doopstr

I went down my basement today be be greeted with about 30 gallons of water on the floor again. This time I figured that the drain on the pan must be clogged. Turns out I was right. I took the side off of the ductwork around the coil and sure enough the pan was full. Looks like I have some clogged plumbing. My question is how to fix this? I can only assume that the pipe is full of some kind of slime because I have been cleaning this out of the HVAC water pump for two years. No idea where the slime comes from.

I have attached two pics of the drain plumbing coming out of the unit. Take a look at the trap part, for whatever reason the PVC pipe looks like it was bent into the shape of a trap and as a result the pipe is very narrow there. When I banged on the trap with a wrench the water started flowing, but I expect it to clog again quickly.

I've never worked with PVC and I have a few questions. How is the PVC joints connected? Are they easy to separate? Is the trap in the drain required by code? I think I could probably just replace the entire drain system, it doesn't look too complicated. What can I do to ensure that this doesn't clog again?

Below are some pics. The first one is a close up of the trap, notice how the PVC is crimped in this area. The second pic is so you can see the entire drain. The water pump is just off frame on the bottom left.

CLIFFS: HVAC drain clogged, how to fix and ensure that it doesn't clog again. Pics below.

Scrib

That's a really strange setup. But I'm baffled to why you'd be having drainage issues. What kind of water do you have?

I don't see the need for having a "trap" there. I would eliminate that.

PVC is very easy to work with. Grab a few 90s, 45s, a stick of PVC and some PVC cleaner and the glue. The cleaner is purple shit you see. It's just a matter of taking a few measurements and deciding how you want the new plumbing to work.

I would see if you can run a 45 off the unit and meet up with the angled section towards the bottom left of the second image. That should be doable.


And how in the fuck do you kink PVC? That's actual PVC, not some sort of a flexible imposter?

crazymjb

Looks like the plumber was short an elbow so used his blow torch instead.

IIRC PVC glue works by chemically attaching one piece of PVC to another, effectively melting it. In that case the joints are extremely hard to separate.

You do not need to remake the entire thing, but I would redo at least that little section. Take it off the furnace first, and use a hacksaw and some new fittings/pipe to mimic what they did, but correctly.

Mike

doopstr

I came across this link on via http://www.high-performance-hvac.com...tion-leak.html

Check out the third pic down. It has the same trap mine has. That must be some standard part that can be purchased. Why it's kinked in that way is beyond me, I think it just leads to service calls to clean it out.

The guy in the vid on that page says to try bleach with warm water. I dumped some in there. I'll see if the flow improves.

ChrisKelly5

All you gotta do is poor some BLEACH down the PVC tube that has the "floater" mechanism on it. It is just a safety feature...

doopstr

Looks like the bleach worked. Now I have something else to do to the damn thing yearly. I'd rather not have the trap and save all the mess in my basement though. Good thing my basement isn't finished. Its been a bad year for water this year.

Reach

Big warning: you do NOT need a trap with the drain is above the furnace. I'm going through an entire hvac system replacement right now because of this very issue. water was leaking slowly all summer from a drain pan overflow, it rusted the coil until it collapsed, then rusted out the heating burners, and finally made its way to the system board where it shorted the thing out. The whole thing needed replacement anyway, but this expedited the process.

I'm having $7k of new equipment installed tomorrow. If that P trap hadn't been there (or if I had caught it), I might have gotten some extra life out of the system.