A short podcast segment explaining that air conditioners act as dehumidifiers, producing condensate that must be drained. The speaker describes primary and secondary drain lines: the primary should discharge out of sight, while the secondary is placed visibly so that visible dripping indicates a clogged primary and an impending serious problem.
Chapters
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. You know, drip basically on your head. When it starts dripping, like, oh, my goodness, that'll 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.