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I am not looking for a cost estimate or anything here; I just want to know if the below sounds plausible to anyone with HVAC knowledge.
Monday: I came home from work and the thermostat was set at 80, but the temperature inside the house was 87. The secondary condensate line, which had been dripping for a few days, was now trickling much more quickly. I called my home warranty company and they agreed to send a contractor out the following day. I set the thermostat at 90 to give the unit a rest and spent a very uncomfortable night with 3 fans blowing on me.
Tuesday: Contractor comes, claims the filter was dirty (true), and claims the freon level in the condenser was low. He says he topped off the unit, checked the coil (said it was fine), checked the outside unit (I can only assume he means the compressor) and said it was fine, and repeatedly ignored my requests to check the primary condensate line because the secondary condensate line was no longer dripping. I told him that the unit had been shut off all night and maybe all the condensation in the unit had drained out through the secondary line and since the unit was not on, it wasn't making more. Maybe? He shook his head, said it would not leak again, and left. 15 minutes later it started dripping again, though the unit was cooling the house just fine. I called him again and he said he'd be there on Thursday. That afternoon we installed a new filter ourselves.
Thursday: Contractor comes back and immediately disappears into the attic. He came down 30 minutes later, by which time a plumber had arrived on an unrelated issue. He says the coil, which he had said was fine on Tuesday, now needed to be replaced. I asked him what had changed in the last 48 hours and he first claimed that he had not checked the coil on Tuesday, then changed his story and said that he had but it was "frozen" and he couldn't tell if it was working right or not. He said that my primary drain pan was leaking into the secondary drain pan and that my "evap coil" needed to be replaced...he also claimed there were many code violations on the install and that those were not covered by my home warranty. The plumber, who was standing there listening the conversation shaking his head, took me aside after the HVAC tech left and told me that everything he said was "cr@p" and that I should get a better tech out there.
Thursday evening: I emptied the bucket underneath the secondary condensate line outlet and put the empty bucket back underneath the outlet.
Friday morning: The bucket underneath the secondary condensate line outlet is bone dry and the line is no longer dripping. I thought "Gee, this could be very very GOOD or very very BAD." I went immediately to the attic to check the unit and my BF and I found no evidence of leaks or moisture in any visible component or pan of the unit. No moisture on the decking, the insulation, no water in the secondary pan (I think the primary pan is concealed within the coil, but I'm not sure), no drips anywhere. We came out of the attic and checked every ceiling, floor, closet, etc. in the vicinity of the house underneath the condenser and found no evidence of any water leak anywhere.
Friday evening: As I write this, the unit is cooling the house as well as it ever did and the secondary condensate line is not dripping. There is still no evidence of a leak of any kind. The BF checked around noon and I checked again at about 6pm. It is now approaching 9pm.
I spoke to a different HVAC tech today, who says he will be able to inspect the unit next week, and he says this description makes him think that there is most likely nothing wrong with the unit and that the first HVAC tech was trying to take me for a ride.
What do people here think? I appreciate anyone taking the time to read the entire story!
Basically if it turns out that the first HVAC tech was lying to me, I intend to report the company to the BBB and also explore my options with the State of Texas regarding his company's licensing. Surely it's a violation to flat-out lie to people? However I am not quite ready to do that because complaints like this should never be made out of spite and should definitely never be made unless you're pretty darn sure that the other guy is in the wrong. Right?
And now as I sit here, the secondary condensate line has started dripping again. It gurgled out quite a bit of water and has slowed but is dripping at a steady pace.
Now that the dripping has restarted how is the cooling going? If the valve outside on the condenser was frozen, that WILL indicate a problem and I think it will have to thaw before the fan will run again. I believe that is caused by the unit having to run so hard to cool the house. We had that problem when we had a freon leak and the unit was struggling to cool the house without enough freon.
We recently had estimates for replacing our A/C and one thing the guy was offering was a special thermostat that had a feature of knowing when the overflow pans were full and automatically shutting off the A/C so you'd know there was a problem before water leaked through your ceiling. Besides that, the pan system had a little ball that when it floated to a certain level would shut off the system before overflowing. I don't know if those two things were related or if the pan with the automatic shutoff is the easiest solution because I'm not an HVAC expert. Still, while it doesn't solve your problem, it does decrease the chance of damage to your home from a leak.
Don't you hate being a woman and feeling like servicepeople might be ripping you off because of it? Maybe that's just me.
I forgot to mention that another feature of the fancy digital thermostat was that it kept an error log. So when the A/C broke down, a (trained) tech could read the log and see what was happening with the A/C at the time and better know what happened. We didn't get that thermostat but I can see how it would be helpful. That way the tech isn't just guessing what went wrong but has an indication from the thermostat. This was for a Carrier brand.
I am not looking for a cost estimate or anything here; I just want to know if the below sounds plausible to anyone with HVAC knowledge.
Monday: I came home from work and the thermostat was set at 80, but the temperature inside the house was 87. The secondary condensate line, which had been dripping for a few days, was now trickling much more quickly. I called my home warranty company and they agreed to send a contractor out the following day. I set the thermostat at 90 to give the unit a rest and spent a very uncomfortable night with 3 fans blowing on me.
Tuesday: Contractor comes, claims the filter was dirty (true), and claims the freon level in the condenser was low. He says he topped off the unit, checked the coil (said it was fine), checked the outside unit (I can only assume he means the compressor) and said it was fine, and repeatedly ignored my requests to check the primary condensate line because the secondary condensate line was no longer dripping. I told him that the unit had been shut off all night and maybe all the condensation in the unit had drained out through the secondary line and since the unit was not on, it wasn't making more. Maybe? He shook his head, said it would not leak again, and left. 15 minutes later it started dripping again, though the unit was cooling the house just fine. I called him again and he said he'd be there on Thursday. That afternoon we installed a new filter ourselves.
Thursday: Contractor comes back and immediately disappears into the attic. He came down 30 minutes later, by which time a plumber had arrived on an unrelated issue. He says the coil, which he had said was fine on Tuesday, now needed to be replaced. I asked him what had changed in the last 48 hours and he first claimed that he had not checked the coil on Tuesday, then changed his story and said that he had but it was "frozen" and he couldn't tell if it was working right or not. He said that my primary drain pan was leaking into the secondary drain pan and that my "evap coil" needed to be replaced...he also claimed there were many code violations on the install and that those were not covered by my home warranty. The plumber, who was standing there listening the conversation shaking his head, took me aside after the HVAC tech left and told me that everything he said was "cr@p" and that I should get a better tech out there.
Thursday evening: I emptied the bucket underneath the secondary condensate line outlet and put the empty bucket back underneath the outlet.
Friday morning: The bucket underneath the secondary condensate line outlet is bone dry and the line is no longer dripping. I thought "Gee, this could be very very GOOD or very very BAD." I went immediately to the attic to check the unit and my BF and I found no evidence of leaks or moisture in any visible component or pan of the unit. No moisture on the decking, the insulation, no water in the secondary pan (I think the primary pan is concealed within the coil, but I'm not sure), no drips anywhere. We came out of the attic and checked every ceiling, floor, closet, etc. in the vicinity of the house underneath the condenser and found no evidence of any water leak anywhere.
Friday evening: As I write this, the unit is cooling the house as well as it ever did and the secondary condensate line is not dripping. There is still no evidence of a leak of any kind. The BF checked around noon and I checked again at about 6pm. It is now approaching 9pm.
I spoke to a different HVAC tech today, who says he will be able to inspect the unit next week, and he says this description makes him think that there is most likely nothing wrong with the unit and that the first HVAC tech was trying to take me for a ride.
What do people here think? I appreciate anyone taking the time to read the entire story!
Basically if it turns out that the first HVAC tech was lying to me, I intend to report the company to the BBB and also explore my options with the State of Texas regarding his company's licensing. Surely it's a violation to flat-out lie to people? However I am not quite ready to do that because complaints like this should never be made out of spite and should definitely never be made unless you're pretty darn sure that the other guy is in the wrong. Right?
The primary condensate pan is located under the evap coil, within the coil housing. If your coil froze over then it is always possible that it did block the primary condensate drain line, thus forcing condensate to overflow to secondary pan and line. That is always a plausible cause of the delay in the secondary dripping. If you want to test this theory you can either go into the attic and open the evap coil panel (if possible) and view inside. Or you can shut the unit down for 12+ hours to allow it to thaw (in this heat it most likely would) and then turn it on to see if secondary stops dripping for awhile, until the evap coil freezes over again. Here is a little description, and troubleshooting, for a frozen evap coil Troubleshoot a FROZEN Evaporator (AC) Coil.
Replacing any major component in the HVAC system is expensive and always well worth having a second HVAC Tech review the system before you do that. The costs do vary but to give you an idea of what a new system (evap, heater, air handler and exterior compressor) can cost it is running from $1200 - $2000 per ton for average systems, and that does not include new coolant lines, electric, etc. Depending on the age, type, condition, etc., of the system, when you get into replacing major sections you might want to consider replacing the entire system itself. It is a big bite at first but can potentially prevent recurring large service calls later.
Yes, before you report the person to their licensing board (TDLR at Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation), or BBB, I would make sure that you at least speak with the owner of the company and explain the situation, and your intended actions, to him/her. It is possible they are not aware of the full performance of their people once they are out on the streets.
The secondary line is now not dripping again after starting up again last night and dripping steadily for an hour or two.
I'm getting a second opinion for sure.
escanlan I appreciate your feedback but most of what you said went over my head. :-(
No problem. Here are a couple of good sites that you might want to check out before the next HVAC Tech comes out. It will help you understand what they might be saying so you can also tell if they are trying to pull the wool over your eyes.
No problem. Here are a couple of good sites that you might want to check out before the next HVAC Tech comes out. It will help you understand what they might be saying so you can also tell if they are trying to pull the wool over your eyes.
Please don't take the links as insults. We can't know everything about everything. Our knowledge has to start somewhere.
Quite the opposite; I appreciate you pointing me to a source of info for beginners because that is definitely what I am! I will read up on those and post an update once the second opinion comes in; the tech is coming on Monday. Thank you!
Most of the time i've seen with home warranties they send out the cheapest guy/company they can find that will only do band aid fixes. I had a 40 year old furnace that was crapping out, sending off high hydrocarbons and the guy from the home warranty said "it's fine" when a second inspector said it was not. If you want it done right, i'd flip the bill for a better company that knows what the hell they are doing.
Most of the time i've seen with home warranties they send out the cheapest guy/company they can find that will only do band aid fixes. I had a 40 year old furnace that was crapping out, sending off high hydrocarbons and the guy from the home warranty said "it's fine" when a second inspector said it was not. If you want it done right, i'd flip the bill for a better company that knows what the hell they are doing.
Thanks Tempest, I am beginning to realize that. I may end up doing that.
Up until now my experiences with this home warranty company have been positive and other people that I know who have it love it but...this is just awful.
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