Derek Cole answers listener questions about AC problems. Water dripping from an upstairs unit usually means a clogged drain line. He covers when to worry about temperature differentials, how dehumidification works, and maintenance tips to keep your system running.
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Hey, on this episode, we talk about water dripping out of your upstairs, and my unit is not cooling. You ask your comfort and energy questions and they get answered. This is the Ask Derrick Cole Show. Hey, this is Derek Cole. Welcome to episode 83 of the Ask Derrick Cole show. Answering your home and energy questions. Why is water dripping in front of my window from my upstairs unit? That's a good question. The reason that is happening is because on some installations of an upstairs, you have two parts. You have a split system. You have that downstairs part outside, that's the condenser. Upstairs you're going to have the air handler, which houses the coil and the fan to blow the air through the duct system. So some applications have multiple drain lines. So when you're talking about air conditioning, you're talking about removing heat from the house. Part of that removal of the heat, especially in this area, is dehumidification. We talked about that last week. The air conditioner is the dehumidifier. So to do that, moisture is taken out of the air. So the result of that, obviously, is water. So that water has to go somewhere. So upstairs you have a drain line. It sounds like you have a drain line, a primary drain line, and a secondary drain line. The primary drain line should be functioning somewhere where you cannot see it. It'll be outside, obviously dripping somewhere. The secondary drain line, when that's installed, they always put it in a place where you can see the water dripping. I've even seen it. I've even seen it in the front of a house at the front door. It will drip basically on your head. When it starts dripping, like, oh, my goodness, that will get your attention. But when that secondary line is dripping, it means the primary is clogged. So you're fixing to have a serious problem on your hands. So I would get my contractor or us out there to see why that drain line is clogged in the primary drain line is clogged and then check the secondary. But it is working properly and you're cool. So you might not think there's a need to call somebody, but I would go and do that. Otherwise you risk the problem of having that secondary drain line get clogged. And then you'll have an overflow on your ceiling. You have ceiling damage and you're going to have all kind of problems there. So that is not a good sign. When you can see the water dripping out of the secondary drain line, which will be somewhere usually where you can see it in front of a window or in front of your front door. In this, in that case, that is an indication that we have a problem. So you see the problem, so you call somebody about the problem. Now also what we do is when that if a secondary is not installed and we have a primary gets clogged, we put a ceiling saver switch on that system. So if that drain pan under that unit starts filling up with water and it can't go out to the drain line because it's clogged, then that safety switch will actually trip that unit to go off. So you replace that phone call. That's another way to save your ceiling. That's why we call it a ceiling saver. But you can go with the primary and the secondary and a ceiling saver on top of that. But either way your unit is cooling. But, but I would cause somebody to get them to clean that drain line out because you have a problem. My house isn't getting down to 74 during the day. Is there a problem if it's getting down to 74 at night when the sun goes down, there's probably not a problem. If it's getting, not getting to 74 during 2 or 3 or 4 o' clock in the day or 5 o' clock when it's 96 degrees outside, not a problem. Because a unit is designed to do at most 20, 20 degrees difference. So meaning if it's 100 outside and you're doing 80 in the house, you're doing good. If you're doing below 80, it's even better. You got a good sealed home. So that is probably not a problem. It's probably doing all it can. I would make sure it did get maintenanced and checked every year just to make sure you're not having that problem. But most of the ones we go to or the phone calls we get are kind of in that realm where it's 2, 3, 4, 5 o' clock in the day and they're trying to pull the unit down to 74, 72. They just got home and it's 96, 100 degrees outside. It's not going to happen because everything in that home is that temperature. You had it set. That's kind of why I'm against, I'm against sending it back too much when you're going to work. Especially like this weekend was 196 or whatever. But the problem is, you know, you get home at 5:00 or 5:30 and everybody tries to bring it down to temperature they want. Well, it's been sitting all day at 78 degrees. It's going to be hard for to get to 75 when it's the hottest part of the day at 4 or 5 o'. Clock. Right. So that's why, you know, I wouldn't set it more than probably one or two degrees off of what you want, just because it's going to be hard for that to compensate for what you are wanting when you get home, if that makes sense. Because everything in the home, so you set your temperature to 78, you come home at 5 o', clock, you want it to be 75. Okay? Everything in the home, the desk, the furniture, the walls, everything is 78 degrees. So now everything has to be 75 degrees. It's not going to work that fast. It might change one degree every hour just because it's so hot outside, so far behind. That's going to take a while to compensate, to bring back up temperature. Now, when the sun goes down and it cools off a little bit, it'll do it, you know, fairly quickly, but usually that's not the case. So I don't think you're having a problem there. Again, I would always recommend getting your unit maintenanced twice a year. Make sure you're ready to go, you're good to go. And if the unit has a good temperature split, meaning the temperature you can measure at home, the temperature out of the grill and the temperature going into the return is 15 degrees. That's kind of a good rule. If it's a 15 degree difference, then you're good to go. The problem is that when it's really hot outside, you're pulling in, you know, 85, 80, 85 degree air, possibly back to the return to cool back down, to get back out. So some simple things to remember. I've seen this before too. Front doors, shades, all that stuff on these really hot days needs to be closed. You need to help the system out as much as you can. I got home when I was at home Sunday after church, I said, we need to do some laundry. I said, nope, we cannot run the dryer at 1pm when it's 96 degrees. You know, we're going to add heat to the home. So that's something you don't want to do. All right, that's episode 83. Make sure you hashtag your questions. Ask Derek Cole and we'll get them on the show. By.
