A/C question

VortecJeep

VortecJeep

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Joined
Aug 24, 2005
Location
Concord, NC
Get home, wife says upstairs A/C unit not working and the thermostat display was dead. She had already checked breakers (good for her). She also changed the batteries in the thermostat, no change.

I check the indoor unit. Everything looks good except the condensation pan under the entire unit is quite full. There is no drain for that pan, but there is a level switch. I Start getting the water out of the pan and the thermostat display comes back on and then the unit comes back on.

I understand that the unit would shut off if the water level in the pain hits the switch, but would it also kill the thermostat display? Maybe that is the way it tells you that you’ve either lost power or the pan is full of water?
 
I've seen it before at my sister's house( mine doesn't have a condensate pump). It had the level switch breaking the 24v hot supply wire to the stat from the transformer. So yea it kills power to the stat in that case. Not sure about battery backup though.

Hers kept tripping the outside outlet GFCI probably due to shoddy weatherstripping or caulk. The condensate pump was wired to the same circuit. Every time it rained the GFCI would trip and a while later her ac would quit.
 
As stated above it’s breaking the 24v leaving the transformer so it shuts down every thing. This is very common way to do it. Main thing now is to find out why the pan is full. Hopefully just a clogged drain. But Unit freezing up due to dirty filter or low refrigerant is also other common reasons for the aux pan to be full.
 
rodney eppes said:
You said the pan has NO drain. Correct? Seems it Should have a drain, or overflow drain.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily. Hes talking about a secondary pan. If it has a drain it has to be ran to an obvious location like dripping from above a window or similar so you know the primary isn't working. I prefer the pan with no drain and a float switch so it shuts the unit down and stops producing condensate.
 
The drain had a large amount of slime in the trap, so I assume that was the root cause. I cleaned it out. I’ll check it later today. Used the carpet cleaner to suck all the water out of the pan.
 
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