I am "blessed" with three units, one for my basement and 1st floor, one for the second floor and one for the bonus room over my garage. The upstairs unit was freezing. I figured it was low on freon but I put off calling for service until I could be home. It was not yet too hot so I would let it run about two hours to cool off the bedrooms then shut it down.
I wanting to see the service man go through his routine. Though I can pretty much do anything, I never charged up a system so I wanted to see that through.
Anyway, guess I did that a few times too many. After I had the unit charged up with freon, I happened to go to the basement for something. I saw some water damage under my dining room? With no water lines near, I went to the attic and took a closer look at the air handler up there.
Having only owned this place for two years, I had never been up there due to access being somewhat a pain. The house was fairly new so I only checked some circuits and did a once over myself when I bought it.
The unit does have a working drain but the pan underneath does not. It must have filled the pan with enough moisture to overflow. The overflow migrated down through the walls on both floors without bleeding through and staining the walls to boot.
I need to replace a few drop ceiling panels in the finished basement but that's all. All things considered, I got lucky there.
I've wondered if I was wasting too much time and effort, but I've kept washing from inside out. Of course, I used my shop vac on the outside to get the cottonwood cotten off.
