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.
Heat pump air handler frozen.
If it continues to attempt to operate it can seriously damage itself.
Try to avoid using your air conditioner at night when the temperatures drop.
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.
The joule thomson effect is a principle in thermodynamics which states that if everything else is kept constant.
The most important factor when dealing with a frozen pump is to act fast.
The joule thomson effect how your air conditioner freezes up.
This includes the indoor unit outdoor unit and interconnecting line set.
Diagnose your thermostat for any obvious problems.
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.
In this scenario the air coils inside the interior air handler get very cold.
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.
When faced with a frozen heat pump.
Immediately turn off your heat pump.
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.
Heat pump or air conditioner iced up in summer.
Every so often the unit will go into defrost mode to remove that frost.
The system extracts heat from the inside of the house and moves it outside.
Of course in the summer the situation is reversed.
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.
As the name suggests the reversing valve allows the heat pump to work as both a heater and an air conditioner by reversing the direction of the refrigerant.
Heat pump frozen in winter.
Heat pump not heating.
In the winter heat pump icing up is often perfectly normal.
Sometimes the evaporator coil will freeze if the a c is running when it s cool outside.
So what s the deal.
Standby for a small high school physics lesson.
Your outside air conditioning refrigerant line is covered in ice which seems crazy in arizona heat.
As warm air hits the coil condensation builds up.
Change your air filter.
Your heat pump and air handler will not function very well when outside temperatures are below 60 degrees.
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.
Many times a clogged air filter is the reason behind frozen cooling coils.
If the coil gets too cold the condensation freezes causing your heat pump to freeze up in the summer.
Troubleshooting a frozen air conditioning coil.