Hello, I recently had something unusual happen to my heat pump. It's a Trane Executive and it's the original heat pump that was installed in my home 25 years ago. Yes, it's old!

The problem I'm having seems to be related to the very cold weather we had two weeks ago. Because of the cold weather and windy conditions, my heat pump was running almost non-stop for several days. Late last Friday evening I noticed that the condenser fan was not running, but it was not in a defrost cycle. I went outside to check the condenser unit and while outside, the fan started running again and then seemed to slow down and speed up. Then after a couple minutes, the fan ran progressively slower and slower until it stopped. I tried turning the fan manually (not with my fingers), but it wouldn't move. When I pulled the outside power disconnect to remove all power, the fan turned freely.

I switched the system to emergency heat until the next day. The next day I turned the system back to normal mode. The compressor started, but the fan did not start, and the fan still could not be turned manually unless power was removed. I switched back to emergency heat. On Sunday the weather was a bit warmer, so in the middle of the afternoon, I decided to try the heat pump in normal mode one more time. The outside unit started and the fan was running again at normal speed. The unit worked for about 5 days until the weather turned colder. Then the same thing happened again.

Anyone have any idea what would cause this sort of problem with the condenser fan motor ?

Thanks,
Gary