Well, I have notified the installer of yet another winter of noise and now it is two days later and he hasn't showed or contacted me with a concern.

I have just lifted the corners and installed the 1/2" recycled tire rubber mats under the unit.  The unit was bonded to the concrete patio and thus I heard the ice cracking while I lifted it gingerly.

The heat pump sounds pretty much the same, perhaps a bit quiter while you are at it.  Inside the house you cannot hear a thing!

Thank you all for the thoughts and in this is hopefully the end of this.

Thanks,

Richard B.

Richard,

Thanks for posting your follow on the use of the rubber pad.  Glad to hear that corrected the noise into your home.

Regards,

Well, they showed up today while I was at work.  I did get to talk to them though.  I told them of the rubber mats affecting the vibration in the home greatly and they said "yeah it seems to be pretty good from what we see, but we'll give some things a good check".  When I got home tonight, the noise in the house was back and the mats are still in place.  I'm thinking the unit has bonded itself to my concrete patio with ice again.  They are going to see if a "heater" is something that is an option.

Interesting about the sight glass. Earlier today, I did ask them specifically about the sight color and they said it should be dark purple like it is.  I will double check the type of sight and research as necessary.

The outcome of this could explain the failures.  At least two of my earlier replaced heat pumps were failing somethin' fierce.

Thanks, Ill get back when I have more news.

Richard

My sight is an Emerson (Alco Controls) HMI tricolor indicator.  It is indicating well into "dry" according to the Emerson HMI white paper that I just viewed.

I'll post with the contractors next action...

Richard

I've been pondering something of that nature all night.  I've come to the conclusion that the trickle of escaping water would have to remain liquid.  All around the heat pump on the down hill side of it(the patio has some fall) is a 3'4" thick smooth ice flow.  This would have to have been carried into a floor drain while it is liquid.  Could be possible, with a custom built tray and lifting the unit up perhaps a few inches to allow fall to my nearest perimeter drain cleanout.  I'm wondering if I would have to "heat" this custom tray all the way to the cleanout drain.

Any innovative ideas will be considered

Richard

I'm convinced the noise is coming from the concrete so the plywood won't do much in this case. 
The entire install is on the same level, except the lineset.  The lineset rises to the overhead joists and drops down to each unit.

I'm still tossing around some tray sort of ideas.  Maybe have a stainless tray fab'd with enough fall that ice would likely not build up.  I could easily wrap the tray drain line with standard water line heating wrap.  Just have a feeling it would be more than should have been required and add to the electric $.

Contractor said they were going to look into something, I'm not sure.  It is making quite a bit of noise again.  Unacceptable level.  Lots of ice on the ground around it.  Actually dangerous to approach if you didn't know it was there.  If the defrost water was moving faster, I have to think it would be a lot better.  I think some ice damming would still occur though. Thus stopping the drainage and right back here again.

My father recommended hanging the heat pump from the joists overhead with chain and springs.??  Any thoughts on this??

Simple solution would be to raise the unit 3 to 4 inches off the slab with blocks at three points or four if needed. On the top of the blocks use your rubber mats to support the unit. Extra care needs to be given to the line set not to bend or damage it. Raising the unit will allow the water to run off and not freeze the unit to the slab. It won't do much for keeping the slab from getting slippery, but should stop the noise transfer.

Since the installer is around again, I'll ask them to give me a hand lifting the thing onto pads that way they can care for the lines etc. 

I'm going to go with the blocks and pads for now.  W'll see how that does.