Tidbit Tuesdays-Spring Fever

The first blossoms of spring are starting to bloom at The Retreat, and we have heard of our first case of an air conditioning failure. Unfortunately, every year there are a few AC units that just can't handle another year of hard labor in this South Carolina heat. Air conditioners (a simple graphic by the Department of Energy describing the fundamentals) usually cause damage to units in one of two ways: the drain line clogs and the emergency drain fails or the system "freezes".

There are two drain lines from the wall unit of your air conditioner. The normal drain leaves the unit and empties in the laundry room floor drain beside the hot water tank. The main drain line needs to be routinely cleaned. The most common thing to do is to pour bleach down the main drain once a month when changing out your air conditioning filter. (The main drain can be located at the back of the wall unit, as a hole that you can feel, flush with the horizontal metal. The emergency drain has a raised lip to prevent water from normally flowing into it.)

The emergency drain empties into a pan of some sort with a small sensor attached. This pan is supposed to fill with water and turn off the system by activating the floating sensor.  This fail safe system should be checked annually since the pan inevitably can rust or the sensor can fail, resulting in a flooded laundry room and a wet downstairs neighbor when the main drain fails. This line should also be flushed, but you need to have a method to catch the water in the laundry room prepared.

The system "freezes" for multiple reasons, but common ones include low refrigerant or turning the system on too cool. (This can be a catch-22 problem. If the system is not cooling the condo well, the tendency is to turn the thermostat lower, rather than call for a repair.) The major concern with this from a condo perspective is that many of the refrigerant lines run between the units (ceiling/floor). So the upstairs unit may have a frozen system and may not realize it unit the below unit finds water dripping into their unit from the ceiling.

Overall, the best things to do are to make sure you continue to do regular maintenance on your system and have it checked annually or semi-annually by an HVAC company. If you are not a full time resident, have a neighbor check on your unit routinely (a building rep is always a good option if you don't know many people) or hire someone to do regular checks and maintenance. (Those air filters do not change themselves!)