Heat pump low freon

[learnasigo]

I was wondering if anybody knew if a trane heat pump will still heat when its low on freon, I know it won't cool but does it still heat? Thanks in advance for any info anybody might have.


Still Learning

[Ed Imeduc]

If your low on freon you can hurt the whole system. In heat or cool. Feel the big copper line it should be hot if your on heat.

ED ;)

[mattison]

Like Ed says you can damage the unit and no it will not heat properly if it's low.

If it is low on refrigerant and you cannot afford the repair, you're better off using the emergency heat mode until you can get it fixed.

[gcwajc]

about a month ago i noticed my heat pump was not putting out enough warm air. because of past exp i figured this was the problem. it needed about a pound every 12 mo. i have a 3.5 ton york 11 yrs old. the tech came down and took tempat outdoor unit (167 d) and indoor unit (157 d) and stated that nothing was wrong. abt a wk later my therm started flashing int fault code 5 times. one of the solutions for this code is low on freon among others. noxt i got a reg york tech whom i trust to look at it. he proceeded to diagonse the problem. put a set of gauges on the lines to see what the pres was. in a few min he cld tell their was no blockage. he noticed it was a small leak and fixed it. put in 3 lbs of freon and now wrking fine. also fixed insul on sensor. the moral of this story is get someone that is a certified tech and knows what to do to correctly diagonse the problem.the first person i got was completely wrong in telling me it did not need freon, and he never put on a set of gauges to see what the pressure was. some of these tech will not listen to the home owner because they figure they dontknow anything and will tell you anything to hopefully get you to buy a new unit. the last tech i got was very helpful and explained every step he went thru to help me understand what happened and what the correct course of action to take to fix it. another point. i told the first tech that the defrost cycle was coming on more than twice in an hour. (abt 40 min). the guy told me it was probably set that way. the second tech said it shoud be at least a hour in between defrost. if it is more than that something is going wrong.