air handler coils froze up - question

[QRTRHRS]

If you had a good tech. He/she would have inspected to insure that you had a switch added to the pan to shut down the A/C unit when the drain stopped up .Or in your case. no drain

The tech never checked the upstairs air handler. He thought that the freon was not that low and that perhaps it had leaked out of the valves by the condenser outside. I had not discovered the moisture until after the tech was out to service it. I do have a drain from the unit but not the pan itself.

FWIW, the house is fairly well built but like most houses, there are some small details that were skipped over. The attic hatch is just a piece of drywall with some trim around it. The builder did not build a "well" with 2x on the attic side so the blown in insulation was free to float around as soon as I pushed the drywall up.

I added some boards to cure that then built a "bridge" over the trusses to get to the air handler. There is about nine inches of blown in celulose so I did not want to squash that down with repeated steps. The tech told me that it is now code to have a walkway to a unit in the attic. My area happens to be on the low side of zoning, etc., so that may have/may not have been in existance when the house was built.

I can now keep a better eye on things and so far so good.

 

[kenmac]

I'm going to assume you are talking about the emergency drain pan. This is in addition to the coil itself & should extend under the entire unit. This pan should also have a drain. I install an emergency float switch in addition to the the drain just incase it gets stopped up . Usually with insulation that is added later. I would suggest you add a shut off switch or have 1 added . It's cheap insurance


Here's a link to the switch. http://www.google.com/products/cata...v3L4z-wAXPvYnLCQ&sa=title&ved=0CAcQ8wIwADgA#p


easy to install

 

[QRTRHRS]

The pan is just slightly larger than the air handler. It is only about an inch deep and is not drained. The drain pipe is connected right to the air handler. The drain pipe itself runs down through a wall to the basement where it teminates to drip right into a floor drain.

I don't have to worry about the mud dauber's plugging up the drain line.

I was looking at the safety switch from your link. Will that work in such a shallow pan?

 

[Soundguy]

what about 't' into the other drain line?

soundguy

 

[kenmac]

I was looking at the safety switch from your link. Will that work in such a shallow pan?

Yes, that switch should work in your pan

 

[BobRip]

what about 't' into the other drain line?

soundguy

Soundguy, if the drain line is blocked (a not uncommon occurance) then this will not help. It needs a totally separate line.

 

[Soundguy]

he could at least piggy back the line with some cpvc and use the sem end drain. might save some work.

soundguy

 

[Bird]

My old system "looked" good, but then when the main drain stopped up once, the overflow missed the pan underneath it by an inch or so. Now this new system has a much bigger pan under it, so it should catch anything. And the old system did not have one of those safety switches in that pan, but the new one does.

A friend who had to replace a lot of ceiling after his overflowed said he learned to go up there and put bleach in the main condensation drain once a month. The installer on our new system said you ought to do that a couple of times each summer. I'll probably keep doing it monthly as long as I can climb those steps, but I still say hanging would be too good for the guy who started putting that stuff in the attic.:laughing:

 

[Soundguy]

I used to do that, but forgot about it a while back. am now doing it again.

soundguy

 

[kenmac]

but I still say hanging would be too good for the guy who started putting that stuff in the attic.:laughing:

Come on now While I hate to work on the A/C in the attic in the summer. My stuff is in the attic cause I put it there. It's out of the way. When my WH burst a few months back my pan caught all the water that the pipes could put out. My WH is in a 30x30 pan with 6-8'' sides with a 2'' drain