HELP!! Frozen Ruud Heat/AC Unit**ICE**

This morning I discovered that my Ruud Achiever 11 Super High Efficency Heat Pump had ice on the top vents of the unit as well as the blades of the fan. The ice on the blades was making the unit very noisy while it was running...I immediately turned off my heat inside on my thermostat to stop the fan.

I was advised by my father to pour warm water on the unit to thaw the ice and then prevent the water from getting into the unit, so it wouldn't re-freeze on the blades or the top. Well it took about 4 buckets of water to thaw the ice and then we just turned out unit back on and it seemed to be working properly.

Three hours later the ice had re-formed and my husband declared that it was broken and he was heading to Home Depot to figure out what to do.

Our heat is off...and I covered the unit with a trash bag to temporarily prevent more water from collecting and freezing.

I fear that we damaged the unit by pouring water on it. Any advice?????????

 

Did you go to AUX or EM and get heat? Where is the water comeing from??? If you turn it to AC will it defrost. Are you sure its not the defrost control? Dont let him buy new tstat YET. ED

 

is the fan outside running? may be low on refrigerant. once the unit is defrosted, and running, is the large line at the outdoor unit hot? when it frozen you can jump the test pins to force a defrost, let us know more.....

 

The water is coming from the gutter directly above it (two stories up). It is dripping over the gutter, landing on the grates on top of the heating/ac unit, and freezing into a block. In addition, there was thick ice on the blades of the fan (well there was before we poured warm water on them).

We are in the Northeast and we had freezing rain this morning which turned to snow at midday.

We live in a small townhouse complex of 10 individually owned units and we did not know that this type of heating/ac unit is always suppossed to have a cover (that is, according to the guys at Home Depot). We had never had forced hot air heat before and our homeowners association neglected to mention anything about a cover.

Thanks for your help...any advice is appreciated!!

 

Lets stop here . The heatpump needs a cover boy oh boy thats a tall tail . I think the boys at Home D pot should stay with what they think they know. The unit needs air you cant cover it. What works and dont work at this point cant say. BUT YOU HAVE GOT TO GET THAT WATER STOPPED NOW. First you have to get the HOA now to fix that gutter.Or get the water so it dont run on the unit there. It can be bad or parts shot now from that ice from the gutters. That ice from the gutters could have locked up the fan and burnt it out. Dont know yet. You do get heat from the AUX OR EM dont you? ED

 

Thanks for your advice, Ed Imeduc!!! We ARE getting heat out of our registers...is this from the unit that we have inside our home on the second floor? We are guessing that the interior heating unit has a fan in it and it blows hot air out of our registers. (?) Right now we have a trash bag over the top of the outside unit preventing water from dripping into the unit and freezing. And we are working on getting those gutters cleared as soon as we thaw out!

I am not totally sure what AUX or EM means, but I am guessing Auxilary and Emergency??

This is our first house and my husband is the kind of guy that gets frustrated when he doesn't know how something works so he can fix it, so as he trys to read up on heating units, we are very appreciative of your help!

 

no gutter? can you install a strip of metal bent 90 degrees to offset the fall of the water from the roof? aux heat is heat pump with elec heat where emergency heat is elec heat only. not all heat pumps are elec backup. these are known as dual fuel, using oil or gas as well.

 

We do have gutters, but we live in northern New Jersey and we have been in a deep freeze for about a week. The problem started with gutters that needed to be cleaned that collected water and then froze. So now freezing rain, snow, ice, etc falls and when it melts off the roof, it drips over the side of our house. Definitely an example of how something inexpensive but bothersome to fix can turn into something costly and even more bothersome to fix!!

We definitely do not have dual fuel...we are only electric.

One question: "aux heat is heat pump with elec heat"...is our heat pump still working if the fan on our outside unit is not? Basically what constitutes a "heat pump"?

Also, does this require immediate attention from a specialist to determine if the outside fan or motor is broken?

 

is it frozen up with the ice? put the unit in emer heat until it thaws

 

The heat in my home is working...it is the fan outside that isn't working.

If I switch it to emer heat (inside on my thermostat, right?) will this THAW the unit outside or are you just saying, give it time to thaw out on it's own? We have below freezing temps here so nothing is going to thaw on its own until it warms up ...and that isn't happening until Thursday.

Thanks for your help!!

 

Emergency heat will not thaw it out. That just turns on electric strip heaters inside you air-handler incase there is a problem with the heat-pump. Just don't run the heatpump until the water problem is fixed.

 

Like said dont turn the outdoor unit on till all the ice is gone. Could you like build a lean too over the unit outside about 8'up . That would keep the water off for now? It would have to be open all around it ED