In the winter heat pump icing up is often perfectly normal.
Heat pump air handler frozen.
Heat pump or air conditioner iced up in summer.
If it continues to attempt to operate it can seriously damage itself.
Well your heat pump works to cool your home by absorbing heat with a cold refrigerant that runs through your evaporator coil.
Your heat pump and air handler will not function very well when outside temperatures are below 60 degrees.
Chances are your indoor unit s evaporator coil is frozen solid and cold liquid refrigerant is flowing to the outside unit through the refrigerant line which is why it s covered in ice.
Of course in the summer the situation is reversed.
Many times a clogged air filter is the reason behind frozen cooling coils.
Immediately turn off your heat pump.
If the coil gets too cold the condensation freezes causing your heat pump to freeze up in the summer.
If the heat pump turns on when you want cool air but not for heat this is likely the cause.
It is possible to ice up the indoor coil however if the air conditioner is running in very cold.
If you have a frozen air conditioning coil there are a few steps you should take to troubleshoot the problem before calling an hvac repair company.
Sometimes the evaporator coil will freeze if the a c is running when it s cool outside.
We don t need to go too in depth so bear with me but understanding this principle is the key to figuring out why your air conditioner is freezing up.
As warm air hits the coil condensation builds up.
Heat pump not heating.
It is never normal to see ice during the summer anywhere on the inside or outside of a heat pump or a central air conditioner.
The joule thomson effect how your air conditioner freezes up.
What to do in the event of a frozen heat pump.
In this scenario the air coils inside the interior air handler get very cold.
Fixing an outdoor frozen heat pump can be as easy as setting the defrost cycle to run a little more frequently which did the trick for us.
It will also need to be replaced by a technician.
The system extracts heat from the inside of the house and moves it outside.
Heat pump frozen in winter.
Diagnose your thermostat for any obvious problems.
Standby for a small high school physics lesson.
This includes the indoor unit outdoor unit and interconnecting line set.
The joule thomson effect is a principle in thermodynamics which states that if everything else is kept constant.
Change your air filter.
Your outside air conditioning refrigerant line is covered in ice which seems crazy in arizona heat.
Try to avoid using your air conditioner at night when the temperatures drop.
When faced with a frozen heat pump.
During the cold winter months your heat pump s outside unit will sometimes be covered with a coating of frost on the sides or even light ice.
Troubleshooting a frozen air conditioning coil.
So what s the deal.
