Heat Pump Question

[49erinnc]

My string of bad luck continues....

Last night, my heat just quit working all of a sudden. Noticed the breaker had tripped, so I flipped it back and the heat ran fine. This happened 3 more times. The last time I flipped the breaker back, the heating system continued to run but was not blowing any warm air...just cool air and the breaker never tripped again. I have an electric heat pump system. I also noticed that fan was not spinning on the unit outside my house. Any clues as to why my system is running but not blowing hot air now?

Just not in position to get raped by a shady heating/cooling guy so I'm hoping there's an easy/affordable fix. Any info would be appreciated.

 

[farmercal]

My father-in-law had this exact same problem. What we had to do is go out to the heat pump unit (outside of the home) and remove the top cover, then we took a vacuum (a shop vac is best but a home vacuum with an attachment works) and cleaned the filter off. It was so dirty that the unit was overheating and tripping the breaker. Before we did this he went so far as to change the breaker thinking that was the problem. Since we cleaned out the unit (over a year ago) he has had zero problems with the heat or cool in that unit. Note: a heating/cooling speacialist told him to try this little procedure and that it would probably fix his problem. Anyway anyone can it but make sure you flip the circuit breaker before you open up the unit. Remember, SAFETY, SAFETY, SAFETY! Don't even think about working on anything electical unless POWER IS REMOVED. Good Luck.

 

[Zackdos]

Originally posted by: 49erinnc
I also noticed that fan was not spinning on the unit outside my house.

Just not in position to get raped by a shady heating/cooling guy so I'm hoping there's an easy/affordable fix. Any info would be appreciated.

I just had my fan replaced earlier this year by a family friend that wrks on these for a living. Called him up and told him my fan was not working and he cam and replaced it @ cost and a little for his time and effort. Even in the cold the fan needs to spin. Just my experience =]

 

[luckysnafu]

Same thing is happening with the unit at my apartment. I turned it on last night and it went to aux. heat and hot air was coming out. After it warmed up to the temp I set it turned off. When it turned on again it just blew cold air and never turned off. I am calling my complex today to get it fixed. This happened at my work last year and the unit had too much charge in the freon and they had to let some pressure off to get it to work correctly.

 

[49erinnc]

I also noticed about a week ago one morning when it was cold out, that my entire unit outside was iced/frosted over. The fan was still spinning and my heat was working perfectly fine. But I had never noticed a unit icing over like this in the winter. I've seen in in the summer but not when running the heat. Not sure if what caused that has any connection to my current problems.

farmercal, thanks for the tip. I hate to not call someone today to come out since I'm trapped at work until 4pm EST. I may run home at lunch to try your suggestion. If I wait until I get home today and that does't fix it, then I likely won't be able to get someone out this afternoon. That would be too good to be true if it's just a dirtly filter.

The odd thing is that despite it not blowing hot air after this happened, it never really blew really cold air either. The air coming through the vents was just "room temp" so to speak. WHen I got up this morning, despite it being in the low 20's outside, the temp in my house was still around 59 degrees. Still too cold for my liking. Hopefully this is a quick/cheap fix because I'm in a bad bind right now financially.

If anyone has any other thoughts, I would appreciate it. I'm pretty good around the house but know squat when it comes to HVAC work. 🙁

 

[49erinnc]

Originally posted by: farmercal
My father-in-law had this exact same problem. What we had to do is go out to the heat pump unit (outside of the home) and remove the top cover, then we took a vacuum (a shop vac is best but a home vacuum with an attachment works) and cleaned the filter off. It was so dirty that the unit was overheating and tripping the breaker. Before we did this he went so far as to change the breaker thinking that was the problem. Since we cleaned out the unit (over a year ago) he has had zero problems with the heat or cool in that unit. Note: a heating/cooling speacialist told him to try this little procedure and that it would probably fix his problem. Anyway anyone can it but make sure you flip the circuit breaker before you open up the unit. Remember, SAFETY, SAFETY, SAFETY! Don't even think about working on anything electical unless POWER IS REMOVED. Good Luck.

On 2nd thought, can you be more specific with what you're referring to as the "filter?" With my outside unit, there is the fan in the center of course. And then surrounding the fan is like a big radiator coil. Kind of like that really thin metal gill thing that you can easily flatten if you push on it.

And it seems like if just the filter were dirty, that it wouldn't cause the fan to stop spinning while the heating system continued to run. Like I said, the breaker tripped the first few times but then it no longer tripped. This is when the system continued to blow air but just not warm air and the fan outside the house was not spinning. But the system would run all night long without tripping the breaker once this happened.

I want to think that there is something more involved that would cause the actual fan outside to no longer spin but not sure. 😕

 

[shekondar]

The fan on my parents' heat pump died a few years ago - turned out to be a broken wire (I think the insulation on the wire had cracked & water got into the wire, causing it to corrode & fail). Spliced a new wire in, and it worked fine for several more years.