Most people don’t know this, but an air conditioner’s first job is to remove moisture from the air. The dryer the air, the more comfortable you are. We are pretty lucky here in the Sacramento area and don’t suffer the humidity like other parts of the country. However, there is still humidity and we need a way to get rid of it.
If your furnace or air handler are in the attic, it is very important that you know how the coil and condensate lines get rid of that moisture.
There is a primary condensate drain that takes the water from the evaporative coil and out to the exterior of the house. This PVC pipe is somewhere low along the foundation of your home. You want to see water here! Depending on how much your system is running as well as the humidity in the air will determine if a little or a lot of water comes out of this drain pipe. This is a good thing. It is normal.
It is a good idea to go around the exterior of your home and locate it. Make sure it hasn’t been buried in landscaping materials because that can cause backups and other issues.
Then you have the secondary drain. It will always be located over a window or doorway. This is important because if you ever see water coming out of this drain you want to turn your air conditioner off and contact us immediately. Water coming from here means that you have a back up in the primary drain and this is your alert that there is a problem.
There should be a pan underneath the coil to catch any excess water until you have the system checked, however they can overflow and then you could have water leaking into your attic space. Over enough time, water could come through lighting fixtures or the sheetrock could just soak up the water and eventually fall into the house. You don’t want to lose a ceiling because you noticed water coming out of the secondary drain and kept putting off calling!
One way that we at Perfection Home Systems have helped prevent water leaks and issues is by installing a safety switch at the units installed in the attic. If the switch senses water in the back up pan, the switch will cut the power off to the system and you will be calling us saying “my air conditioner stopped working!” not “my ceiling just fell into my kitchen!”
If you want to make sure your condensate is draining properly, that is something that we check on regular maintenance visits. Algae and insect nests are two major causes of primary drains backing up. We flush the PVC pipe and make sure it is draining properly when we do your HVAC system tune-up.