Split unit froze up

[Diana]

As in frozen. A solid block of ice. 

I have a property that I use quite sparingly. The plan is to set it up and use it as my art studio—it’s the size of a one bedroom 600sq ft apartment. We have gotten a lot more rain than normal here and the place gets humid, to say the least. It’s a converted metal building, nothing fancy, but it has electricity and running water, as well as a split unit for heat/AC. I set it to auto and then let it be. 

I came in tonight to check on things, only to find it was warm and humid—it shouldn’t be as the unit switched to AC. Well, it froze into a big chunk of ice. It’s never done this before.

I turned it off, and set up the dehumidifier. It should get up to 90 or so tomorrow. It has been melting for about two hours now. I have a fan blowing on it, hopefully to bring warmer air to it, but it’s still going to take a while. I can’t stay here overnight to monitor it, so I set up a method to catch the drips as they come. 

I have NO experience in this situation. I hope that once it is thawed out and dry, I can get into it and clean out the gunk I found in it when I got the cover off. Hopefully everything will work fine and I won’t have to replace it. The light on the cover comes on and the remote looks like it’s working (I checked prior to getting started with the thawing process). 

What says the hive mind?

[special]

Hopefully it is not low on freon and a cleaning is all it needs. Does it have any filters? how often do you replace/clean the filters?

Or maybe the fan failed and there is no air flow?

I had the inside furnace ice one time, it dripped and killed the control board. Or maybe it was the other way around, control board failed and didn't turn on the fan and the unit froze over. HVAC guy came, replaced the control board. Check the freon pressure and it was OK. It's been 2 years and I have not had an issue since.

[rgG]

With a regular unit, it is often a clogged air filter that can cause this.
It used to happen all the time when my MIL would forget to change hers.
I have no experience with the mini-splits, but I assume they have a filter, so I would suggest cleaning or replacing it, whichever you do with those.

[chopper]

As in frozen. A solid block of ice. 

I have a property that I use quite sparingly. The plan is to set it up and use it as my art studio—it’s the size of a one bedroom 600sq ft apartment. We have gotten a lot more rain than normal here and the place gets humid, to say the least. It’s a converted metal building, nothing fancy, but it has electricity and running water, as well as a split unit for heat/AC. I set it to auto and then let it be. 

I came in tonight to check on things, only to find it was warm and humid—it shouldn’t be as the unit switched to AC. Well, it froze into a big chunk of ice. It’s never done this before.

I turned it off, and set up the dehumidifier. It should get up to 90 or so tomorrow. It has been melting for about two hours now. I have a fan blowing on it, hopefully to bring warmer air to it, but it’s still going to take a while. I can’t stay here overnight to monitor it, so I set up a method to catch the drips as they come. 

I have NO experience in this situation. I hope that once it is thawed out and dry, I can get into it and clean out the gunk I found in it when I got the cover off. Hopefully everything will work fine and I won’t have to replace it. The light on the cover comes on and the remote looks like it’s working (I checked prior to getting started with the thawing process). 

What says the hive mind?

[Diana]

Chopper,

Hive mind = collected wisdom of the forum

Next time I’ll spell it out.

[AllGold]

When you said it froze up, I assumed you meant the outside part, but it sounds like it might be the inside part which would be really weird. Which is it?

[Diana]

The inside part--that's the really weird part; I checked it today, and it still was too iced up to get the washable filters out.

I would use a hairdryer to blow warm air onto it, but it's full of crap that I'd prefer to not blow all about the place.

[AllGold]

I'd have thought it would have thawed by now. I'm certainly no expert, just spitballing: Any chance the condenser is still running--and keeping the inside part frozen?

[Diana]

There was a HUGE amount of ice.

The front of the filters are free, but they wrap around the top of the unit and this part is what's still frozen.

I've turned the inside part off; all lights on the inside part are off and the remote reports that it's off. I'm not sure how to pull the power for the condenser outside of pulling the breaker at the box. I found the manuals and I'll check it.

[Black]

There was a HUGE amount of ice.

The front of the filters are free, but they wrap around the top of the unit and this part is what's still frozen.

I've turned the inside part off; all lights on the inside part are off and the remote reports that it's off. I'm not sure how to pull the power for the condenser outside of pulling the breaker at the box. I found the manuals and I'll check it.

Good luck!