Heat Pumps and Electric Heating - Heat pump hell (hot air, humming, and weird clicking sound)

Hey all, I have a york heat pump and I'm having a few problems.
It hums when you flip it to cool, and occasionally it starts, sometimes it doesnt. If it does start, it works great for about an hour, then stops and blows
hot air (sweet!)..
All the time the little electrical box by the air handler has this crazy repetitive clicking sound. like every 5 seconds, sounds like a realy or breaker.
Anyway, if anyody has some advice for me I'd appreciate it, the repair people haven't been very helpful, they just throw parts at it.
Oh, also, it was flashinga code 2 in the winter, somthing about a pressure switch as mentioned in the manual... Anybody got a hunch?

Hard from here to say what you have . First sounds like you should call some other hvac tech to look at it.

ED :thinker:

Replaced motor and capacitor. now it runs but themotor slowly comes to a halt and then it just hums like before? WTF??

Are you sure you replaced the right capacitor? Most units have more than one. Does the capacitor match the requirements specified on the motor?

Well according to york a flashing code of 2 is discharge pressure is over 400 psig.

This can happen from many different senerios. I hope that I spelled that right.
But anyways you could be over charged with refrigerant, or during defrost it could stay in too long, but now it could be that the defrost could be energizing.
I would try to see if the defrost thermostat is stuck in the closed position.

hmm unlikely that it's overcharged, It worked fine the last 2 years.
I'll check on the cap, its a 1/4 hp motor with all the same specs as the old one. I can post the motor specs if you guys could tell me what cap would go with it.
thanks in advance

Is it the compressor that hums?? Start by cleaning the coils indoors and out. You may end up needing a start capacitor "hard start" to give it an extra boost at start up. If it was indicating high head pressure in the heating seaon that leads me to believe the filter is dirty or the coil "1st common problem".

Ok, i replaced the capacitor but it still has the original fan. Now it runs for about a half hour and cools really well, but then it starts cranking out heat. BTW the outsid ecoils are really clean, where are the inside coils? I'll check them, are they located in the air handler part of the unit?

The indoor coil is at the airhandler in the house. Sometimes they can be a pain in the you know what to get to but can be done.

any explanation on why the heat would kick on? is the compressor trying to cool itself by offloading heat into the house? I still dont get that part. I noticed that the heater was actually running too, like making heat, so it's not just the compressor pushing heat back in.

After all this Id check out the defrost board if you say the strips are turning on.

ED :thinker:

hmm, the defrost board is in the pump housing, and has chips and lots of wires going in and out etc?
Any idea how to test it? I am not sure if jumpering thermostat wires is the way to do it or what.

With all the craziness this thing is causing you I would reccomend getting a pro in there to check it hands on. It could be several things from a bad reversing valve to defrost board to heat sequencer. Use whoever has been around for a long time and ask friends and neighbors who they use. There is also a search available right here on this site you could try. http://www.servicemagic.com/ext/277426

Howdy again,
Ok, so I the advice of a few people here and a few of my freinds and got a york professional to come over, determined that it was the defrost board because there was a call for heat from the outside after the compressor kicks off. Repair man determined that freon was at adequate levels. So I replaced the defrost board. Unit ran for about an hour, turned off, and spat out a code 3 ( faulty inducer, blocked vent pipe, high winds at vent terminal, broken pressure switch hose, or faulty pressure switch). The repair guy seemed knowledgable, and seemed to think that york codes are basically bs. :confused: At this point I'm assuming that once I fix code 3 I'll have to fix code 4 ,5 and so on. :wall: jk
So my question is why would this thing be kicking off before the house has reached the set temperature? I have set it at it's coolest to make it run as long as possible and it still cuts off at about an hour.
It basically seems like it loses its signal to the contactor after a certain amount of time. I can manually close the contactor with a screwdriver and every time the fan and compressor fire right up and run (until I let go). What wire or circuit determines how long the contactor stays closed?
Just to recap: new stat, new contactor, new cap, new fan, new defrost board.
thanks in advance for any further advice, my next step may involve a box of shells and my mossberg 500. :)