My heat pump iced up in the winter

I feel like a lot of my friends are having troubles with their heat pump. I currently have central heating and cooling and to me heat pumps just seem a little bit more complex to me. My friend stated that his heat pump iced up in the winter. Supposively the heat pump did not go into defrost mode like it should have. I guess it’s normal for the entire coil to be covered in a white frost even in some light ice during certain weather conditions in the winter. However it is not normal for the entire unit to be encased ice. This is a serious problem and it would be need to be addressed quickly to a local heating and cooling technician to avoid serious damage to the equipment. Supposedly my friends neighbors outdoor unit iced up so bad that it ended up damaging the fan blades and it even crushed the outdoor coils. This caused the refrigerant in it to leak out and ruin the compressor. This completely damaged the outdoor unit and they needed their entire outdoor unit to be replaced. I cannot imagine how much money this must have cost them. Hopefully they were able to finance and do some sort of payment plan with their heating and cooling unit because I cannot imagine having to pay thousands of dollars up front. I know that some heating and cooling companies will offer some sort of warranty depending on mechanical issues that were not caused by the homeowner. I’m hoping that I will never have to experience this kind of damage to my outdoor unit ever.

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