HVAC Help - Water Coming from Secondary Drain

Nu Calgon is seriously good stuff!

 

We buy it by the case

 

I cut the pipe between the unit and the T next to the p trap, no water came out. I looked up the pipe and didn't see anything blocking from in the unit.

 

How many air handlers do you have? Maybe coming from a different handler, or if a water heater relief or overflow is piped to that same drain somewhere.

 

I can't really figure out how to get the panel off, I exposed some screws, but it looks like it's folded over. The top needs to come off?

 

We just have one unit.

As far as I know the water heater pressure relief valve goes to the side of the house

 

I'm thinking about cutting it close to the HD bucket and sucking/blowing air down it. Should be easy to couple back and then it will isolate some of the upstream parts

 

I used an endoscope to look at the coils.....don't see much of anything on them

 

Yeah that coil looks good. No need to tear open and clean.

 

Looks like it splits after the p trap. Can you cut there and check both lines coming off the p?

 

Well i cut the line next to where the home depot bucket is in that picture and wrapped a shirt around the pipe and pushed air through it with the shop vac. I left it on and went downstairs and checked the primary vent on the side of the house and there was a good amount of air coming out of it. Do you think its worth it to go back in the attic and check the other side (the upstream side)?

I accidently grabbed a 1" coupler at the hvac shop so i ran up to home depot and grabbed the right ones. They had a matching p trap there so i grabbed it and a bunch of fittings and ended up just replacing the p trap. Everything went pretty smooth except i unscrewed the threaded pvc fitting on where the primary screws into the metal box, and when i put it back together and a thread or two of the female part got chowdered. It felt like it was able to grip when i reinstalled it. Hopefully it didn't get messed up too bad.



i poured a little bleach in the p trap for good measure. I'll click on the ac and see what happens. If it still leaks out of the secondary, i'm going to have to call in the pro's because i cant think of anything else.

 

Sounds like you cleaned it out pretty well. No need to check the other side if one side is draining. I wouldn't worry about the threads on the pvc to much. If some water happens to come through it will land on the pan and drain out the secondary.

 

Ive got the ac going now, i'll keep you guys updated with whats going on.

I'll also go up and take a peak this evening in the attic and make sure nothing is leaking.

 

Thanks for the info! I'm waiting to see what happens today with the ac running. If it still is dripping out of the secondary, i'll call the same company that was out about a month ago and did a tune up on our system.

 

So the ac has been running for about 45min, before i was getting about 1 drip/second out of the primary on the side of the house, its probably at about 8-10drips/second now, and nothing coming out of the secondary.

 

Welcome to the wonderful world of HVAC! We got a holiday finally but you missed it this year.

 

When it starts after being off it will draw more humidity out of the air, hence more condensation from the first part of the cooling cycle. Like @LuvTundras said, it may have iced up too and made it’s way out of the secondary hole or out the case. It will ice up from dirty filter, plugged drain, or low airflow.

Whoever installed it did not make an access so you would need to create one or remove the downstream can if you ever need to clean it.

 

I have a spare filter, I'll go change it now.

 

And it started dripping from the secondary.

Definitely less than before but still.....

 

Lame sauce, if I was near, I’d take a look for you

 

Yeah, gonna have to pull out the big guns.

I appreciate your guys help!

 

I just thought of another thing you could try. Pull that primary off and pour water down it. If it fills and stays full for longer then it should (not draining fully) you know there is a clog. Try that in both primary lines coming off the p trap and see what happens.

 

Funny you mention it that, I just got off the phone with a hvac tech from the company that did the tuneup a few weeks ago and he said to do that, so I put a big measuring cup under the primary outlet and went up into the attic and dumped a 16oz bottle of water down that T above the p trap. By the time I got downstairs and outside there was 16oz in the measuring cup.

It's strange, if I just have the upstairs thermostat on cool and the downstairs off, it doesn't seem like it drips out of the secondary. I just turned on the downstairs while the upstairs was on and it started dripping. Maybe just a coincidence?

They are going to come out tomorrow afternoon to look at it.

 

Keep us updated. Hopefully it's something simple.

 

Will do! He mentioned that there could be something about a splash screen by the condenser, but he didn't know for sure if my model had it.

 

So what happened?

 

Sorry, forgot to update.
Tech couldn't find anything wrong, he was stumped. All levels were in spec, they blasted nitrogen up the primary.

We plumbed the second drain from the condensing coil into the primary. So now if we get water out of the secondary, it means its coming from the pans.

 

Smart move, that’s the way mine is setup… hopefully that will clear things up.

 

Well atleast @FrenchToasty and I weren't going crazy. Glad your up and running again.

 

Thanks a lot for your guys help! I really appreciate it.
I always try to diy if I can and getting some advice from you pro's really helped.

And icing on the cake the tech that came out just wrote it off as a warranty re-visit so didn't cost me a penny.