HVAC/H2O problem? .....sorta........

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Last night at 2130 I was sitting here at the computer and the LOML walked into the adjacent utility room....dropped to her knees with a towel and said "We have a leak"....sure enough there was water dripping off the uninsulated HVAC ducting. Hmmmmmm. I went to the shop and got a step ladder and proceeded to investigate. Every piece of uninsulated HVAC duct had water dripping off them. She stated "I just turned the airconditioner on for the first time this year." Hmmmm.........

At one end of a the room a water pipe runs above the ceiling into the finished family room and eventually exits the house to an outiside faucet. I was able to reach the top of the duct there under the pipe...no water.....dry duct..... a couple of feet away......water on top the duct.


Then I noticed across the room...the only piece of uninsulated cold water pipe going into the adjacent bathroom had water dripping off it. Hmmmm...

Then I got to thinking. I had been smelling a musty smell in the family room for several days.

I got up ontop the washer to check the water pipe a little closer and noticed the dry vent pipe had come dislodged from the elbow where it connects to exit the house. Ta Da! The wife had been doing laundry daily since she got home..she likes to keep up with it where as I do it once a week......the dryer had obviously been venting hot humid air into the utility room and when the A/C came on it was condensing the humidity back into water. I reconnected the vent.

I checked this morning.....A/C still on....all water valves on.....no water...

Whew! I hate plumbing!

[JohnT Fitzgerald]

Sounds like a nice easy fix - good thing you caught it quickly.

Tis the season to find/fix AC problems, apparently. I also had a water issue - went to go to bed the other night, and there was a drip-drip from the ceiling fan in our bathroom. Identified it as coming from the ductwork in he attic. It turned out that the condensate drain pipe had a clog somewhere and the water backed up into the air handler, and then overflowed into the plenum. A shop-vac sucked out everything from the pipe, which was the easy part. Replacing insulation on the ductwork and in the attic flooring was a royal PITA.

[Mitchell Andrus]

....Kinda wish my name was Fitzgerald too. Just for today, I'll be known as Edmond.

Had that problem at an office. The space above the false ceiling had an access door and it was left open by a plumber (of course). I guess it doesn't take much to start the water works when the A/C starts up.
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