What "furnace" means in Miami
Before dispatch we need to know which of these you have, because the tech, the parts and the price are different. Nearly every Miami home is one of the first two.
| Heat source | Where you find it | How it fails |
|---|---|---|
| Electric heat strips in the air handler | The majority of Miami-Dade single-family homes and most condos with central air — Hialeah, Kendall, Westchester, Doral. The AC air handler has a resistance heater coil inside; there is no outdoor heating equipment. | A strip element burns open; the sequencer or relay that stages the strips fails; the limit trips because the filter is blocked. Symptom: fan runs, air is room temperature. |
| Heat pump | Newer homes in Homestead, Doral, Pembroke Pines and many replacements since 2015. The AC condenser runs in reverse; the strips are backup. | Reversing valve stuck, defrost board, low charge after a summer of leaking, outdoor fan. Symptom: cool air in heat mode for more than ten minutes, or a bill that doubled because the strips took over. |
| Packaged terminal unit or mini-split | Condos in Brickell, Miami Beach, Aventura, Sunny Isles and along the Fort Lauderdale beach. | Same heat-pump faults in a small package; building rules decide who may work on it. |
| Gas furnace | Rare. A few older homes in Coral Gables and Miami Shores, some with propane. | The standard gas list — ignitor, flame sensor, board. Gas smell or a CO alarm: outside first, then the gas supplier or 911. |
Why it fails on the first cold front
Miami-Dade records about 140 heating degree days a year against roughly 4,190 cooling degree days (NOAA normals). It is IECC climate zone 1A, the warmest of the five metros by a wide margin. Heating runs on perhaps ten to twenty nights a winter, when a front pushes overnight lows into the 40s — usually between mid-December and early February. Every heating component in the metro therefore sits unused for eleven months in humid, often salty air, and then is asked to work at 2 a.m.
The calls come in one wave per front. Strips that corroded open over the summer, sequencers with green terminals, a heat pump whose reversing valve has not moved since March, thermostats never switched to HEAT because nobody has had to. Most are cheap. The expensive one is the heat pump that lost charge in September and has been quietly cooling on a marginal system — it shows as "no heat" in December and turns out to be a leak.
No heat in Miami, by symptom
- Fan runs, air is room temperature (strips). Thermostat on HEAT? Then a burned-open strip, a failed sequencer, or a limit tripped on a blocked filter. The tech reads amp draw per stage to find which.
- Breaker for the air handler trips when heat runs. Strips draw 20–40 amps; a corroded connection or a shorted element trips it. Do not keep resetting.
- Heat pump blows cool air, keeps blowing cool air. Not a defrost cycle if it lasts more than ten minutes. Reversing valve, charge, outdoor fan, or the defrost board. Check whether the strips have taken over: warm air at the register but the outdoor unit is idle.
- Burning smell on first use. A summer of dust on the strips, twenty minutes, normal. Longer, or plastic-smelling, is a wire or relay — shut it off.
- Condo unit: blowing cold, thermostat correct. Reversing valve in a PTAC or mini-split. Building management may require its own vendor; ask before we dispatch.
Where in Miami-Dade and Broward
Coverage runs from Homestead and the Redland north through Kendall, Pinecrest and Coral Gables, the City of Miami, Doral and Hialeah, out to Miami Beach and Aventura on the coast, and across the county line into Hollywood, Pembroke Pines and Fort Lauderdale.
The heating type follows the housing. Concrete-block ranches from the 1960s–80s in Hialeah, Westchester, Kendall and Cutler Bay are air handlers with strips, usually in a garage or utility closet. Post-2000 homes in Doral, Homestead, Pembroke Pines and the western Broward subdivisions are heat pumps with attic air handlers. High-rises in Brickell, Miami Beach, Aventura and Hollywood beach are packaged terminal units or small splits in salt air.
Miami-Dade permits for heating work
Miami-Dade County's building department publishes a permit-exemption list, and heating repair sits squarely on it. The practical rules for a call:
- Exempt
- Repair or replacement of non-combustion heating inside the equipment — strips, sequencers, relays — when done by a licensed air conditioning or mechanical contractor. Repair or replacement of a coil, compressor or refrigerant piping inside the equipment, same condition. This is almost every heating repair in the metro.
- Permit required
- Replacing the air handler or the whole heat pump system, including an exact change-out, which the county's mechanical fee sheet prices per ton. Inside the cities of Miami, Hialeah, Coral Gables and Miami Beach, and in the Broward cities, the city building department issues it instead.
- Licensing
- Florida's Department of Business and Professional Regulation licenses air conditioning contractors (CAC certified, RA registered). Every contractor in this network holds one.
Exemption list and forms: Miami-Dade County Building.
FPL, and the honest rebate answer
Florida Power and Light serves nearly all of Miami-Dade and Broward. FPL does not pay for heating repairs or for heat strips. Its one relevant program is the instant $200 A/C rebate on a new system — indoor and outdoor units — installed by an FPL Participating Independent Contractor, and since a heat pump is the AC, that rebate applies when a failed heat pump is replaced rather than repaired. Program terms on FPL residential programs. The federal 25C tax credit ended for equipment placed in service after 2025.
Miami heating repair costs
Miami labor is toward the top of the five metros. Cold-front nights carry an emergency premium because every heating call in the county arrives the same evening.
- $90–$160Diagnostic, credited toward the repair
- $180–$420Heat strip element or sequencer
- $150–$360Relay, contactor or corroded terminal repair
- $280–$680Heat pump defrost board or outdoor sensor
- $600–$1,350Reversing valve
- $450–$1,600Leak repair and recharge found during a heat call
- $380–$800Condenser fan motor
- $450–$1,300Blower motor (ECM at the top)
Eleven idle months in salt air is why the strips and the reversing valve fail. What a Miami maintenance visit checks on the heating side, and why it is done in November here. The urgency-ranked fault list for any metro is on the furnace repair page. Cold-front timing: National Weather Service Miami.