: a heat pump usually has two — one for the outdoor unit, one for the air handler and its strips. Half the system running is a common and confusing symptom.
4. Clear the outdoor unit: leaves, lattice, the shrubs someone planted to hide it, the summer overgrowth: two feet of clearance all round, and it matters here as much for July cooling as for January heating.
5. Then look at the AUX light: note whether it is on and roughly how long it has been on. That is the single most useful fact you can hand the dispatcher, and on this system it often decides how urgently the call is queued.

Still not right after all five? The heat pump not-heating guide and the AC not-cooling guide go deeper, or you hand it straight to a diagnosis.

What does heat pump repair cost in Memphis?

Set aside $70–$185 for the diagnostic visit. Whether that money comes back depends on the company, and in this market the published answers genuinely differ — a national chain's $0 diagnostic that applies only to plan members who then buy the repair, and a national franchise advertising no overtime charge on after-hours calls. Commonly credited or waived, in other words, but not universally, so get the answer before a truck is dispatched; the service-call fee guide explains how contractors handle it. Most finished Memphis heat pump repairs then land between $140–$825, and the failed part sets the spot on that range: capacitors and sensors near the floor, defrost boards and leak work in the middle, the reversing valve and compressor in their own category above.

How we price this: what a Memphis repair actually costs isn't the national-guide headline — the federal Bureau of Economic Analysis put Tennessee's 2024 overall price level about 8.1% below the U.S. average, so this page scales HomeGuide, Angi, and Forbes Home baseline ranges by that official ×0.919. For a local cross-check: a national chain's Memphis heat-pump page publishes "many customers pay between $250 and $600," which describes the common middle of the same distribution rather than its tails — a capacitor sits below it and a reversing valve, at a $400–$900 market band, well above. The real figure is set on site after diagnosis, never over the phone. In the Typical column, the overall-repair row shows the sources' published average adjusted the same way; the part rows show each local range's midpoint, a planning figure since no survey average exists per part.

What pushes a heat pump repair bill up or down in Memphis?

Five levers separate the light bills from the heavy ones, before any after-hours multiplier is added.

Part vs. labor

labor runs about $75–$150 an hour — a capacitor is minutes, a reversing valve is most of a day.

Sealed-system work

anything opening the refrigerant circuit carries recovery, evacuation, a leak search and EPA-certified handling on top of the part, which straight electrical work does not.

The cooling-season diagnosis

a fault that only shows under load has to be watched under load — and because Memphis runs this machine hard for many months, a marginal cooling fault is often easier to catch in July than a heating fault is in a mild January.

Age of the system

Shelby County's median home dates to 1977, so a fair number of local units are on their second or third machine — and any R-22 system still out there prices its refrigerant accordingly.

After-hours

an evening, weekend or holiday visit typically runs the fee at 1.5–2× — though it is worth asking, because it is not universal; one national franchise in this market advertises no overtime charge at all.

How long does heat pump repair take in Memphis, and what does the visit involve?

Diagnosis runs 20 to 60 minutes — longer than the equivalent furnace call, because the technician has to see the system run in the mode that fails. In Memphis a cooling fault is usually the easier one to force, since the machine runs hard for so much of the year; a mild-January heating fault can take more patience to reproduce. Thermostat and filter first, then the changeover watched end to end, a meter on the capacitor and contactor, defrost operation forced and observed, and pressures read at the service ports. It closes with a written quote; nothing is swapped until you sign off.

Same-visit fixes cover truck-stock parts: capacitor, contactor, defrost sensor, thermostat, strips and sequencer. A defrost board, an expansion valve or a proper leak search takes a morning or waits one to three days on an ordered part, and a reversing valve or compressor is sealed-system work. Clear a path to both units — the outdoor box and the indoor air handler — and be ready to describe what it did. "AUX came on in November and never went off" and "it stopped cooling on the first 95° day" send the diagnosis down entirely different roads.

In Memphis, heat is a coin-flip — so this machine is as common as the furnace

Here is the fact that changes how you read a repair quote in this city: about 50% of Shelby County homes heat with electricity and 48% with gas (U.S. Census ACS 5-year) — the most balanced fuel split of any city we cover. Nashville and Knoxville are two-thirds electric; Memphis is nearly even. And because the county also carries the largest cooling load on our map, a large share of that electric half runs a heat pump rather than strips-only, precisely so one machine covers both a hard summer and a short winter.

Two consequences follow. First, "my heat is broken" in Memphis is genuinely as likely to be a heat pump as a gas furnace — so your neighbor's system tells you nothing about your own, and the reversing valve, defrost board and auxiliary strips on this page are a failure surface the furnace page never touches. Second, because gas is the cheaper heat to run here, a lot of Memphis homeowners keep a gas furnace on purpose — which is a defensible choice, not a mistake, and the reason a dual-fuel system that pairs a gas furnace with a heat pump is a real answer in this market rather than a sales line.

It's the same machine that cools your house through a Memphis summer

Worth saying plainly, because in the largest cooling market we cover it changes how you should read a repair quote. The outdoor unit heating your house in January is the identical box that cools it through five months of Memphis heat; the reversing valve simply decides which direction the heat travels. A summer symptom and a winter symptom can therefore be the same failing part found six months apart — and here, where the cooling runtime is the heaviest of anywhere on our map, that part is usually worn by the summer. Any repair-or-replace decision on this equipment carries two seasons of consequence rather than one: replacing it replaces your air conditioner as well, which is why the replacement number on this page looks larger than a furnace's and buys more.

If what you are chasing is a cooling fault rather than a heating one, Memphis AC repair covers the summer side of the same machine.

How fast can a contractor reach you in Memphis?

The line answers around the clock; how fast a contractor arrives depends on who is available in the Memphis market and the day's queue — the season's first hard freeze stretches it, an ordinary week does not. This system deserves one honest distinction that a furnace does not get: if your auxiliary heat is still carrying the house, the difference between tonight and tomorrow morning is mostly a bill rather than a safety matter. If the strips are out as well and the house is genuinely cold, that is a no-heat call like any other — see emergency HVAC in Memphis for the overnight triage. Under Tennessee's landlord-tenant law heat is an essential service, which matters if you rent — though note the seasonal catch on this one machine: a heat pump that will not heat in winter is an essential-service failure, but a heat pump that will not cool in a Memphis July is not covered the same way. Flag it early if indoor temperature is a medical issue in your home, and never heat the house with an oven, a grill, or a generator indoors.

A "heat pump repair near me" search in Memphis lands on location, so whether you are in Midtown, East Memphis, Cordova, Whitehaven, or Bartlett — 38104, 38111, 38117, 38134, and the rest of Shelby County — the call reaches a contractor routed to you by ZIP, not handed off by a distant call center.

Does homeowners insurance cover heat pump repair in Memphis?

For wear — the capacitor, the tired compressor, the failing board — no; standard policies exclude mechanical breakdown and wear and tear outright (per Allstate and Progressive policy guidance). For covered perils, yes, and here a heat pump has more exposure than the furnace across town, because half of it lives outdoors twelve months a year: hail flattening the coil fins, a falling limb, a lightning strike through the control board, and in some neighborhoods outright theft of the coil for scrap. Those are dwelling-coverage claims, paid minus the deductible.

To close the mechanical gap, an equipment-breakdown endorsement is the low-cost rider; a home warranty is a service contract with its own fine print rather than insurance. Keep the maintenance records either way — adjusters ask for service history, and if you are claiming the rebated tune-up you have the paperwork anyway.

Which heat pump brands do Memphis contractors repair — and how do they fail?

Every major residential brand is serviceable through the network, and they fail in a fairly consistent order: electrical and control parts first, then the sealed-system components a long cooling runtime works hardest, then the compressor itself. Brand decides parts logistics more than reliability; sister brands share platforms, so a "premium" badge and its value-line twin often take the identical contactor. One heat-pump-specific note worth carrying into the call: a variable-speed inverter unit fails differently from a single-stage one — boards and sensors rather than contactors — and its parts are more often ordered than stocked, so ask which you own before approving a timeline.

Tier maps market positioning — efficiency ceilings and parts pricing — and isn't a ranking; installation quality, duct sizing and charge accuracy decide more than the logo. Source: manufacturer 2026 lineups; the data plate on the outdoor unit settles what you own, along with its build date.

Repair or replace? Making the call on a Memphis heat pump

Repair quote × unit age — the $5,000 rule — and anything over 5,000 points at replacement. It is a rule local contractors publish too, so it is at least shared language: a $460 repair on a fourteen-year-old machine comes to $6,440 and argues for replacing; a $300 repair on an eight-year-old one comes to $2,400 and argues for fixing. Three specifics tip a Memphis decision: a failed compressor or reversing valve on a unit past twelve, any R-22 system that needs refrigerant, or a second sealed-system failure inside two years on a machine that has already done a decade of the hardest cooling duty we cover.

Then price the replacement against the rebate threshold — but read the next section first, because in a coin-flip county the EnergyRight money comes with a condition that catches a lot of Memphis homeowners out. TVA's incentive is a step rather than a slope: $500 at 15–16.99 SEER2, $800 at 17+, up to $1,500 on a top-tier variable-speed unit — so a quote that lands just under a threshold is worth re-pricing one tier up before you sign. And remember what the $4,595–$11,490 number actually buys here: it replaces the air conditioner that works the hardest of anywhere in our coverage, in the same installation. The repair-vs-replace guide walks the general math.

When should you schedule a heat pump replacement in Memphis?

In the windows when installers are quiet: late February into spring as the heating calls taper, and again in October after the cooling rush breaks and before the first freeze. On this page those windows line up with something else for once — they are the same transitional months when TVA's rate sits at its floor, so the timing argument and the tariff argument point the same direction. Both bring open calendars, room to collect two quotes, and time to price the SEER2 step properly instead of deciding at 10pm in a cold house or on the first 95°F afternoon. A machine that only limped through last summer on a nursed capacitor has effectively booked itself into that spring window — take it on your own terms rather than the season's.

What heat pump rebates can Memphis homeowners actually get — and the catch nobody mentions

Start with what is dead, because pages elsewhere still list it: the federal 25C tax credit ended on December 31, 2025. What is live is utility money — and the honest headline for Memphis is that it is TVA's, not MLGW's. That distinction is the whole story here. In Nashville the electric utility routes its own customers straight to the heat-pump rebate; in Memphis, MLGW also sells the gas that competes with a heat pump, so it does not steer you toward electric conversions the way a power-only utility does. The rebate is real, but you have to go and get it.

The catch, and it is checkable: the heat-pump rebate requires replacing an existing electric heating system — a gas-furnace-to-heat-pump conversion does not qualify. In a county that is roughly 48% gas, that disqualifies a large share of the people who read a heat-pump page and assume the money is theirs. Every rebate above also requires the work be done by a contractor in TVA's Quality Contractor Network, who submits the claim for you. Confirm the current amounts at the source rather than off a contractor's flyer, and be wary of any quote that assumes a rebate without first confirming both network membership and that your existing system is electric.

Can you finance a heat pump repair or replacement in Memphis?

A $140–$825 repair fits on a card; the $4,595–$11,490 replacement is where installers bring out 0% intro-APR promotions and fixed-rate equipment loans, along with multi-year terms that keep the monthly number small and the total large. Trim the principal before you compare offers — but on this system that only works if two conditions are met: the equipment has to clear the SEER2 threshold the rebate is written against, and the job has to be an electric-to-electric upgrade through a Quality Contractor Network installer. Confirm both in writing before signing, because a rebate assumed at the quote stage and lost at the claim stage — on a gas conversion, or an out-of-network contractor — comes straight out of your pocket. The HVAC financing guide lays out the offer structures and the traps buried in them.

For heat pump work in Memphis, when is a permit or license required?

Repairs need no permit. A replacement does: a heat pump changeout in Memphis takes a mechanical permit through the Memphis & Shelby County Office of Construction Code Enforcement, pulled by the contractor rather than by you — and if the home sits in Germantown, Collierville or Bartlett, that suburb runs its own permit office, so the address decides where the permit is pulled. On this system the electrical side is where that inspection earns its keep. An air handler with resistance strips is a serious load, and an undersized or corroded connection there is a real fire path rather than a paperwork detail.

Tennessee's licensing rule is worth stating plainly: the state requires a Tennessee Board for Licensing Contractors license on mechanical projects of $25,000 or more (classification CMC-C), so ordinary repair work often sits below that threshold and is governed locally instead. That makes the other checks matter more, not less — and on a heat pump one of them is not optional: EPA Section 608 certification is mandatory the moment anyone opens the refrigerant circuit, which most of the repairs on this page do. Add a current certificate of insurance and a business with a verifiable local presence. Any state license verifies free at verify.tn.gov.

What should you ask a heat pump contractor before approving the work?

Every repair starts from a price you have signed off on — that is the baseline. Before you say yes: is the estimate itemized and in writing; is the failed part still under manufacturer warranty, model number ready off the data plate; did the technician watch it run in the mode that fails rather than guessing; and if refrigerant is going in, was a leak search performed — a top-up without one is a bill you will pay again. On an older unit add the fifth: what is the replacement number, so the $5,000 rule has something to work against. If a rebate is in play, a sixth: is the company in TVA's Quality Contractor Network, and is your existing heat electric — because on a gas conversion the money does not exist. A replacement quote should also carry a Manual J load calculation, a static-pressure check on the existing ductwork, and warranty terms that name labor, not just parts.

The red flags travel in a pack: a replacement quoted sight-unseen, sign-today pricing, a large cash deposit, a compressor condemned without a test being shown to you, refrigerant added with no attempt to find where it went, and — in a market this thick with franchise listings — a company that cannot produce a Tennessee license or EPA certification. A local outfit with verifiable credentials, checkable at verify.tn.gov, treats the whole checklist as ordinary business.

How can you prevent heat pump breakdowns in Memphis?

Three habits carry this climate, and the first one differs from every other page on this site. Service it twice a year, not once. That is not an upsell on a machine that heats and cools: spring covers what actually strands people here — the cooling system that runs against the largest load we cover — and fall covers the defrost sequence, the auxiliary strips and sequencer, and the charge. TVA's $50 tune-up rebate on an existing unit covers part of a visit you should be booking anyway.

Fresh filters year-round matter more here than on a furnace, because this machine moves air twelve months rather than five, and starved airflow is how a healthy heat pump ends up short-cycling or freezing its indoor coil in the heart of a Memphis summer. And keep two feet of clearance around the outdoor unit — the lattice, the shrubs planted to hide it, the summer overgrowth. The machine is exchanging heat with that air in both seasons, and it cannot do that if it is breathing its own exhaust.