Heat Pumps and Electric Heating - Ice on Heat Pump

I had a 2 ton Aire-Flo heat pump installed in a 1200 sf house with an older air handler in July of this year. I haven't had had any troubles until now. Unfortunately, the installers put it on rails, right under the master bedroom window, and now they "don't remember" me asking to put it on a pad. It hasn't been an issue (the unit is pretty quiet), until recently it got below 20 degrees, and the unit makes an awful racket, pretty constantly. Looking at the unit, there's no frost on the coils, but the condenser and tubing inside the unit have a good inch of ice on them. I called the installer, and they said to shut it off and use auxilliary heat until the outside temp comes back up. I don't want to end up with a massive heat bill, since I'm in Ohio, and below 30 temperatures are pretty common for about four months... any suggestions? should I be calling another service company? I appreciate any help/suggestions you can give...

Assuming that this is a single stage non geo standard heat pump I would probably get on the phone right now with the installers and tell them that I want them to come out and install a outdoor ambient temp sensor on the unit that automatically cuts the heat pump off at a preset temp and aux heat automatically kicks in at that point, and I want it yesterday . As with most single stage heat pumps the unit is basically useless at or below 25f and is only wasting energy and possibly destroying the compressor due to liquid slugging, they are correct that you should not run the heat pump at real low outside ambient temps. Who in the heck is going to remember to mess with the thermostat every time the temp drops a bit? The controls are easily installed and work well, a lot of units now come standard with outside ambient controls and almost all have that as a factory option especially on the North Pole vicinity installations like Ohio LOL. Take action be proactive shut that puppy down, all that noise means the poor thing is suffering a slow painful death.

Almost the same problem as above. Yep, OHIO!
Mine is 2 1/2 years old Bryant and did not do this last year. But in the last couple days it has frozen up 4-5 times a day. To thaw it, I reverse and run the air conditioner. Is this ok to do? I was up all night last night worrying about keeping my wife and kids warm with this until it unthaws and turning the heat back on. I actually went to Wal Mart and bought to electric heaters for the bedrooms. This is crazy isnt it. 200,000 home and I am using electric plug in heat!
Is there anything I can do myself to stop this from freezing over, the filter is new, no debri around the condening unit etc.
My books says it has a sensor already on the unti that picks up and reverses on its own when it gets to that point it may freezed up, but it must not be either on my unit or working.
I am not heating expert by any means, but is there something I can look at myself to check? It was much colder than 15 last year for many days and it never did this.
Thank you!

One thing my wife did this year she didnt do last year as coer about 3 vents in the family room, would this hurt the air flow for this to operate properly?

Family3, call the installing company and get them to fix it, it may still be under warranty. definatly sounds like a defrost problem. when it freezes up instead of turning it over to cooling just turn it to Emergency Heat till it thaws out, or you get it fixed.

below 25 degrees a heatpump won't heat a house by itself, however it is cheeper to opperate than strip heat, and it makes enough heat to keep them from cycling as often.

Spec sheets for heatpumps list two sets of specs usually, and they are for 47 degrees, and 17 degrees I believe.

Jjmilikin, you say there is no frost on the coils, but there is on the condenser. the condenser is a coil. did you mean compressor, or is there ice/frost on the outside coil?

You have some kind of issue, and I would get it looked at. I also would tell whoever told you to use the aux heat to either come fix your unit, or pay your utility bills till they do.

Thanks everybody... I finally got a call back from the install company. Apparently the person I was advised by yesterday was a receptionist. I spoke to the service manager today, and you were all right... The ice is the compressor, not the condensor... I guess that's one of those things that mean I should not be servicing the unit on my own. At any rate, the service manager agreed with the receptionist that I should have kicked it into auxiliary, but also immediately scheduled a service call for tomorrow afternoon. He said most likely, it's a faulty switch, bad wiring, or bad sensor. He said the heat pump will and should work under 25, just not as efficiently, and it should actually kick into defrost mode about once an hour. Joy! Since it's a new unit, it's also covered for parts and labor under the manufacturer warranty... so, good call on that one, too, Shank!!!

Thank you

I called the installer and it is not under warranty now.
They told me it may be the filter. The filter is new so I dont think it is that.

The outside condensor unit is 50% froze still right now. Of course since its only 20 outside it will not just thaw quickly, but does this unit have the defrost mode that I can see or look at.
My book on this unit is useless to me, no graphs, schematics anything.

Without you taking allot of your time, with my wife covering allot of the vents in the house to manage the heat into the rooms we use, would this effect the air flow of this unit?
Does it use inside air to work also?
I am thinking since she covered up allot of those heat vents and push the temp to 78-79 this may have caused some problems??
House is 1800 SqFt and on 78 the thermostat shows 73-74 most of the time.

One more, should the arrow on the filter itself run from the furnace unit towards the air conditioning ducts? Does the inside air come back through the cold air ducts to go into the furnace unit to create the heat?
The original owner of this home never placed or the unit does not show an arrow as to which direction the air filter should point. All I did is replace it to the same way they had it. Maybe that is wrong?

Thank you!

From your other post, my unit may just have a sensor that went bad?
The one that tells it to thaw once or so an hour? Is this sensor on the outside unit then? All I see is the base, two lines and one electric line to a fuse box.

They told me it may be the filter.
Let me guess, the receptionist told you that.



Without you taking allot of your time, with my wife covering allot of the vents in the house to manage the heat into the rooms we use, would this effect the air flow of this unit?
Yes, but that would not cause the outside unit to freeze up. It would most likly cause High head pressure and possibly the compressor to shut down on internal overload, or the pressure switch if equiped to shut it down.




Does it use inside air to work also?
it uses inside air to defrost. meaning when it goes into defrost it takes heat from the inside air and transfers it into the ice so it will melt.

I am thinking since she covered up allot of those heat vents and push the temp to 78-79 this may have caused some problems?
possible, but doubtful. easy to check though, uncover the vents and try it out for a few days.


One more, should the arrow on the filter itself run from the furnace unit towards the air conditioning ducts? Does the inside air come back through the cold air ducts to go into the furnace unit to create the heat?
The original owner of this home never placed or the unit does not show an arrow as to which direction the air filter should point. All I did is replace it to the same way they had it. Maybe that is wrong?
That's three more ;) anyway. the filter should be in the return air, and the air should point towards the unit. though it really doesn't matter, unless it has a metal, or fabric grid on one side in that case the grid would keep it from collapsing when you forget to change it for 6 months.


From your other post, my unit may just have a sensor that went bad?
The one that tells it to thaw once or so an hour? Is this sensor on the outside unit then? All I see is the base, two lines and one electric line to a fuse box.

it is in the outside unit. clamped to the coil somewhere.

Yep, she said it is the filters fault. Needs a new one.
:wall:

Thank you.

I finally got it all defrosted. Set the heat to 74 and it only took about 40 minutes to form ice on the outside unit.

Is this unit set up to run all the time during 30 and below temps? Seems it runs all day and all night non stop when it hits these temps.

Do you think it is the sensor unit that tells it to defrost that may be not working? Is it something I can change or should I call someone.

After reading this and looking things over, what else would cause it to cover itself up that bad so quick.

Thank you for your help!

Do you live close to a large body of water that is not frozen?

anyway.

You could probably fix the sensor, but if it is freezing that quickly there maybe another issue, could be lower of charge, could be dirty outside coil.

if your answer to the first question is no, and your coil is clean, and frost free, and your unit freezes up in forty mins it has issues.

and heatpumps are designed to run all the time at lower temps. but if they try to tell you to turn it off and run emergency when it is running fine don't listen to them. Might not be a bad idea till you get it fixed though.

countinued freezing of the outside coil has been known to collapse the bottum rings of copper in the coil.

Yes, a large creek about 1 mile away! :(

Guess I better call a service person tomorrow.
The outside unit is iced up again.

My Thermostat does not have any emergency mode.
Only heat, air and fan.

Is there something I am missing?

Again. Thank you

One more q.

It is about 75% froze up with ice.
Can I still run it without damaging the unit, or should I shut it down for awhile?
It is going to be 9 degrees tonight and need it to be running.
When I do shut it down to defrost, the house gets very cold and then the pump works like heck to get it warm again.

??

I didnt see anything attached to the side of the unit outside that would be the defrost sensor.

without an emergency heat switch I guess you'll have to run it. do you have electric heat strips in your inside unit? if so you could just turn the power off to the outside unit maybe.

the sensor is inside the outside unit on the coil somewhere, unless it is strictly a timed defrost then there is a timer in the outside unit