In true “things were going kinda smooth for 4 days here’s a boot in the ass” my heat pump worked fine on the 9th and when I came home 5 days later is not.
i have a video and can probably upload it somewhere. When the heat is turned on at the thermostat, the outdoor unit’s fan comes on as it should and it makes its normal “this is my compressor kicking on sound” but then the compressor does not come on, and it does this in a 90 second cycle ad nauseum. It does this whether set to heat or cool.
the unit is 10 years old. The cap is 1 year old and tests in spec. The control board was replaced 2 years ago and everything probes good with my multimeter. I have a feeling it is not an issue inside the electrical panel portion. I can get the brand and model shortly. I do not have much spare cash available to call a pro, hoping to diagnose and fix myself. It was only used a handful of days for AC as we keep the windows open as much as possible, but functioned fine when called upon all summer.
currently neck deep in it’s getting cold tomorrow and both heat sources are down, getting new electrodes overnighted for the oil furnace ignitor.
I'd start by turning it back to cool and running the unit. That should engage the outside fan and compressor. If the compressor runs and the unit cools sufficiently, you'll be able to rule out compressor issues. I'm sure you know the compressor works exactly the same under heat as it does cool operation. It's the 4 way valve that redirects the freon to reverse the heating and cooling flow.
Forgot to include, it was turned back to cool and does the same thing. I got to learn all about the reversing system a few years ago when the control board failed
at least i managed to get electrodes for the oil furnace overnight because that went down too, so we should have heat today but the heat pump is my primary down to 30*
Maybe pull the plug off of the side of the compressor itself and use an ohmmeter to see if the windings have continuity. There should be a wiring diagram inside of the unit that shows the compressor wiring start, run, and common in a wye arrangement.
It's been a long time and I'm foggy but I remember that start to common should show a resistance. Run to common should show a higher resistance. And finally start to run should show highest resistance. There should be no combination of the three terminals that doesn't show continuity between any two.
In reply to Hand Hewn :
Thank you I will pull the side panel off and probe the compressor on the next non rainy day.
did get the oil burner tuned up and it fires off better than ever, so that’s helpful.
My central air compressor (not a heat pump) did something like this a number of years ago. IIRC my HVAC guy installed a "hard start kit" to fix it.
