tigerdunes: The installer is also the Amana service person. We have a 10 yr parts and labor contract w/Amana. I could call Amana and see if they will send over another company at no charge to us, but we thought if it was an install problem, then Amana wouldn't cover the service. So... 1) Is there any way we can tell if there is an 8kw heat strip installed? And, if it is, is there anyway for us to tell whether it is hooked up properly AND working properly? 2) Again, the installer/service person "tells" us it is working (i.e., he put the compressor into defrost, came inside and looked at something and said "yup, the heat strip is working") He has even called a couple other HVAC people to ask them questions while he was here. He feels since we are getting 36,000 BTU's of cool and only 30,000 BTU's of heat (with the 8kw strip) that it will always be colder. But what I've read on other posts is that the heat strip has a 30/70 and I wondered if perhaps in defrost mode that it is only operating at 30% capacity??? (Like I really know what I'm talking about, so forgive me if I'm WAY off base). We did have him adjust the CFM down to 1100. It was running at I think 1400 and the noise through the duct/vent was too much (the vents were cleared out, though). Also, in the summer, it would only run for about 4 minutes, not enough time to help w/the humidity in the house. When the temps are above 40, the "heat" runs for 9-15 minutes normally. If you or anyone else has any further info for me, let me know. Otherwise, I will try to get someone else to look at it. I'll let you know.

I think it is great for anyone who can think outside of the box as long as they are willing to ask and also listen. If you have the heat tape and ability to set up a test that will not put your system in jeopardy I say go for it. Sometimes the attempts lead to more thinking that lands a viable solution. Waste heat recovery is another system that runs residential water through a coil surrounding the hvac lines more for pulling heat about to get expelled into the outside air in the summer into the hot water tank and some are supposed to work with heat pumps. At the time of my system upgrade I could not swing geothermal but have since found a way to get the pipe and access to a trackhoe or trencher to do a loop large enough to support a geothermal system. I considered getting the loop completed and adding a waste heat recovery unit and running the loop through it to see what impact it would have before going geothermal. If it worked it would allow geothermal to be done in stages rather than swallowed in one project. The whole slugging the compressor and causing a complete system failure holds me back. I guess one of the units is designed for a heat pump and works in both modes. Who knows. Keep thinking.

Thank you all for your replies. I did download the installation manual, and after mapping out all the wiring, I found out why the pump was always defrosting and corrected it, along with some other wiring mistakes, and I replaced his wires twisted around the relay terminals with proper spade connectors. I also found a dip switch on the thermostat that was causing the 2 minute delay. However, I couldn't find an exterior thermostat as ziggyhere mentioned, but the heat pump's wiring diagram shows a temperature sensor; could the old system have used that as the outdoor thermostat? If not, my parents are on a dual rate from their power company: they get a discounted rate as long as the outside temp stays above -12 degrees Celsius or around 10 degrees Fahrenheit. The power company installs a temp sensor in a housing that mounts between the meter pan and the meter itself, with 24 VAC present at the furnace when the temperature is above the setpoint of 10 degrees. Could the old system have been using the signal from the POCO sensor to shut off the heat pump and switch to oil? Also, when the temperature outside was around 16 degrees Fahrenheit, sometimes the oil burner would come on for a couple minutes (and the heat pump would shut off), and it doesn't do that anymore; could that be a feature of the old system, or could it be a feature of the heat pump itself? Also, with the old system if we raised the thermostat's setpoint even by a few degrees, the oil burner would kick in until the desired temperature is reached, but the new system doesn't do that; is it typical of dual heat systems, or was it just a feature of the old system and I shouldn't worry too much about it? Finally, I have heard and read several times that below a certain temperature, heat pumps lose their efficiency and there was indeed a chart in the heat pump cover, but after 21 years out there, it isn't legible anymore. It's an ICP 2-ton unit, if that matters. Because the system would often rely on the oil burner past the 16 degree mark, I assume that is where that particular heat pump starts losing its efficiency. Is it putting more strain on the compressor to let it run below that threshold? Thanks again for taking time to help me, and have a nice day!

@dadoes Ok first I want to write an answer to your first comment, "The heat strips work in three ways." 1. "(automatically) During defrost to temper the cold air." (Doesn't happen) 2. "(automatically) As auxiliary heat to supplement the heat pump." (Does happen) 3. "(manually) As Emergency heat when the compressor fails. Only the heat strips function, the compressor is locked-out." (Does work) You see my problem I'm having is with #1, and is why I'm saying my unit isn't hooked up properly. When the system goes into defrost the heat strips don't come on at all, and so only super freaking cold air blows out through the vents in the house, and that's because of two things, 1. When defrost occurs the system switches into a sort of air conditioning mode, to send the hot coolant outside to melt ice, and the cold coolant inside, much the same as it does when it's actually on AC (which I'm sure you know), and 2. The heat strips don't kick on at all. The guy who installed it even said so after he was done, as he said this is supposed to "save me money", which I fail to see how, because the strips have to kick on anyway to bring the temp back up to where it's supposed to be after the cold air blows in and drops the temp because they don't kick on to temper the cold air blowing in in the first place, and all it does is freeze me to death because that cold air is unbelievable super cold, and the house temp drops anywhere from 3-4 degrees within minutes, depending on how cold it is outside, and how long the system runs in defrost. That is why I wondering, or want to know how I can fix it to make the heat strips come on automatically like they are supposed to, in order to temper the cold air blowing through the vents, so it's not nearly as cold as it is without them, the way it's currently running, and then kick back off automatically when it switches out of defrost and back into regular heating mode. Hope that makes sense. Now I wanna touch back on the username thing. Yes I did edit the post because after I typed her username, I had tapped on her profile to tag her in my reply and for whatever reason it didn't actually tag her, and just left her username instead. Also Yes her username actually is "@dada139", and if you type in "@dada139" in your reply message, her profile will pop up and you can tap on it to tag her and once you do it changes the @dada139 to @Patricia Colwell Consulting. Because while her username is "@dada139" she has her actual name on her profile which is why it switched to @Patricia Colwell Consulting instead. Like my username is @loststonerboy, but if I put my real name on my profile you would see my real name instead of my user name of @loststonerboy, but to tag me in your reply you would still type @loststonerboy. You can see that her profile username is "@dada139" when you go to her profile because the URL address is "https://www.houzz.com/user/dada139" or "https://www.houzz.com/pro/dada139/patricia-colwell-consulting". Just like my profile's URL address is "https://www.houzz.com/user/loststonerboy", which is how you know my username is "@loststonerboy", and your profile's URL address is "https://www.houzz.com/user/dadoes", which is how I and others know your username is "@dadoes". So to tag me you type "@loststonerboy, and my profile will pop up, and you can tap on it to tag me, and for me or someone else to tag you, we would type "@dadoes", which would cause your profile to pop up, and let us tap on it to tag you in out post, not "@dada139" because that's not your username you see. I'm sorry for the confusion caused, I'm also sorry that for whatever reason my original tag of her profile didn't work right the first time, I'm also sorry you thought I was talking to you instead of her, since my reply didn't make much sense in response to your post, but I hope this one does. Thanks! And again sorry, LostStonerBoy