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Before a contractor can tell you what a repair will cost, they have to work out what the system has already been through. 185 severe weather events were recorded in Gwinnett County, Georgia between 2015 and 2024. At that rate, severe weather is a standing condition of operating here, and a heat pump that has been running in Gwinnett County has been doing it against real, recurring load. That history shows up in the compressor, the capacitor, and the electrical connections. A contractor diagnosing a repair here checks those components against what this climate actually demands of them, because what they find there decides the repair scope.
Repair work on a heat pump here starts with what the opened unit actually contains. Half the homes in Gwinnett County, Georgia were built in 1996 or earlier (2020-2024 ACS 5-year). Stock that age has seen systems come and go, and a unit running in a house that old is rarely the first one. What a contractor finds inside determines whether the job is a straightforward parts swap or a search for components that manufacturers have stopped making. Refrigerant circuits, contactors, and control boards in older-generation units can sit outside current production runs, and that is what sets the repair scope.
The Parts of a Heat Pump a Contractor Checks First
The outdoor unit sits on a pad beside the house and holds the compressor and condenser coil. The compressor is where repair work starts most often. When it runs but the system heats or cools poorly, or makes noise it did not used to make, that unit is what a contractor opens first.
Inside the house, the air handler contains the blower motor and the evaporator coil, and it connects to the rest of the system through the refrigerant lines that run between the two units. The reversing valve, which tells the system whether to heat or cool, lives in the outdoor unit and is a common point of failure when the system handles one mode but not the other. The thermostat and the capacitors are smaller pieces, but each one can stop the whole system.
The drawing shows a typical layout, and a licensed contractor determines which components apply to your specific home and system.
Get matched in Gwinnett CountyGwinnett County, by the numbers
185 severe weather events were recorded in Gwinnett County, Georgia 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 Gwinnett County, Georgia were built in 1996 or earlier (2020-2024 ACS 5-year).
U.S. Census Bureau, 2020-2024 American Community Survey 5-Year EstimatesGwinnett County, Georgia holds 340,962 housing units (2020-2024 ACS 5-year).
U.S. Census Bureau, 2020-2024 American Community Survey 5-Year EstimatesOwners occupy 66.3% of the occupied homes in Gwinnett County, Georgia (2020-2024 ACS 5-year).
U.S. Census Bureau, 2020-2024 American Community Survey 5-Year EstimatesSevere Weather Events in Gwinnett County
Extreme weather puts heat pumps under stress: temperature swings, power fluctuations, and prolonged demand all accelerate wear on components. How often that stress arrives is a local fact, and it shapes how hard the equipment in Gwinnett County works between service visits.
185 severe weather events, 2015–2024. Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database.