hvac01453
04-07-2014, 03:12 AM
Original complaint. Condensate comming down thru the ceiling. Air handler was installed in a cramped space above kitchen apt. Looked at unit and water was forward of the cabinet and in the cabinet. Found pan rotted. No secondary pan (space limited) Customer issued replacement pan with extra length to include under the motor blower housing. Bad idea, it was sucking the water up, out of the pan, like a water spout. Ordered and installed OEM pan, still leaks. Pitched pan towards outlet a bit more severely, still leaks. Cabinet is level, found drain slow, and was reduced to 1/2" PVC, removed the drain from the equation with original 3/4" PVC and a condensate pump, still leaks. I cut the coil out last fall and power washed it clean assumed it was still clean, but noted it had black crude on a lot of the coil. Customer is non smoker but does burn candles often, so I chemically cleaned it with sodium hydroxide foaming cleaner to push the junk out, and it removed quite a bit, rinsed profusely. Still leaks. Saw sprinkles of water on blower housing after on for one minute...Had a Lexan panel made to see what was going on with cover in place, the side of the coil sheet metal had a small piece of sheet metal rotted off (by the tube sheet ends ) to prevent air from going around the coil. I cut and attached a blocking extention piece of sheet metal,and gasketed the panel side. No more spurts on the blower housing. But now the blower motor and housing have condensate forming on them and drip onto the insulation and then get blown forward and viola it's leaking again. These arn't a matched set, so I checked them and both are 2 ton heat pumps, I noted today the suction line wasn't sweating while 85F and about 70% RH... No frosting on the cap tubes in the air handler but sweating fine on the top 4" only, and not sweating down through all the U bends either, so she's low on gas....What is making the blower housing and motor sweat??? I even put a strip of aluminum buble wrap insulation on the leading edge on the housing (closest to the coil) where it sweated profusely.. I checked my delta T was 10F .... 80F return & 70F supply... Haven't returned yet, but after charging it up...will it drip??? What's going on??? Any ideas? Oh...the return is 14", should've fine...