delanok Ryan offers solid advice. This problem needs attention before it causes premature failure of your condenser. I suggest you find the best Carrier tech in your area who knows their heat pumps. Refrigerant charge is likely suspect. If you are low on refrigerant, you must find out the reason why. Leaks have to be located and repaired if possible. Post back and let us know what they find. Sorry for your trouble. IMO Good Luck!

Replacement of the outdoor unit is probably recommended due to age this necessitates replacing the indoor coil for warranty and efficiency reasons, whether or not you replace the furnace should have to do with your long term goals (how long you will be living there, importance of resale value and efficiency) a good technician or salesman will help you to understand that Here is a link that might be useful: Air Conditioning Repair made Easy

After we had the freon added both my wife and I realized that it was never this cold after installation 2 years ago! It was June of 2008 and almost everyday it went to 2nd stage cooling (yellow light on tstat) for at least a couple of hours. Right now, after a week(after bringing it to full charge) it has never gone to 2nd stage (green light stays on). This leads me to believe that it was not fully/correctly charged at installation. It's all about installation-installation-installation! We are actually thinking about cutting future losses and having a new system installed next year from a reputable company that we know will be around for a long time-and most importantly a 10 year PARTS & LABOR warranty!!

I hadn't give thought that you might think I was infering dishonest about cleanleness until A Air commented on taking people at their word. Truth is I've lost count of how many times contractors and employees told me a coil was clean when it wasn't. Their warn't lying,they simply didn't see dirt until I showed them how to make certain. I did the same until wiser men showed me different. I still haven't mastered how to perdict what third parties ( mfgr,dealer and distributor in this case) will do. Hopfully you don't need to go that far so let's do what we can on our own before finding out. I just believe this is well worth persuing since it cost's nothing and will do no harm. I can't say the same about tapping into sealed systems. Manys a perfectly charged system has been contaminated,caused to begin leaking or worse when needlessly opened up. As a rule of thumb,as compressors get smaller, sensitivity increases across the board and skill to deal with it become's increasingly neccessary. If not useful on this unit,I have some tips for confined coils. Adapt as the need arises. I carried mirrors including one similar to those dentists and hygeniests use. It's sometimes amazing to see what's around corners. Much quicker than dissassembly only to find everything ok. A garden sprayer will handle most coil wash jobs but in addition I carried pressurized containers with different coil washes inside. I often prefer pushing dirt back out in direction it came from. A 1/8" soft copper pipe with spray head can be snaked into back side of coil and using high pressure liquid or plain air ( depending on whether pressure tank is upright or inverted) can drive dirt out to side I can see. Eventhough you can't see wand and spray head,the spray can be directed by watching dirt come out side which is visiable. I figure this can save tech time and do better work when dealing with M-splits. If a wet vac hose with 90* floor tool can be manipulated to catch dirt and liquid as it's expelled,you can do 1st class on central system coils. Bigger spray head,more water and more pressure. I would use no rinse evap coil cleaner on this ms but it usually only come's in gallons. I have no objection to diswashing or laundry detergent if that's all one has. If you have a digital thermometer that reacts within secounds of temp change, and an amp meter,do this. Watch and record running temp and amps. Do amps increase above rated run amps before compressor cut's off, do temps progressivly change as amps change and other readings. Since I've lead us this deep,I should at least say why I think this could be air flow related. A freeze up caused by low refrigerant can be expected to start iceing at point where it enter's coil then progress until air flow begin's to drop then continue progressivly covering coil in turn progressivly restricting air flow. That's a clean coil with inadiquate refrigerant. A properly charged coil drop's temp rather even across whole coil. A properly (and to a degree, inadiquate) charged coil with inadiquate air flow from dirt restriction or too low fan can be expected to frost then shortly ice across intire coil surface. Anywho,this will be one less thing tech need's to do if one must be called. Your amp-temp chart might also prove helpful.