Very cold outside should we swithc to aux heat to be more effice

if its not on the outside of furnace where cold air duct goes in, and you dont have a high efficency filter, which may not look like what your used to, it will be on the inside of the bottom door where blower is located. If its a standard filter, it should be changed monthly, so you may have a really really dirty furnace and this requires immediate attention to avoid fire hazards and part/blower failure and overall efficency.

could be slightly low on charge-or cooling fan is not working-as the temp outside goes up the ac needs to be more efficent to blow cold air--and really 55 is not that cold--depending on outside conditions should be able to blow at low to mid 40 s

It depends if it has a defrost control built into it or not. Most units do not come with them installed they are an add on feature that you have to pay for. if the outside unit is icing up then the outside temperature is probably to low to run the compressor. I would switch over to aux. or emegency heat option on the thermostat as in low temperatures it is not efficent to run a heat pump anyway. Hope this helps have a wondeful evening.

may not work newer frig's are no longer designed to wirk in ambient temps lower then 60 degrees, gotta love energy efficency

if the temperature is going to be below freezing or near 32 degrees farenheit I would run the aux. heat as the heat pump is not efficent in low ambient outside temps.

I believe the unit you are describing is a heat pump. Heat pump are great when the temperature isn't below 30 With low ambient temps. outside it is much more efficient and comfortable to run aux. electric heat from the heat pump.

If this is a heat pump depending on the outside temp. it may not bring the temp. up. It is really not efficent to run a heat pump below freezing or near freezing.I suggest running the Auxillary electric heat if. Most heat pumps have auxilarry back up electric heat banks installed in them.

Running the heat pump in low outside ambient temps. will definitely cause the coil to ice up. An ouside temperature senor or a wind baffle should be installed in climates that get below freezing. This would definitely cause the heat pump to operate at lowered efficency and maybe not at all. It should go into defrost mode if the sensor is working correctly when the coil ices up.

Sorry, neither of these answers are completely correct.
You have a heat pump (or the wrong thermostat). Let's assume you have a heat pump.

In air conditioning mode, it works like every air conditioner you have ever had, but...

In heat mode, it reverses its operation. Have you ever felt the air coming out of the outdoor unit of your A/C unit? It's hot, isn't it. And the air coming out of the indoor unit (out of the registers) is cold. Now for a heat pump to produce heat it simply runs the air conditioner in reverse and the heat comes out in the house and the cold is released outside. Neat, huh!

Here's the problem with heat pumps...when it is really cold outside the heat pump can't produce enough heat to heat your home. So it has an additional heat source called "Auxiliary Heat". This heat comes on automatically when the house doesn't get warm enough. The source of this heat is based on the region of the country you are in. North/Northeast generally have oil heat, other regions have gas, and still others have to use electricity to heat. In Texas, we usually use electricity as the supplementary heat on heat pumps. VERY EXPENSIVE!

Now the "Emergency Heat"...this is exactly as stated in Solution #2. This is manually turned on by YOU at the thermostat when your heat pump fails. This turns on the auxilliary heaters and turns off the heat pump (remember, the reverse air conditioner). Again, this can be quite expensive to run if your heat source uses electricity! Gas and oil may be cheaper. The emergency heat is only designed (normally) to keep the house livable (not comfortable) until the Heating Tech can get out to you and fix your heat pump.

Something else you should know. It is normal for a heat pump's outdoor coil to frost up during heating mode. It will detect this and go into DEFROST mode and melt the frost off the coil. While it is doing this, it will turn on the auxilliary heater to keep the air blowing in the house at a reasonable "warm" temperature, but it will not be as hot as normal. In fact, heat pumps produce a lower temperature heat than traditional heaters. So the air may feel cooler during heating than you are use to anyway. This is normal and is not a sign of a problem.

So what do you do: Set your thermostat to the temperature you want and set the controls for HEAT/COOL and FAN-AUTO/ON and leave the EMERG HEAT off unless your heat pump breaks.

As always, keep your filters clean and your outdoor unit's coils clean and free of debris.

Hope this explains your question for you!

check your soap .you NEED to use HE( high efficency ) detergent. dont believe the saleman "just use less of your regular soap speech". immediatly swithc to HE detergent problem solved