"He didn't check the strips--just made it defrost and said it was kicking in according to the amps." - The 10 kw strips consist of two 5 kw sections. Only one 5kw section may be operating properly. Bad wire or bad sequencer. Get his a$$ back and have him meter the strips while the condenser is in defrost to make sure that all strips are energized. If you have 10kw strips and both are working fine, replace them with 15 kw strips (Goodman part# HKR-15C, approx $100). Did he check the air temperature after the strips to see if you were getting the 76 degrees that he stated? "The defrost is on 60 min. I need to change this to 90??" - Depending on climate and conditions, a longer defrost initiation time saves you money and helps with wear-n-tear on your system. I moved mine from 60 to 90 minutes with no problems with freeze-up, in Baltimore. FYI 10 kw electric strips provide an approximate 26 degree temperature rise at 1200 CFM fan speedd. If the air temp before the coil is 50 degrees, then the air temp after the coil is 50 + 26 = 76 degrees. If one of the 5 kw strips is not working, then 5 kw provides only a 13 degree rise, so 50 + 13 is 63 degrees. This will cool the house. 15kw strips provide a 40 degree rise in temperature. Good luck.

The outdoor unit should not run in regular heat mode or be in defrost when there is no longer a call for heat. Turning the t-stat to "off" will terminate the defrost cycle, but on another call for heat the unit may automatically go into defrost to melt the light ice/frost off the outdoor coils.

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.

I too am having the same problem and very similar to Sparky. I too have a Goodman unit that was installed about 4 years ago and the outdoor unit replaced again after a year and it failed. I too have just noticed cold air blowing out and apparently it is during the defrost cycle. I put a hout thermometer on it and it will normally run around 84 degrees at the register but at times will run about 68 degrees. The temp outside has benn mid 20s to mid 30s. The furnace guy came out and said the filter was plugged and had kicked out the heat strips. I questioned this, but figured he knew what he was doing. After he left if continued to happen and had him out again. He 'added' a board to turn the unit off during defrost. Doesnt sound like that can be done from what I read. In any case he left and the unit continues to do the same thing. It sounds to me that the heat strip must not be coming on during defrost. What part that might be is probably the question. Does anyone know if the heatstrips have an interanl 'breaker' or theraml cuttoff. I know I checked the breakers back at the panel and the breakers on the indoor unit and they were normal before the heater guy showed up and told me he had to reset these. Any thoughts or possible solutions from the others that are experiencing the problems please let me know.