Why the hell does my heat pump have a block of ice around it in the winter? The entire system isn’t but 2 years old so there damn sure better not be a leak. And how the hell do I get rid of it? If it was summer I’d turn the system off and let the heat melt it, but it’s sure as hell not going to melt in this weather in the shade.
Mine has done the same for 6 years. I had the people who installed it come check it out. They said it was fine. I know it's not, but it keeps working, and I keep forgetting to do anything about it.
Why the hell does my heat pump have a block of ice around it in the winter? The entire system isn’t but 2 years old so there damn sure better not be a leak. And how the hell do I get rid of it? If it was summer I’d turn the system off and let the heat melt it, but it’s sure as hell not going to melt in this weather in the shade. View attachment 259463
Most likely a defrost problem like said above. Either bad board or sensor. Should have at least a 5yr parts warranty possibly 10. If you want to defrost run it in a/c mode, that is exactly what the defrost cycle does except it also turns off the outdoor fan during defrost cycle so outdoor coil gets hotter to thaw faster and brings on the aux heat strips so you don’t feel the cool air from running in cooling mode.
You could also just switch over to emergency heat until problem is fixed because you are not getting much efficiency from heat pump when it’s frozen like that.
The cheap goodman package unit on my shop used to do that when i got it (used). It would also defrost forever when it finally would defrost. I found a temp sensor dangling by its wires under the fan. The plastic clip that held it to one of the lines had broken. I ziptied it and its been working fine since.
Most defrost boards ive seen, admittedly not that many, have jumpers to allow for different length defrost cycles. It would be worth your money to call a hvac guy you trust because its not heating well froze up like that so itll be running the aux heat strips more than necessary to keep the thermostat happy and thats wasted $.
