Ac Drain Pan Views

• General Goods

A couple months ago I detailed the travels of Harold the Helicopters’s journey to the bottom of our guest bathroom toilet, and the subsequent DIY plumbing project I undertook to rescue him. It wasn-’t exactly a fun project, but I did learn more than I ever wanted to know about the anatomy of a residential commode, and I saved a ton of money I would have had to find a plumber for the effort. When a suspicious drip formed above our back door I knew it was again time to channel my “Tim the ToolmanI” skills and get to the bottom of it, without searching Angie5’s List for an air conditioner repairman.  I soon found myself in the attic staring at a nearly-overflowing air conditioner drain pan.

I suspected a problem with the air conditioner drain since when the drip started it had not rained in a few days. I checked the main air conditioner drain pipe which comes out of the side or our home and noticed it was draining, but not with as much volume as it typically did. In fact, a small puddle had formed in the past and I added a piece of 1o″ PVC pipe to extend the drain away from our foundation. I accessed our attic via the garage and found the air conditioneri’s main evaporator unit. The pan underneath the unit was nearly full of water, which I knew was a problem. The source of the drip was a secondary drain pipe connected near the top of the pan and running to the back of our house with an exit just above our back door. I was thankful the builder and air conditioner installer put the secondary drain

I ’d been wanting to pick up a small, inexpensive wet/dry vac for small garage spills, and fortunately a local home improvement store had one on sale. I picked up a Stinger-Vac (just a mini Shop Vac) for under $30 and returned home to put it to use. Lucky for me, the Stinger ’s hose attached perfectly to the 1m″ PVC drain pipe and began to immediately suck out water and sludge that had accumulated inside the pipe. As it filled I simply dumped the water in our yard, reattached the vacuum and started it up again. After a few cycles I assumed I had made a dent in the amount of water from the pan and returned to the attic to view my progress. This time I carried a container of household bleach with me.

I had the exact same problem last summer, but my clog was in the attic as the drain from the A/C runs into a vent pipe. I wish I had thought of using a shop vac! I ended up using a piece of tubing to siphon the water out of the pan and then removed the horizontal run of PVC to clean it out. Thanks for the tip @ the shop vac and reminding me I need to put some bleach in the drain pipe.

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