Lone Star Cooling and Heating
Get help with Condensate Drain Cleaning
Call Lone Star Cooling and Heating, have us call you, or describe the issue.
Prefer to talk?
Call (325) 219-0005Clearing and treating the drain line, pan and pump that carry water away from a cooling system or high-efficiency furnace, and testing the float switch, before slime and sludge back the water up.
01Condensate drain
These signs appear well before water overflows, which makes them the right moment to clean the drain.
While the system cools, water should trickle steadily from the end of the drain line. When that flow slows or stops during a humid spell, the line is likely narrowing with slime, and clearing it now heads off an overflow later.
The pan under the indoor coil should empty about as fast as it fills. Water standing in it, or a slimy film across the bottom, shows the drain is slowing, and the pan and line are cleaned and flushed before the water reaches the rim.
A partly blocked line can gurgle as water and air compete to get through it, and algae growing in the pan or trap gives off a damp, musty smell. Both are early signs that the drain is due for cleaning.
A pump that hums longer than it used to, or switches on more often, may be clogged with sludge or wearing out. Cleaning its reservoir and check valve, and testing its safety switch, keeps it from failing on a humid day.
02Before or after
A condensate drain gets cleaned one way or the other. The difference is what happens to the building first.
The line is cleared while water still gets through. The pan is wiped out, the line is flushed or vacuumed from its outlet, a treatment is added to slow new growth, and the float switch is tested. It fits into a routine visit and nothing in the building gets wet.
The same line is cleared once it has already stopped. By then the float switch may have shut the cooling off on a hot day, or, where no switch was fitted, water may have spilled onto a floor or into a ceiling. The drain work is much the same; the damage around it is not.
Condensate Drain Cleaning
Serving Abilene, TX.
03The parts
Four parts share the job of carrying water away, and each one fails in its own way.
Water condensing on the indoor coil drips into a pan fixed beneath it, then runs by gravity through a plastic drain line to the outside or into the building’s drains. Many lines have a trap and a capped cleanout near the unit, which gives a technician a place to flush the line without disturbing the equipment. Where gravity cannot do the job, a small pump collects the water in a reservoir and pushes it up and away.
A float switch mounted in the pan, the line or the pump interrupts the cooling if water rises too high. Equipment over a finished ceiling commonly has a backup pan beneath it as well, drained separately or fitted with a switch of its own. Those safeguards only help if they work, so testing them belongs in the same visit as cleaning the line.
04If it backs up
None of this clears the drain. All of it limits the damage until it has been cleaned.
If a float switch has shut the system off, it is holding back the overflow. Leave it in place rather than bypassing it to get cooling back.
If water is pooling around the indoor unit, switch the system off at the thermostat and keep people and pets away from standing water near outlets or equipment.
05Questions
The line stays dark, damp and warm, which suits algae and bacteria, and dust rinsed off the coil feeds them. The slime they form narrows the line a little more every season. Regular flushing and a treatment in the pan slow the growth, and a line that sags or lacks enough slope clogs more easily.
It is a small switch that rises with water in the drain pan, the line or a pump. When water backs up far enough, it interrupts the cooling so no more water is made. A system shut down by its float switch is signalling that the drain needs clearing, and the switch itself should stay in service.
A high-efficiency furnace cools its exhaust enough that water condenses out of it, and that water has to drain away just like the water from an air conditioner. It is mildly acidic, so it runs through plastic piping, and in some installations it passes through a neutralizer first.
If it smells of burning, is leaking water, or the outdoor unit is humming without its fan turning, yes: switch it off at the thermostat. A system that runs but does not keep up can usually stay on until it is looked at.
Lone Star Cooling and Heating
Call Lone Star Cooling and Heating, have us call you, or describe the issue.
Prefer to talk?
Call (325) 219-0005