Ramsey Heating & Air

We want to give you a few tips on what to do if you are experiencing issues during this winter blast on your heat pump. You might notice some frost or freezing of some sort. This is caused due to the cold conditions. This is completely normal, especially if your home is warm. Your heat pump outside has a mechanism called a defrost board that will fall out the once the system determines that there is ice buildup.

If you noticed that your unit has so much ice buildup on it that is protruding to the louvers that wrap around your system outside, we advise you to go to your thermostat and switch it from "Heat' to "Emergency Heat." Emergency heat is a form of heat elements inside the air handler system; it is used just like the elements in a dryer.

They are installed for the sole purpose of when the system goes into defrost mode; it automatically kicks these heat strips on to keep the home warm as the unit tries to defrost the ice on the outside unit. If your system has a block of ice outside and it seems like the system is not defrosting it quick enough, we suggest to move to emergency heat until the outside unit ice is defrosted - then switch it back to heat pump mode.