Spokane WA Heat Pump Installation is a heat pump contractor providing heat pump system upgrades for homeowners and property owners across Spokane County, WA and out to the Idaho state line. Every job starts from a load calculation rather than the size of whatever came out.
Not every problem needs new equipment. A large share of the complaints we hear about existing heat pumps come from installation decisions rather than equipment failures: a unit sitting in a snow drift, controls left on factory defaults, a filter cabinet that starves the blower, or backup heat engaging constantly because nobody set a lockout. Upgrades address those specifically. It is the cheapest useful work in this trade and the least frequently offered, because it does not involve selling a system.
Setting a backup heat lockout temperature on a system that has never had one is frequently the highest value change available. Resistance heat runs at a coefficient of performance of exactly one, so stopping it engaging unnecessarily has a direct and immediate effect on running cost.
Upgrades are diagnostic work first. The value comes from identifying which constraint is actually limiting the system.
The most common single thing we correct is a system whose backup heat has no lockout configured. The thermostat calls for resistance heat far more readily than the equipment needs, and because resistance heat converts electricity to heat at a strict one to one ratio, the effect on a winter bill is significant. It takes minutes to correct on most systems and it is almost never done at installation.
Tell the customer their system is old and quote a replacement, because there is more margin in equipment than in configuration work.
Measure what the existing system is actually doing, correct the settings and physical issues that are limiting it, and only recommend replacement if that genuinely will not solve it.
The starting point is measurement rather than inspection: total external static pressure, temperature split across the indoor coil, capacitance and amperage on the motors, and superheat or subcooling against the manufacturer's target. Those four sets of readings usually identify the constraint within an hour.
From there the recommendation follows the evidence. High static pressure points at the duct or filter. A narrow temperature split with normal static points at charge or capacity. Normal readings across the board with high running costs usually points at controls, and specifically at backup heat engaging when it should not. Each of those has a different remedy, and only one of them ever needs new equipment.
Upgrade work is priced on the diagnostic visit plus whatever remedial work is agreed. Control configuration and clearance corrections are at the low end. Adding a properly sized filter cabinet or correcting the equipment elevation involves materials and more labour.
We will tell you when an upgrade will not solve the problem. If the equipment is genuinely undersized or at the end of its life, configuration work will not fix that, and we would rather say so than take payment for improvements that will not deliver.
Static pressure, temperature split, capacitance, amperage and refrigerant readings identify what is actually limiting performance.
The readings point at duct, charge, capacity or controls, and each of those has a different and specific remedy.
You get told what will improve and by roughly how much, including where the honest answer is that an upgrade will not be enough.
The agreed work is carried out and the same measurements are retaken so the improvement is documented rather than asserted.
Upgrade visits are diagnostic, so the more you can tell us about the symptom, the more targeted the work.
Filtration upgrades are the most commonly requested and most commonly botched. Our wildfire smoke and filtration guide explains why static pressure has to be measured before a filter is changed, and what MERV-13 actually requires of a system. Read the guide.
Call for a load calculation and an itemised quote. You keep the numbers either way.
Request a quote