No, we are not implying that you may be struggling to retain your sanity. Far from it. In truth, if you listen to your heat pump from time to time, it can tell you a great deal about its current state of health. Just as we speak one language, so heat pumps have their own language, so the following are six of the most common phrases you will hear it say:

1. A humming sound – if it is a quiet and only barely audible sound, all is well in the world with your heat pump. Because it is driven by an electrical current, there will always be a slight humming sound. However, if the level of sound becomes clearly noticeable, your heat pump is trying to tell you there’s a problem. This could be an electrical fault, a broken element, or a worn-out fan motor. Our advice. Get it checked before even more damage occurs.
2. The heat pump is excessively noisy – this is not a problem if it is only for a limited period of time. It could well be in very cold weather that it has simply switched to defrost mode and is unfreezing the coils. However, if this happens frequently, get your boiler checked over. It could be that you are running low on refrigerant or your air filter needs changing.
3. You hear a continual clicking sound – Once a het pump switches on you may hear a few clicks, but they should then stop. If the clicking continues, it could be a problem with your capacitor. Time to get it checked before it stops working when the temperature gets really cold outside!
4. There’s a grinding noise – this is never a good noise to hear as invariably it is created by metal on metal. Our advice is to switch the boiler off and call us out to check before any further damage is done.
5. There’s a banging noise – don’t panic too much as it sounds like a part has come loose. However, switch off the boiler and pump immediately and get us out to check over everything before even more damage is done.
6. There’s a constant hissing noise – this is usually the sign there is insufficient refrigerant in the system. This needs topping up by a professional who will know exactly what refrigerant is required and exactly how much.

Our advice? If your heat pump starts talking to you and it is saying something you don’t usually hear, give us a call here at A&E Air Conditioning and Heating as quickly as you can. Do not go on the principal that if it is still operating, it must be okay. Further delays could result in a far more expensive problem down the line.