Dripping AC Drain Stains Wall

Would you notice this stain on the front of a house in your neighborhood?  This stain started as a simple drip and accumulated as the drip was ignored.

This stain is a warning sign! We can help prevent this kind of problem happening to you or your neighbor’s house.

Let me tell you what is happening here.

Air Conditioning systems condense water on an evaporator coil similar to how a glass of ice tea does at dinner. I am sure you have seen a puddle of water around your ice tea glass in the summer… well, your evaporator coil has to deal with a much bigger puddle of water as it cools your home in the summer.

Condensation collects into a drain pan with 2 drains. First is a primary drain which dumps the water into an existing plumbing drain within your house.  Then a secondary overflow drain takes over if the primary drain stops up. This secondary drain is run to an exterior wall and, often, right over a window. The intent is to give you a visual warning that your primary drain is clogged and needs cleaning.  If you see water dripping from your secondary drain, you should call an air conditioning service company immediately!

Unfortunately, most are not informed about the reason for condensate dripping down an outside wall.  Also, most homeowners don’t know where their secondary overflow drain is located.  This homeowner used PVC pipe to route the leak around the window which didn’t help much. The drip continued and the wall is stained while the primary drain is still clogged.

A clogged primary drain is also a risk for water damage to your house.  If the secondary overflow drain stopped up it could overflow the drain pan and create ceiling damage or cause a mold infestation.  We don’t want that!

So walk outside for some exercise and see if you spot any drips.  If your reading this blog outside the cooling season, make a mental note to check next summer. Dripping water is not good for your exterior no matter whether the cause is a dripping AC drain or leaking  gutters or leaking roof drip edge.

Feel free to pass this info to a friend or neighbor, especially if you see a drip. If we all watch out for each other, we will all experience less aggravation.

-Stacey Pearson sales/estimating

Space aliens that is. You think they are your family members, you see them several times a day, they live in your house; BUT, there is something wrong, they like it too WARM or they like it too COLD.

Individuals prefer a rather wide range of room temperatures. Often, this leaves someone wearing extra layers and muttering, and someone else in a tee shirt… muttering. Nobody is happy. Ever experience anything like this at your house?

Hurrah! There are solutions. Yes, everyone can just get along better… at least temperature wise.

Technology provides the answer. It is called Zoned Systems. You can create zones in your home that vary in temperature by the precise amount of heated or cooled air delivered into that space. This allows comfort zones that come closer to pleasing all the resident aliens.

And maybe you are wondering why you are cooling and heating parts of the house when they are not be used? Zone systems allows you to choose how much to heat and cool unoccupied as well as occupied spaces.

Do you like your master bedroom cool at night- say maybe 68 degrees? You certainly are paying more to cool the entire house to 68 degrees.

Maybe your parents live with you. As your years of experience increase, so does your need for warmer temperatures. Mom or Dad might be much more comfortable- say at a nice and cozy 75 degrees. And the kids in the house can have their own comfortable temp somewhere in between.

Zoned Systems can really help bring temperature harmony to a houseful of aliens.

We have addressed hot corners and cool nooks in the house but here we have concentrated on individual temperature tastes. 2 story houses are a particular heating and cooling challenge because warm air rises. This keeps the upstairs and the downstairs residents in conflict because of variations in temperatures. 2 story houses are particularly well adapted to zoned systems.

Might a zoned system make sense for your home? Do you have several aliens in the house? Do you have an upstairs? Are you tired of heating or cooling house spaces you are not in? Feel free to call or email for more information. We would love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below. What can you tell us about aliens you have known?

And remember, your home can be more comfortable AND save you money at the same time. Sounds almost subversive doesn’t it? Sort of like having your cake and eating it too. Until you stop and think about it and then it makes good sense.

Give us a call or email. We would enjoy helping you gather and interpret the data whether a zoned system might make sense for your specific situation.

This story is as old as Dagwood Bumstead and the pictures of water spraying out from under the sink and Blondie standing in the background with her arms folded looking exasperated.

But we are not talking about plumbing here, we are talking about adding a new thermostat to the HVAC system. Here is the scenario.

People go down to Home Depot and look at that line of thermostats and the sign says how easy they are to install and they have all these wonderful features and people are thinking about all the money they are going to save.

Yes, the right thermostat can save lots of money by better regulating how homes are heated and cooled…

But what they are really thinking about is all that money they are going to save by DOING IT THEMSELVES.

They don’t have to pay the technician to come out and do it for them. NO, they can DO IT and save money. And who doesn’t want to save a little money right now?

I have to confess, I have tried this myself and I an not a technician but I work at an Air Conditioning company and I am a real handy guy. But it didn’t work. The wires were a different color than the instructions said they were going to be, and  there were more wires than expected, and it didn’t work.

Maybe I was confused by the multiple options the instructions give you for connecting wires, depending on which type of HVAC system you have installed in your home. Whatever, it didn’t work and I got to call in the technician and yes, I did get ribbed about it.

Now there is no reason on earth you can’t do this yourself and make it work. But we do see problems all the time. What usually happens is the newly installed thermostat

• won’t turn the cool on OR
• won’t turn the heat on OR
• nothing will turn on OR
• sometimes a breaker opens AND
• often the thermostat is damaged in the process

and then this hapless soul is

1. Out the price of the thermostat,
2. Out the time it took to install it, and the time it took to figure out it is broke, and the time spent trying to fix it,
3. and now they are waiting for cooling or heating until the technician can come and
4. they are out the cost of the technician and
5. the cost of the new thermostat.

So before you try this yourself, think about it and think about it again. The cost of the installation is not expensive although it is costs more than if you consider your time as free. But only if you get it right. Maybe it makes sense to just save yourself money and aggravation by not doing it yourself.

There are probably a few wives who will read this and feel they have been here and experienced this before. I leave you to your own wiles to either encourage your hubby to add the thermostat or try and hinder the first step towards a disaster. May you have better luck than Blondie.

-Stacey Pearson sales/estimating

Do you  have a home warranty on your home? You likely received a one year warranty when you bought your home. Do you still have it? Are you asked to renew it? Does your warranty company keep coming back to you for renewal?

Lets talk about when home warranties might make sense and when they make less sense.  We will just stick to what we know and give our opinion on making repairs to heating and AC systems through a home warranty.

Now home warranties do just fine with single items. Replace a microwave. But today’s home cooling and heating systems are very complex and a home warranty is often an inadequate answer for repairs.

This will take a little explaining. HVAC systems are very complex. Many parts work together for optimal performance. Good system designs are more than putting parts together just like a tasty cake is more than flour and sugar and butter. Now I have made myself hungry. The parts must be matched together using engineering principles based on science. Well at least they should be.

Unfortunately most home builders are interested in cheap and fast and in and out to get the house done.  Fast and cheap creates system constraints that limit efficient performance, create hot zones and cold zones in homes, and cause systems to fail prematurely.

What does this all have to do with whether home warranties make sense for HVAC repairs?

Well actually quite a bit. Component failure is often a symptom of system defects. If there is a HVAC problem, and if the system is not examined thoughtfully and if the defects are not removed from the system, more problems are coming. Problems that might or might not be fully covered by the warranty are heading your way and they just might not arrive at an inopportune time. That is what unreliable means.

Systems that are poorly designed use more energy, run longer and leave your home less than optimally comfortable. Non of these system problems are addressed by a warranty. You are getting the low bid repair. You are getting the cheapest part at the cheapest price available on the market. We just told the story of systematic  problems created in construction by corner cutting in an effort to be fast and cheap.

Bottom line, your financial interests are poorly served by piecework repair of  home heating and cooling systems. It makes sense  to talk to a professional

• whose job it is to make heating and AC systems as reliable as they can be,
• who is ready to help you with proper maintenance to make sure it operates at the peak of efficiency
• who wants to make you as comfortable as possible.

Our Recommendation to achieve peace of mind and save money

We suggest you talk to a reputable company and get a thorough analysis of where you stand on a system wide basis instead of relying on the repair band aid mentality. Find out your options  for opting out of HVAC coverage. You might also discover that expensive HVAC repairs are used as the big scary bogeyman to sell you the warranty in the first place. Your reputable HVAC support staff will be happy to help you price out cost of power, cost of services, cost of repairs and cost of home warranties and help you choose the  repair or maintenance scenario that makes sense for you.

Here are  final thoughts on peace of mind

The HVAC equipment sold today is very reliable. There is real science and engineering principles behind good system design. A well balanced system well constructed is efficient and reliable. System components will last 10 – 15 years or longer with regular maintenance. This is the key to real peace of mind.  Investing in cheap repairs is can be more expensive and can leave your system undependable.