02 Journey basement heat pump

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Wristpin

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 17, 2010
Posts
47
Location
London, KY
We used our heat pump (coleman mach model 6535) over last weekend and noticed way in the night that the propane heat kicked on, We didn't think anything about it till later in the morning I noticed water dripping out of the outside intake for the blower underneath the unit.

We have a heat pump in our home and by watching it over the years I've noticed it has to reverse it's self occasionally and what we call "blow off" and I think what happened is the outside coil froze up this caused the heat pump not to work correctly and in turn the propane heat had to help out. 
Has anyone had any experience with this??

What will cause the outside condenser/coil to freeze up enough to drip a lot of water later in the day when the temperature warms up and how hard is it to repair??
Thanks for your input!
Denvis (Wristpin)
 
Under about 40 degrees F, the furnace kicks on and the Heat Pump will switch off as there is no defroster on our units.  The furnace will continue as long as your thermostat is requesting a higher inside temperature.  When the outside ambient temperature rises above 40 degrees (approximate), the heat pump will become operational again to heat your unit.

There is nothing the matter with your unit even if you noticed water dripping from the pan, as your coil likely froze up and was thawing.  Ours has a freezing coil problem since the day we bought it, and it depends on the heat load and humidity levels.
 
What Mark said.  When the condenser freezes up will depend on the outside humidity and temperature. Ours has worked into the mid 30s and frozen up with air temps in the 40s
 
I don't depend on it working automatically I keep an eye on the temp. When I find the temp goes to 40-42 degrees I turn off the heat pump and switch over to gas heat manually. Don't give it a chance to freeze up.
 
If you can stand a five degree swing of temperature, you are fine leaving the switch in the heat pump position.  Say you set the thermostat to hold a temp of 75 degrees.  The heat pump freezes up and won't run.  After the inside temp drops to 70 degrees, the gas furnace will start.  The thermostat will try for two hours to use the heat pump, then give up and you will stay in furnace mode.
 
I emailed Airxcel before I posted here and this is Eric Bott's reply:

The Coleman-Mach Heat Pumps are designed to remove heat from the outside ambient air, and move it to the inside of the space to be conditioned. When outside temperatures get below forty five degrees Fahrenheit, the efficiency of the heat pump is going to go down due to the lack of heat outside. You will need to keep in mind that the outdoor coil will need to reach a temperature well below the outside temperature to be able to transfer the heat. Depending on the climate in the area, humidity being a major factor, the unit will usually start to freeze up around forty degrees outside temperature. The higher the humidity, the more apt you are to freeze up at higher temperatures.  If you know the temperatures are going to get below 45 degrees, I would recommend setting your thermostat to gas heat instead of electric.
Thanks guys.....

Now on to other problems like why the Compass doesn't work,  It was reading "NW" all the time and I re-calibrated it a few weeks ago now it reads "S" all the time.
 
Expected low of 45 degrees and go on furnace - not for us.  I try to use as little propane as possible and over 60,000 miles of camping in our Horizon has taught us the heat pump will usually work into the low 40s, sometimes much lower.  If the heat pump freezes up and we get cold toward morning (assuming the furnace hasn't kicked in), I'll switch us over to the furnace when I get up to go to the bathroom.

If our compass didn't work, that would be no great loss.  It needs to have a new zone entered into it or it isn't very accurate as you travel around east and west.  I really like the outside temperature function though.
 
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