Gas and Oil Home Heating Furnaces - Trane Heat Pump Fan Frozen?????

We have had an ice storm all day (sleet mainly). Heater has been on all day. I went out a few minutes ago, it didn't sound good, and on the outside unit, the fan isn't turning (but you hear noise and the heat pump is blowing air upstairs (but it's not real warm).

Is my fan just frozen from todays weather? If so, should I keep the unit on, hoping it will unfreeze and the fan run again, or would leaving it on damage it?

I guess if I have to turn it off I have no heat upstairs tonight, where all the bedroom are.

It is a Trane Heat Pump, 5 years old, can get the model number if you need it

We really can't help on the condition of the outdoor unit. You could dump a few buckets of hot water over it if the fan blades are iced up but it may be easier to put the thermostat on aux or emerg heat and wait until tomorrow to asess the problem.

Thanks. It eventually started running again, so it must have had a chunk of ice just in the right place to stop it from running.

Im with Ken here if it can still get rain on it to go to ice Id go to AUX or EM on the tstat. This can save the fan motor. To freeze and go into a defrost thats ok. but to freeze on the fan blades Id say dont do it. You will have heat this way;) ED

Thanks! We have about 1/4" of solid ice on the ground today from yesterdays' sleet. Looks like there's freezing rain on the way this evening. I never realized how much I liked the deep south until I moved away from it. I didn't think North Carolina would be so bad, and we usually only have 1 or 2 wintry storms a year, but it's usually ice.

I came home and found the same problem with my heat pump. The unit was running but strange sounds were coming from it and the fan was not spinning. My first thought was that the fan was frozen. I shut off the unit, and then put a small stick in it and was able to spin the fan, so that is not the problem. I turned it back on. There is a odd noise coming from the unit and there is smoke coming from it. The fan is not turning. Does this sound like a shorted fan motor?? I had problems with it a few years ago, and diagnosed a bad start capacitor (the fan would run after I gave it a spin) and I replaced it. Since there is smoke coming from it as well as noise, I don't think this is the problem now. I didn't have time to try spinning the fan to see if it would start running since the smoke made me want to shut it off quickly so I don't damage it more.

Thanks

I would suggest that you determine if you were seeing smoke or steam. When a heat pump goes into defrost mode, the outdoor fan stops and the heat generated by the compressor is diverted to the outdoor coil to defrost it. Any lines including the accumulator will steam when the last bit of water is vaporized off of them. There isn't much in there that will smoke externally. The coil on the reversing valve would only smoke for a few seconds before opening and the compressor is closed and no smoke would be visible if it burrned. That leaves the fan motor and it should be thermally protected and not get hot enough to give off much smoke before tripping the overload. It would reset eventually and try to start again but not burn up.