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We learned what a real freeze looks like here on January 21, 2025. Foley picked up somewhere between four and eight inches of snow depending on which end of town you were standing in, Gulf Shores measured 8.8 inches, and the next morning lows hit 12 to 14°F in Foley, Fairhope, and Elberta — 9°F in Robertsdale and Loxley. Records that had stood since 1895 fell. Every heating system in Baldwin County got a test it had never been given before, and a lot of them failed it.
Here is what to know before the next cold front arrives.
In Ohio, a furnace runs for six months and gets noticed the moment it struggles. In Baldwin County, your heating equipment might run a total of 150 hours a year. It sits idle from March through November, collecting salt air, humidity, and dust, and then gets asked to perform at full output on the coldest night of the year with no warm-up.
That is why our heating calls cluster into a two-day window every winter. It is not that Gulf Coast systems are less reliable. It is that nothing revealed the problem until the night everybody needed heat at once.
Most homes here have a heat pump. It is the same outdoor unit that cools your house in July, running in reverse to pull heat from outside air and move it indoors. That matters for troubleshooting, because a heat pump behaves in ways a furnace never does — and two of those behaviors get mistaken for failure constantly.
1. Your outdoor unit is steaming and blowing cold air for a few minutes. This is a defrost cycle, and it is normal. In heating mode the outdoor coil gets colder than the outside air, so frost forms on it. Every so often the system briefly reverses to melt that frost off, which produces visible steam and a temporary drop in supply air temperature. It lasts a few minutes and ends on its own. Steam rising off your outdoor unit on a cold morning is the system working, not burning.
2. The air from your vents feels lukewarm, not hot. A gas furnace pushes air at 120 to 140°F, which feels hot on your hand. A heat pump delivers air in the 85 to 95°F range. That is warmer than your body's skin temperature at the vent but cooler than what people expect, so it registers as "not working." If your house is holding its set temperature, the system is fine.
The reversing valve. This is the component that flips a heat pump between cooling and heating. It is the one part that can be perfectly fine all summer and fail the instant you call for heat. Symptom: the system runs, the outdoor unit runs, but you get cool air indoors no matter how long it runs. This is a technician repair.
Auxiliary heat that will not engage — or will not disengage. Heat pumps in our climate include electric resistance heat strips that supplement the system when it is very cold. If they fail to engage, your house cannot keep up on a 20°F night. If they engage and stay on, your power bill will tell you before you feel anything wrong. A January bill that doubles with no change in habits is an auxiliary heat problem until proven otherwise.
The capacitor. Same failure as in summer, same symptom set: a hum from the outdoor unit with no fan movement, or a system that tries to start and immediately stops. Capacitors weaken with heat and age, and a marginal one that survived August will often quit in January.
A fouled outdoor coil. In heating mode, your outdoor coil is absorbing heat from the air. Salt spray, lawn debris, and coastal grime insulate it and cut heating capacity exactly the way they cut cooling capacity in summer. If you have never had the coil cleaned, that is heating performance you are paying for and not receiving.
A clogged filter. Restricted airflow in heating mode can trip a limit switch and shut the system down entirely, or cause it to short-cycle. This is the single most common cause of a no-heat call, and it is the one you can fix yourself in two minutes.
Do these in order. They resolve a meaningful share of no-heat calls at no cost.
If you have done all six and the house is still not warming, stop and call. Continuing to cycle a system that is failing can turn a capacitor replacement into a compressor replacement.
A heating system in Baldwin County has one job and about ten days a year to do it. The failure window is narrow, it is the same week for everyone, and it arrives with no warning — which means the day your heat quits is the day every HVAC company on the Eastern Shore is booked.
A pre-season check catches the weak capacitor, the fouled coil, and the heat strips that did not engage during the test cycle, in September, when scheduling is easy. That is the entire argument. It is not a maintenance upsell; it is the difference between a scheduled visit in mild weather and an emergency call at 11°F.
Two likely reasons. If it is brief and the outdoor unit is steaming, that is a normal defrost cycle and it will end in a few minutes. If it is continuous and the system never warms the house, the most common cause is a failed reversing valve, the component that switches a heat pump between cooling and heating. That requires a technician.
HEAT runs your heat pump normally and brings in electric backup only when needed. EM HEAT shuts the heat pump off entirely and heats with electric resistance strips alone. Emergency heat costs several times more to run and should only be used when the heat pump itself has failed. Leaving it on by accident is a common and expensive mistake.
Almost always auxiliary heat running more than it should. That can be normal during a hard freeze, or it can mean the heat pump is not carrying its share of the load because of a refrigerant, coil, or defrost problem. If the bill spiked without a matching cold snap, have the system checked.
Yes, and arguably more than a northern homeowner does. Light use means no one notices a developing problem until the system is under maximum demand. Coastal salt air also corrodes outdoor components year-round, whether the system is running or not.
Cold enough. On January 22, 2025, lows reached 12 to 14°F in Foley, Fairhope, and Elberta, and 9°F in Robertsdale and Loxley, after a snowfall that broke records standing since 1895. Systems sized and maintained for mild winters were not ready for it.
No. A heat pump needs airflow across the outdoor coil to produce heat, and covering it blocks that. Covers also trap moisture against the coil, which accelerates corrosion in our climate. Keep it clear instead.
Gone Coastal Plumbing and Air has serviced heating systems across Baldwin County for over 20 years, with a 4.9-star rating from more than 185 neighbors. We handle HVAC service and repair, and our maintenance plans put the pre-season heating check on the calendar so you are not making the call at 11°F.
We serve Foley, Gulf Shores, Orange Beach, Daphne, Fairhope, Robertsdale, Silverhill, Fort Morgan, Elberta, Perdido Beach, Lillian, Summerdale, and Magnolia Springs.
Call or text (251) 979-9396 to schedule a heating check, or reach our emergency HVAC line if you have no heat right now. Nothing is beyond our reach.
We offer 24/7 emergency services! Our team is ready and eager to assist you with any inquiries you may have. At Gone Coastal, nothing is beyond our reach.
