How to clear snow of heat pump fan blades

[slybry]

Simple problem that I am sure others have had to deal with.

While on vacation (I live in snowy Montreal) I switched my system to use only the oil furnace and turn heat down to 17 C (as per reccommendation of my heat pump installer). Upon return I found my idle heat pump covered in snow. I cleared the snow off the top easy enough but was left with 6 inches of snow sitting on fan blades below the protective grid.

I had my wife try and start heat pump while I was outside (hoping to blow snow off blades) but the weight of the snow had seized it up and stopped the fan from spinning. Shut it down right away.

I used a cooking spatula to reach down through top grid to clean off each blade. It was not easy to do and It would have been easy to drop the thing right down into the pump.

Does anyone have a better method than using a spatula?????? I think they are better designed for omelets as opposed to heat pumps.

PS: Reason installer reccomends shutting heat pump down while away is because if a period of freezing rain (we get a fair amount of that) would occur it could cause ice build up on blades and damage heat pump.

[HayZee518]

for the time being use the spatula idea followed by a hair dryer application. if you have access to a tablesaw fashion some sort of roof "above" the ground based condenser unit. use four "spindly legs" to support a square pitched roof of sorts.