Heat Pump Installation in Orlando, FL
A new system here will heat from December through January and cool from March through November every year. Tell us about the house, and a licensed contractor who covers Orange County will get in touch.
Tell us about the job
It takes about a minute.
Eleven months of the year, this system is working
In Orange County, cooling season runs March through November, nine months, with summer afternoons averaging 91°F. Winter is short, just December and January, and even then nights average 51°F. That means the heat pump you install will spend most of its life cooling, not heating, and it needs to hold up to nine straight months of that work.
A new split-system heat pump has to meet federal minimums of 14.3 SEER2 for cooling and 7.5 HSPF2 for heating. In this climate, the cooling side of that rating matters more than the heating side, since heating only runs two months a year. Central Florida also sees its share of storms, 64 damaging wind events recorded over the last ten years, and 38% of Florida households lost power for at least 24 hours in 2024. Most heat pumps come back on by themselves once power is restored, so no manual reset is needed after an outage.
- 2 months
- December through January, your system heats
- 9 months
- March through November, it cools
- 51°F
- the average winter night it heats against
- 91°F
- the average summer afternoon it cools against
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
Florida requires HVAC contractors to hold a state license.
The Construction Industry Licensing Board tests contractors before they get that license, and the license belongs to the contractor, not to this one job. It tells you the state has checked this person's qualifications and keeps a record of them, no matter what job they're doing next.
For a heat pump installation, that license is what stands behind the person doing the work, but the job itself still goes through the local building office. In most cities and counties here, installing a heat pump needs a permit and an inspection once the work is done, and that inspection is what checks the installation itself, separate from whatever the state license already covers.
Sources: Florida Legislature · Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation
- Is a heat pump better than a furnace?
- For most homes in Orlando, yes, because a heat pump handles both heating and cooling with one system, and winters here are short and mild. A furnace only heats, and it makes less sense when you only need heat for December and January. A heat pump also moves heat instead of burning fuel to make it, so it costs less to run than electric resistance heat over a two-month winter. Since 90.9% of homes here already run on electric heat, a heat pump is usually the better fit for this climate.
- What's the difference between a heat pump and an air conditioner?
- An air conditioner only cools your home. A heat pump does the same job in summer, but it can also run in reverse to heat your home in winter. Both use a compressor and refrigerant to move heat from one place to another, an air conditioner just never reverses that flow. That's why a heat pump can replace both your AC and your furnace in a climate like Orlando's, where cooling runs from March through November and heat is only needed in December and January.
- Does a heat pump work in cold weather?
- Yes, and in Orlando that's rarely a concern since winter nights average 51°F from December through February. Heat pumps lose efficiency as outdoor temperatures drop toward freezing, but they keep working. Orlando doesn't see the kind of sustained cold that pushes a heat pump to its limit, so it can carry the full heating load here without needing backup heat strips to kick in often.