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El Paso County logged 1,277 severe weather events between 2015 and 2024. That includes 717 hail events, 324 damaging wind events and 10 tornadoes. A heat pump's outdoor unit sits outside through all of it, exposed to hail and flying debris year round.
Hail can dent the cabinet or bend the fins and the heat pump may still start up and blow air. Damage like that doesn't always stop the system right away, it just makes it work harder and fail sooner. If a storm has come through, that's reason enough to have the outdoor unit looked at.
NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals
El Paso County logged 717 hail events and 324 damaging wind events between 2015 and 2024.
A heat pump that's taken hits like that all year needs a real diagnosis, not just a reset.
If the house came with the heat pump, check when it was built. One from 1989 or later still has real working life ahead of it, so a repair now is usually worth doing rather than a sign to replace the whole unit. A tech still needs to look at it to say what's actually wrong, hard winters and all the hours it logs put real wear on the parts either way. But knowing the system isn't old helps you decide to fix it instead of walking away from it.
If hail or wind has come through since this heat pump last ran right, don't wait for it to quit. Get the outdoor unit checked now.
Find a contractorWinter storms hit this county 223 times between 2015 and 2024, on top of the hail and wind. Snow and ice build up on the outdoor unit while it's trying to run a defrost cycle and keep the house warm at the same time. That's a lot of hours worked under bad conditions, year after year. If yours is cycling oddly or not keeping up, don't just flip the breaker and hope. Get a tech out to find the actual part that's failing.
A capacitor that's weakening still lets the compressor start, just slower and with a harder pull each time. Every cycle like that stresses the windings. A tech can test a capacitor in minutes, and catching it before it fails completely saves the compressor it was starting.
A heat pump low on charge keeps running, but the compressor ends up moving refrigerant that's carrying less oil back with it. Run it long enough in that state and the compressor can score or seize. A leak only grows while the system keeps cycling, it never seals itself.
Most heat pump problems show up as something the system is doing wrong, not a dead machine. Short cycling is one of the clearest signs, where it kicks on, runs a few minutes and shuts off before the house feels any different. A heat pump blowing air that doesn't feel warm enough in winter might be stuck in emergency heat or defrost, or it might be low on charge. Ice building up on the outdoor unit and not clearing during the normal defrost cycle is worth a call, since a little frost is normal but a solid block isn't. Listen for a hard clunk at startup or a hum with no air moving, both point to the compressor or the capacitor struggling to get going. A system that runs constantly without ever satisfying the thermostat is working against something, whether that's a failing part or airflow that isn't getting where it needs to go.
Not every failure means the unit is done. A compressor is the expensive part to replace, and if that's still sound, most of what fails around it is worth fixing. A contactor, a capacitor, a blower motor, a defrost board, these are serviceable parts and swapping one is routine work. What matters more than the machine's age is whether this is the first repair it's needed or the third one this year. A system that keeps coming back with a different complaint each time is telling you something the individual repairs won't fix. One failed part on a unit that's otherwise run clean is just that, one failed part.
