Heat Pump Not heating but cold air is being created above fan? Mystery?

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fox_and_hound

fox_and_hound

0
Jun 19, 2013
79
Sunny Florida
Hi guys my heat pump was working fine yesterday and today I believe my friend put the valve the wrong way and the heat pump may have ran dry. When I came home there was no condensation on the ground and the spa was not warming. The air above the fan blades seemed warm whereas they are always producing such cold air.

I hosed everything down, Checked all breakers, shut off power, opened unit and everything looks ok/undamaged. I put it back together and turned it on, this time I noticed a huge difference in air above the fan blades. Now, its very cold as it used to be, but again, an hour later and no heat in the spa.

The unit does not cycle off because it seems to understand that it is not reaching target temp so aspects of it are working, but again, no condensation on ground and no heat at the spa jets.

Im not sure whats going on. Any ideas? I hopefully have a pool service coming as soon as they can fit me in, but in the interest of trying to fix it, do you guys have any ideas? :(
 
Such a bummer, the person I had scheduled for today cancelled on me.
No error codes, its an older aquacal with hardly any usage, coils, and fins look great, never had any issue, always powers up, always heats fast.

Its weird because when I got there and saw the valve turned the wrong direction, I stopped everything, opened the filter and the water inside was very warm. But the air circulating outside the heat pump was not cold and there was no condensation on the ground.

I then placed the valve the correct way and then hosed off everything. I reset the breaker.
Then, suddenly, the air circulating above the heat pump was so much colder, as it normally is when working.
So maybe something had over-heated. They had the valve turned wrong and maybe it was circulating the same water for hours?

After waiting 1 hr, still no condensation on the ground and no warmth out of spa. I have family in town and it stinks. :-(
 
Oh yea, I dont know why the pic wasnt able to upload but its fixed now! We took off all panels to expose wires and see if relay or wires were burned but all looked great so I was stumped.

Then, an installer tech confirmed that if the spa valve is closed when the skimmer is closed, the heater will only be recycling the same couple gallons in the filter and pipes over and over again and this pressure/lack of flow can blow the capacitor. But then again, capacitor was 16 yrs old! We saw it on the label!!

It was the capacitor that was blown and not allowing the compressor to start. We took it out and it wouldnt stand flat. Well, actually it would stand flat but if you nudged it, it would wobble just a tiny bit. The bottom and top surfaces have to be completely 100% flat or its likely blown. No convex shape at all, not even the slightest or that is considered a "buldge". Mine was barely convex, barely. Anyhow, this was confirmed by ohm reading. It was replaced with a slightly different capacitor but apparently they dont have to be an exact match to work. And it fired right up. Im shocked its 16 yrs old. I thought it was 10 yrs old. Oh well, whatever it works LOL
 

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You will want to put the exact match in as soon as possible... Only allowable difference is if the new one has a higher voltage rating, that's fine, but the mfd rating should match the original...
 
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