That AUX light on a Summers Ridge thermostat is the start of most heating calls

The quick answer

The house is cold, or the heat is running constantly and the bill is frightening. In Lake City the cause is almost always one of these, in roughly this order:

1. The heat pump is in auxiliary mode more than it should be. Thermostat set wrong, outdoor coil dirty, or the defrost control stuck. The strips are heating the house and the heat pump is along for the ride.
2. The heat pump is in defrost too often or never. Frost builds on the outdoor coil on humid 35-degree nights; the defrost cycle melts it. When defrost fails, the coil ices solid and the heat drops off.
3. A furnace that won’t light. Igniter, flame sensor, pressure switch, or a propane tank that’s lower than anyone thought.
4. Airflow. A filter nobody changed since spring, or a return duct that collapsed in the attic.
5. Controls. Thermostat, board, or a transformer that took a hit in the last storm.

Call 866-266-5709, describe what you’re seeing, and most of the time we can tell you which bucket you’re in before the truck leaves.

The longer answer: how heat actually works here

Picture a December morning in Summers Ridge, one of the brick cul-de-sac neighborhoods on the southwest side. It’s 31 degrees outside, the first real freeze of the year, which in Lake City usually lands somewhere between late November and mid-December. The thermostat reads 64 and shows AUX HEAT. The vents are blowing air that feels barely warm. The outdoor unit is running, with a crust of ice on the coil.

Nothing is broken. This is what a heat pump does at 31 degrees with a heavy dew: it extracts heat from cold air, which gets harder as the air gets colder, and when the thermostat decides it isn’t keeping up, it brings on electric strips as backup. The strips make heat the expensive way, by resistance, and they’re what turns a January FPL or Clay Electric bill into a shock.

The job on a heating call is to figure out whether aux heat is coming on because the house genuinely needs it on the coldest nights, which is fine and what it’s for, or because something is making the heat pump underperform. A coil matted with last spring’s pollen, a low refrigerant charge, a reversing valve that isn’t fully shifting, a defrost board that’s failed, or a thermostat with aux staging set wrong will all put a heat pump on the strips at 45 degrees, when it should be carrying the house alone.

Gas and propane furnaces in Lake City

A good share of the older housing inside the city limits, the frame houses around Lake DeSoto and the block ranches of the 1950s through 80s, sits on the municipal natural gas system. Out in the county, propane tanks do the same job. Furnace calls are a different list: igniters that crack, flame sensors coated in a film that stops the furnace after three seconds, pressure switches on high-efficiency units that trip when the condensate drain scales up on well water, and the occasional cracked heat exchanger, which is a safety stop, not a repair.

Dual fuel

Some Lake City homes run a heat pump with a gas furnace as the backup instead of strips. Done right, the heat pump handles the mild days and the furnace takes over below a balance point, and the bill is lower than either alone. Done wrong, both run at once. We set these up and we untangle the ones that were never set up.

What drives the price of a heating repair

We give the full price after diagnosis and before the work, and the price doesn’t change by the clock. What moves it:

• The part. A flame sensor or a sequencer is at the low end. A defrost board or reversing valve solenoid is the middle. A compressor or heat exchanger is the top, and the latter is a replacement conversation on most furnaces.
• Access. An air handler in a garage closet is faster than one in a Watertown crawlspace or a Mayfair attic over a half-acre lot’s worth of blown insulation.
• Fuel type. Gas and propane work includes combustion analysis and leak checks that electric heat doesn’t need.
• Whether a second trip is needed. Most common parts are on the truck. Specific boards and valves may need ordering, and you’ll know the lead time before saying yes.
• Maintenance history. A system on a Cook’s agreement has fewer surprises because the fall visit tests all of this before the first freeze.

Call for heating service

Scheduling and the 24/7 part

The phone at 866-266-5709 is answered by a person at any hour, and there is no after-hours charge. Cook’s dispatches the Lake City route from its Palm Coast headquarters, about two hours twenty-five away, so we’re candid about arrival windows; the dispatcher will tell you how the route is staged that night rather than guess [[CONFIRM WITH JERRY]].

What counts as a heating emergency here: no heat at all with an elderly person or an infant in the house; a gas smell, in which case you leave and call the gas utility first and us second; a carbon monoxide alarm; or a furnace that keeps trying to light and shutting down. A heat pump stuck on strips with the house at 66 is a problem, but it can wait for morning without harm, and the morning visit costs the same.

The heating services, in one list

• Heat pump repair, maintenance and replacement, including the aux heat and defrost tuning that this climate demands.
• Gas and propane furnace repair, tune-ups and installation, with combustion testing on every visit.
• Electric furnaces and strip heat, repair and replacement of elements, sequencers and limits.
• Dual-fuel setup and balance-point tuning.
• Thermostat configuration and duct repair, since a cold back bedroom in a 1970s ranch is often a duct problem wearing a heating problem’s clothes.

Lennox is what we install; Lennox, Carrier, Bryant, Trane and nearly everything else is what we repair. Estimates on new heating equipment are free, and financing is available on new systems.