With the South in the grip of a record-breaking heat way, air-conditioning systems are dropping like flies. HVAC technicians are working from dawn to midnight in my area.
And as I seem to be going through one of those periods where everything starts breaking down (cars, a generator, and even my father's knee-cap), I have been able to "fix" two air-conditioners by simply catching up on routine maintenance by cleaning out the condensation overflow lines.
These lines are designed to remove the condensation created by the air-conditioner squeezing the humidity out of the air.
Your main condensation line should flow to the outside of the house. Algae and other materials can clog it over time and that's when the condensation overflow line takes over. This line usually drips to the outside in an obvious place (over a window or near a door) so you will notice it! When it starts dripping, you need to take action. If it's running a steady stream, trouble may be ahead. (Some units have a float or kill switch that will shut down the unit until you clean out the line; some units may run but not cool properly, or you may have water leak from the interior blower unit).
You need to locate the main line to clean it out and then you can maintain it by flushing it with a cup of bleach once a month during the months you are using your air-conditioning. You flush it through a capped PVC pipe located at the interior blower. If that blower is in your attic and not readily accessible, as one of mine is, then things get a little more complicated.
Here are my experiences. But I warn you: I AM NOT AN AIR-CONDITIONING
TECHNICIAN.
1. In my older personal home, the main line runs out of the attic out the eave, under the deck and some 16 feet to the edge of the patio. The secondary overflow line runs out of the eave ending in a saw-off 4- inch stub. Because of the length of the piping on my main line, my HVAC technician has back-washed it using a garden hose. He's gives it a 10 second blast of water and then repeats until the line flushes clean. We have also used a coat hanger to dislodge silt and other materials. Last week, I knew I had been successful in fixing the problem when water gushed clean and then became a steady stream out of the main line, while the overflow line drip eventually dried up. (Please note that the turtles in this photo who had made this mini-lake their home were very happy too.)
2. My parent's home is newer and both the main and overflow line come out of the slab at ground level with about 6 inches of pipe to work with. On this particular day -- this past Monday -- water was dripping from the interior blower and dampening their carpet.
With such a short length of piping to work with you obviously don't want to shoot water directly into the AC. Using a coat hanger and foot-long bottle brush, I worked from both the inside and the outside to get things flowing, not really knowing which was the main line and which was the overflow. I had to dig out dirt in and around the exterior lines before giving it a good pipe cleaning. Eventually, a chunk of gray gellatinous gunk came out of one of the lines in a gush of water. And the drip below their blower unit stopped.
Saved myself some money and saved the air-conditioning man for someone who really needed it.
