Something wrong with our heat pump?

The wife and I bought our house last year so we're noobs when it comes to many things around the house. One of them is dealing with a heat pump system. I feel like ours isn't running right and seems very loud. Also our bill was pretty high for what we were expecting (or maybe just hoping) Before I pay to have someone come out and look at it, can anyone in the know watch the short video I made and see if that sounds normal or if I need to start making calls.

http://vid21.photobucket.com/albums/b264/mole644/1218141718a.mp4

 

It's hard to tell if any things wrong. Make sure the large pipe is hot. Let us know.

 

The large pipe did feel warm.

 

If you have a thermometer check temp at return and supply duct.

 

I'm getting a "video can't be viewed - file is corrupted"

 

well I don't know PJ, it works fine for me?

 

Sorry.... I downloaded first and then ran it. Sounds normal from the video. Fan may be running a little slow.

The outside unit should run for several hours and then do a defrost. That defrost can sound strange when the system reverses.

You'll need to look into if your system has electric reheat coils in the air handler. Those will use a lot of power. A setback thermostat shouldn't be used with a heatpump. If the air temperature at the thermostat is 2°-3° above the setpoint..... the reheat coils will turn on automatically.

When calling for heat does your outside unit appear to keep running ?

 

FWIW, the video did work for me as well.

 

PJ, we do have the heat coils, this I know. We originally had a programmable thermostat but realized it wasn't good with our system so we reinstalled the regular thermostat.

The outside unit runs only when heat is blowing, as far as I can tell. One time I went out there and it was running but the fan was not. I'm assuming this is the defrost cycle maybe?

The main reason I have concern is when we went to turn on the AC this summer, we had no cold air. A technician came out (under warranty) and found loose fittings or something and refilled the Freon. Everything ran fine after that. I guess I just have a fear it was leaking somewhere else and now its effecting the heat pump working correctly.

 

Noticed another issue last night. The air blowing out of the vents upstairs (bi-level house) are barely warm at all, more like room temp, where as the vents downstairs are quite warm, more along the lines of what you would expect. Could this be another sign of a problem? Or just poor duct routing or possibly a problem with the ducting?