Heat Pumps and Electric Heating - Help Quick! Outside unit freezing

Hello everyone, if anyone is on now could you pleeeeease post ASAP.... don't mean to sound crazy but, well, I am!

We are experiencing a COLD SNAP in Texas. I have been here 11 years and it's never gotten close to this... right now (outside of San Antonio, usually HOT San Antonio, it is 27 degrees, windchill 14. I have small children and am trying to keep us warm. I have central heat/air, and the OILS ON THE OUTSIDE "blower" UNIT ARE FREEZING OVER.

I have been walking around in the cold, muttering foul things, because I am determined to keep my 70 year old pipes from bursting. I have them dripping, insulated, etc. Last time I was checking on the state of affairs I saw something that has NEVER happened before, my outside unit, sorry don't know the proper name, the part of your AC/Heat that sits outside and sucks in air, is frozen up halfway on the OUTSIDE COILS of the unit.

Should I take a hairdryer to them outside??? Now that's a mental image, eh. I tried looking this up and some people suggested putting water on them that is usually 40 degrees from the citys main pipes, but I think that would just freeze up quickly. Is there something else I can do?? Tips, pleeeease.

Signed,
Yet Another crazed-single-mom-with-no-money-to-pay-a-heating-service-call :)

THANKS !!!!!!!!!

Put it over to EME and you should have heat. From the electric elements that are in the inside unit. Yes the outdoor unit will get ice on it. Then when to much ice it should go into a defrost mode by itself. Is the inside air filter clean??

I have a daughter with cystic fibrosis... the filters are changed every two weeks with $50 hepa filters... that's why I can't afford a service call!!!

The emergency heat is limping along but the ice is now up to the top of the unit. I understand it SHOULD go into a defrost mode but - and I could be overreacting because I'm not used to cold and I need to make sure my children are warm - isn't that enough ice to have triggered it?? It has been raining/sleeting on and off and the ice has steadily climbed the sides of the unit and gotten thicker.

So, with the possibly incorrect ASSumption that the defrost mode is broken, what is the best course of action for me? I still think the hair dryer :)

Thanks... anxiously awaiting any replys, as the frozen fingers of death slowly creep up my outside unit....

Turn the tstat over to EME will heat the home . This should let the outside melt. That EME is a full back up to heat the home. With out the heat pump. The heat pump dont run in this mode.

Don't get out there with a blasted hair dryer, that's a ticket for death. Like Ed said turn the T'stat to EMG, or EME this will turn the outside unit off. Do this till the unit defrost or the weather warms or someone can look at it..
Keep the darn cold in TX we don't want it in MS....

BTW, You can defrost with tap water. The colder the water, the longer it will take to melt the ice. If your defrost is broken however, it will simply freeze over again within a few hours (if that long).

Emergency heat will cost you more in the long run than having the unit fixed.

I had this problem few years back.My ac/heating specialist believed that there is a leak of freon somewhere in the line thats why you see frost .He advised me to well insulate the line and it shoud do the trick.I did well insulated all the lines,since then my older unit is working fine.