Posted: 7/25/2012 1:34:37 PM EDT
|
So I live in a condo, and my neighbor's air handler shares a drain line with my air handler. I have a very old air handler, seems original from when the condo was built in the 1970's. It seems to have developed a clog in the drain line over the past week or so. I went up into the attic to see if I could clear it out and I pulled out some blown in insulation from the bottom of my condensate pan. There is a copper drain pipe that seems to head outside, but I do not see where it goes. I think it drains into gutter system because I can hear water dripping down the down pipe but we haven't had rain in a while. I was thinking of using a pluming snake on the drain line. Any other suggestions?
Oh also, there are definitely some air leaks from the trunk, should I use regular duct tape to fix that or that silver tape? In reality, I know I need a whole new system, but it isn't in the budget right now. Thanks. |
If the drain line runs to the trap of one of your sinks, you might want to close the drain and run a couple of inckes of water in the sink before you blow the line out with an air compressor. All that biofilm will shoot out like a bullet, and blow all over the walls, ceiling and floor if you don't... I know this from personal experience. 
|
Ok, sorry for the delay, I finally have a free day to tackle this issue. I snapped some photos.
This is a picture of the drain line. It is copper and comes out of the unit. It seems to run into a hole cut into the side of the fascia, I believe that it empties into the gutter system. The tee that runs into it is from my neighbors air handler. 
I believe that this corroded area is part of the drain pan. I can not find where the drain line comes in from. It is very tight and I can not get my hand in there to feel around. I don't think any of the other panels come off either. 
This is the bottom part of the evaporator coils. It was full of brown gunk and water. I cleaned it out just so I could see what was going on. It seemed the water started to flow a bit better after doing that. I could see it run towards the left and towards where ever the drain is. The coils appear clean. Should I spray them with a cleaner anyways? 
I'm slightly concerned about the blower motor and fan. When I took the cover off this morning after just running the blower, the motor was emitting quite a bit of heat. The motor looks fairly caked with dust and debris as does the fan blades themselves. Would it be worth my while to vacuum this out? When I was up there, I went through a roll of paper dowels dabbing up some water that pooled underneath my unit sitting between the drywall and the bottom chords of my roof trusses. Also the insulation inside of air handler was very wet and I dabbed that up. Would it be worth it to wrap the case of the air handler in a foil bubble insulation sheet? Thanks for the help everyone, I have a lot of building knowledge, but really never learned about HVAC at all. |
| The coil looks clean enough, I wouldn't worry about it. The blower wheel and motor definitely need to be cleaned. Take it all apart and blow the motor out with compressed air. Then hose off the blower wheel, but make sure you don't disturb any of the balance weights. |
| I think I got it all squared away today. I got my plastic hose into the drain opening in the back and pushed it in until it stopped. I had a 15 foot length of the stuff and it stopped with like 5 feet to spare, so I think it made it all the way out. I sprayed the evaporator coils even though they were pretty clean looking, I figure it won't hurt. I used my small compressor and blew off the motor and followed it up with my shop vac. It looks much better now, I probably should have snapped a picture. I then closed everything up and let it run for a bit. I didn't see any water leaking so I taped up all the seams. I still have the attic open, I'm debating whether or not it's worth it to insulate the unit itself. Using tape on all the gaps did help quite a bit, but I figure every little bit helps. |