Short Derek Cole podcast episode ("266. Unit Freezing In Heat") about diagnosing heat pump freezing during heating. Derek explains two main causes—insufficient refrigerant (leak) and restricted airflow (often from too-dense/high-MERV filters)—demonstrates how to spot freezing (frost/ice on outdoor unit/refrigerant line), and advises listeners to first check/replace clogged air filters and then inspect for refrigerant issues. Episode closes with requests to share, rate, and listen to recent episodes.
Chapters
Foreign. Hey, this is Derek Cole and welcome to the Derek Cole Podcast. This podcast is all about home comfort and energy savings. The majority is really comprised of short audio clips of a device and answers to questions that we've been asked over the years. We also kind of sprinkle in the Ask Derek Cole show audio, which is a much longer Q and A kind of program. If you like this episode, and I hope you do, I would love for you to share it on social with others. Just take a screenshot of the program and hashtag it Derek Cole so I can see you. But let's get in to today's episode. If it's a heat pump, refrigerant still can flow back and forth. So you could have a refrigerant leak causing the unit to freeze, or you could have an airflow problem. What I've seen in that regard are people who are buying filters that are high rated in MERV rating, which means they're very algae efficient filters. But the problem is they're also stopping up the airflow as it comes into the return grill. So when the unit starves for air, it then freezes up. You see that if you go outside to your unit, you'll see the frost and the ice build up around the refrigerant line. That's cause it can't breathe. It's trying to run a marathon through breathing out of a straw. It's not working out very well. So therefore it's freezing up. So usually those are the two big problems, refrigerant and a lack of refrigerant or sleeking and airflow. So I would check, first of all, check your air filter. I mean it should be a gentle tug to get it out. It shouldn't be, you know, bare against the wall to get it out of the return grill. It shouldn't be that hard because there's always a trade off between buying a high quality filter then having airflow. So with air cleaning you can do both, but with regular filtration you cannot. There has to be a give and take. You can't have the best filter and get the best airflow from an air filter. You can when you start air cleaning, but not with a filter. So check that one. That would be easier. If it's not that, then you have a refrigerant problem. Well, what did you think? If you found any value in this episode whatsoever, please share it with your friends and I encourage you to also rate and review on this platform. If you want to be really awesome, Download the last 6 episodes Take a listen. It would really help us out with the rankings on this platform. Thank you so much for listening. Please reach out on Social. If you need any help or we can help in any way, please reach out. Until next time. Talk to you soon.
