Anyone had to install a splash guard for their house AC? (Houston: housing, charge)

[Surfertx]

My first summer in Houston and my AC is dripping water from the coil pan into the secondary drain pan. The AC tech said I need a splash guard to stop the water from dripping. They want to charge $390 for the guard and a overflow switch.

[turf3]

Of course, I haven't seen it, but there should be no water going into the secondary pan. If there is, it probably means the main drain from the evaporator housing is clogged up, or the evaporator housing is rusted through. A clogged drain can be unstopped; replacing a rusted-out housing will be a big ($$$) deal. Overflow switch, yes. A good idea.

[wafer]

I'll take a stab at this. Take it for what it's worth.
If your evaporator "housing" is dripping into your emergency drain pan, then it's possible you are experiencing "blow-by." That is, your air flow is blowing condensation beyond the end of the main internal evaporator drain pan. I have dealt with this situation. In my case, blow-by also resulted in soaked insulation inside the plenum, just beyond the end of the internal evaporator drain pan. The soaked insulation resulted in the dreaded "dirty sock" smell in spring.
It turned out that for my brand&model of evaporator, blow-by was a common complaint. I ended up repalcing the evaporator.

[wafer]

I should add..., the first attempted fix was a splash guard. Followed by a bypass-supply-damper, then finally, replacing the evaporator to one that didn't have blow-by problems was the eventual fix.

Independent of the cause of the dripping, an overflow switch in the emergency drain pain is always a good idea.

[Surfertx]

Originally Posted by wafer

I should add..., the first attempted fix was a splash guard. Followed by a bypass-supply-damper, then finally, replacing the evaporator to one that didn't have blow-by problems was the eventual fix.

Independent of the cause of the dripping, an overflow switch in the emergency drain pain is always a good idea.

Thx for the input. I'll run this by the ac tech about he evaporator.

[wafer]

After thinking back a bit more, the bypass-supply-damper was for a different issue and not related to the blow-by.

The splash guard did not completely fix the blow-by problem, and the next attempted fix was to reduce the speed of the blower. The combination of the splash guard and reducing the speed helped, but any moisture in the plenum insulation resulted in the spring-time dirty sock smell. If you search for "HVAC dirty sock smell" you will find lots of info.