Without knowing temp conditions, hard to say if those pressure readings are right. Sounds like a defrost board not defrosting.
About 3 months ago I moved into a house that is about 5 years old.
During the summer on A/C mode the indoor coil drain pan was overflowing. I cleaned out the drain pipe but it continued to overflow.
I thought the coil was not level so I shimmed up the back so it would drain out the front.
That didn't work so I probably might have a hole in the pan.
I was going to wait until after the holiday and before spring to have it looked at.
But now I'm running into problems in heat mode.
The outdoor condenser has frozen up, the unit ran all night and only got up to 65 in the house.
This morning the outdoor unit was a block of ice this did a week ago also.
I put gauges on it and the it was around 225 and the suction was real low at 30.
I have a smaller unit in the basement at it was at 175 and 60 on suction.
I cleaned the filters, condenser and coil but that's about as far as I go on refrigeration.
Do you suggest anything that I could do or somebody to check it out.
Without knowing temp conditions, hard to say if those pressure readings are right. Sounds like a defrost board not defrosting.
last night it got down into the low 30's in atlanta
I agree with the "bald one" and due to the amount of water leaking during the summer, IMHO think it may be under charged or has a refrigerant leak. You need to get a pro.
Get a tech. If not, your only other option is to start changing parts,and that'll cost you more than the service call. Have the guy look at the drain on you indoor unit, too. Probably simple.
Going by a WAG on the limited info I'd say low charge with a liquid line restriction.
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The coil would not drain because the evap. coil was frozen for the same reason the condenser coil was frozen and the low side is too low. The systen is undercharged. There Is also the issue of defrost. In the heating mode the condenser should defrost auto. Call a pro.
Nowhere near enough info to diagnose what that heatpump's doing,besides not defrosting. Call a pro.
If everything was always done "by the book"....the book would never change.
sounds like not defrosting....or charge is low..... as for the coil inside.. if its frozen it won't be overfull.. make sure the drain line has a vent in it.. ( a tee works good)
It seems to me that you have any of the following problems:
1. under charged (most likely) indoor coil frozen in summer outdoor coil frozen in the winter. The reason for the water overflowing in the summer is because when the frozen indoor coil starts to thaw the water overflows the pan and leaks down into the unit.
2. 30# suction and 225# discharge could be a possible liquid line restriction. (least likely) low suction/high discharge.
3. defrost problem.
However if the unit is undercharged and at 30 degrees ambient, If you add additional charge the head pressure will skyrocket to between 350 to 400 psi so look out for that. if that hapens check for airflow problems in the indoor unit, dirty filter dirty blower wheel. blower running too slow. etc.
About 85% of defrost problems are charge related. Heat pumps require very specific application, match and charge accuracy. Charge, often times is airflow related too so include airflow in the mix.
Let's say you have a 3 ton unit, 10 SEER. Lets say 1000 actual cfm. Fair enough?
Well argue all you want but that is low airflow. Its low because the charging chart on the unit is designed for nominal airflow and usually acceptable within 10%. 3 tons is 1200 cfm and 10% is 120 (lowest acceptable is 1080) So now we have low airflow, generally this results in a slight overcharge. Now for a/c this may not be an issue but for a heat pump it is. First off you head pressure will be high in heat from an overcharge and airflow. Second, when the unit goes into a defrost, it switches to a/c mode. Lets all look at what happens in an a/c system when there is too much refrigerant going back to the compressor... Outside of failure you end up lowering your discharge temperature. Feel free to disagree at any time. Now last time I checked it is the hot discharge gas that actually defrosts the unit.
The charge balance is crucial to a HP. How else can this be affected? Well, there are mismatches, there is incorrect liquid line size, there is line sets that are too long. Remember the liquid line becomes part of the condenser. In a heat pump, a long lineset is not only a great source for loss of capacity but it also is a source of charge imbalance which in effect, reduces the ability for the unit to run properly in one mode or the other depending on when it was charged.
When troublshooting defrost problems all this needs to be checked prior to changing the defrost board. It really is a switch but it doesnt actually perform the defrost itself.
In this homewoners case, I suspect the unit is undercharged as others have. Could be a leak, could be that it was charge in heating (ooopps now its undercharged in cooling which just so happens to be the defrost mode).
It could be something simple, it could be something that requires someone who can look beyong replacing parts.