As the warm spring weather arrives, homeowners frequently ask me if there is anything they can do to ready their cooling system for summer. There are a few simple steps that one can take to assure their system will be ready to take on the hot muggy days of summer. Over the next few months I will go in depth about some helpful cooling tips I have discovered over the years.
This month I would like to give you some insight on the first and most important step in summer cooling preparation-making sure to properly change the furnace air filter. This should be done every month during the months when either the heating or the cooling is operating. At under $3.00 a piece, it’s the best investment you can make in your home’s heating and cooling system, considering the fact that over 75% of the service calls we receive in the first thirty days of the cooling system involve a dirty or improperly-sized filter. Over three-quarters of the time, our technicians are cleaning dirty cooling coils, blower wheels and clogged condensate water drains caused by homeowners not changing their air filters.
Most of our customers incorrectly believe that the job of their furnace filter is to remove airborne dust, dirt and pollens from the air their family breathes. An even larger segment of our customers also incorrectly believe that the job of their furnace filter is remove pet dander, bird feathers, fish tank smell, cat pan stinks, small toys that junior threw down the floor grills and smoke from uncle Harry’s cigar at Christmas. Well, they are all wrong! The job of a properly designed and installed furnace air filter is to keep the cooling coil/radiator clean and efficient during the life of your system. Inside the duct work above your furnace is a cooling coil/radiator called the evaporator coil, and outside of your home is a device called the compressor/condenser. The job of the coil/radiator is to remove the moisture and the heat from the air in your home and just like the coil/radiator in your car, your home’s cooling coil needs just the right amount of airflow going though its tightly packed fins. Just as your car will overheat if your fan belt breaks, your air conditioner will overheat and stop working if coil becomes clogged with dirt.
The fan blades that provide this airflow are in your furnace and they are also protected and kept clean by a regular furnace filter changing. If your furnace blower or your cooling coil becomes clogged with dirt, a professional repairperson with have to be called as this cleaning requires removal of both components and is very costly.
A dirty coil/blower wheel will cause reduced airflow and possible icing of the compressor/condenser and cooling coil. This icing causes many problems including the complete destruction of your compressor/condenser. A unit with a dirty coil or furnace blower will run longer generating higher power bills and will not be as efficient in transferring heat as a clean coil and blower.
It is very important to use the correct size filter so that all the incoming air is directed through the surface area of the filter. Do not bend or fold a too large filter and make sure your filter is properly held in place by a wire retainer or clip. Remember there is up to 2000 cubic feet of air blowing through your filter and it will be pulled out of place unless firmly held in by a filter retainer clip. I can’t tell you the number of times I find a furnace filter all mangled up and torn by the blower and dirt just blowing right on the coil. It’s very hard to get the filter springs back in place after you change the filter. Try lying down on the floor and with a flashlight in hand partially crawl in the blower area to observe the filter spring clip holder. Keep at it until it latches in place. If you are lucky enough to have an external filter rack or holder, be sure and reinstall the door correctly to make sure no air leakage occurs.
If you are using those 99-cent blue fiberglass throwaway filters, STOP RIGHT NOW. Those filters are designed to stop dirt particles the size of junior’s toys he throws down the grills and they do a darn good job of it! But everything else smaller flies right through them and builds up on the surface of your cooling coil where it joins with condensate water to form a product “coil scrounge”. Invest in the MERV 8 1″ pleated filters that cost about $3.00 a piece at your local home improvement store. Make sure you buy a dozen at a time to make it easy to do. You will never remember to go to the store every month. If you have an air cleaner or a hard to find filter size do not give up. Give me a call and I will give you the name of a wholesale supply house in your area that WILL sell to you. I have spoken to the manager and they will be glad to help you directly. In the past I have heard from homeowners that supply houses will not talk to them unless they are “in the air conditioning business”. I will gladly give you the name and number of this one supplier you can purchase a full array of air cleaner and media filters at a very reasonable price.
By changing your furnace filter often and correctly, you can rest assured that you have done one of the most important functions in assuring continued comfort, efficiency and life span of your home’s heating and cooling system.

There are a few simple and easy steps any homeowner can perform on their heating and cooling system that can help keep their equipment operating at peak performance. Last month I went over the importance of keeping a proper sized, clean filter in the air handler/furnace. This month we will go over one of the most overlooked parts of your air conditioning system, the condensate drain. The condensate drain system is one of those things that is out of sight out of mind until it fails and overflows potentially causing thousands of dollars of damage to your home and furnishings. With just a few simple steps this flooding and damage can be avoided.

First, it is important you understand what your condensate drain is. There is moisture in the form of humidity suspended in the air in your home and before your air conditioner can cool the air it has to remove the moisture. Water is removed from the air by a part of your cooling system called the evaporator coil. The coil sits in a large collection drain pan on top of or connected to the end of the furnace/air handler. The water sits in the drain pan until there is enough to flow into a white 3/4″ PVC drain line at which time it flows either into a gravity fed drain system and out the wall of your home or a small collection pump which pumps the water out your home in a small clear vinyl tube. The amount of water removed by your air conditioner in the summer can be staggering. Gallons of water are removed every summer day and if you do not keep this part of your air conditioner maintained, it will fail causing damage to your home. Most homeowners I meet with have owned a home sometime in their life that had a water leak from a clogged or inoperative condensate drain.

Locating your homes condensate drain should not be difficult. If your furnace/air handler is a upright type, the condensate drain line ties into the cooling coil right above the top of the furnace and it is a white plastic PVC pipe 3/4″ in diameter. If you furnace/air handler lays down in an attic or crawl space the drain line ties into the cooling coil about six or seven inches off the ground and is also almost always 3/4″ white PVC pipe also. The drain system is what we call a gravity drain which means the water flows slowly and is pushed out from the pressure of the standing falling water. The water removed from your air in your home gets mixed with the airborne dirt and it clogs up the drain line. Molds and algae grow in the drain pan and drain line and cause the water to back up and overflow onto the ceiling of an attic system or the carpet and flooring of an upright system in a basement or closet. Even a crawl space furnace/air handler condensate leak can cause trouble by often causing premature rusting of the furnace/air handler cabinet or coil cabinet.

There are a couple of ways of cleaning out the drain line and all can be performed by a homeowner with a few inexpensive supplies. The first thing you need to do is locate your drain line and look for a clean-out “tee”. The clean-out “tee” is a 3/4″ PVC plastic “T” shaped fitting right off your cooling coil. Sometimes it has a cap on it and sometimes it is just open to the drain. Put a funnel in the “T” and pour a quart or two of bleach into the drain. Go slowly as to allow the bleach to kill the mold and mildew . This should be done once a year at least. If your drain line is especially dirty and it has not been cleaned recently, you might want to take a garden hose and blow it out slowly with a little water pressure, or use a tank of compressed air to blow the crud out. If you have a condensate pump, the bleach will fill up the water resovior and turn on the pump cleaning out the viynal exit tubing.

If you do not have a clean out “T” on your system, it is very easy to add one. Go to your home improvement store and purchase a 3/4″ PVC “T” and a can of PVC glue. Cut the drain line with a hacksaw near the coil and glue in the “T” with the opening facing up.

For those of you with an attic system, there is another drain system to be aware of and that is the secondary drain pan and line. The secondary drain pan and line is there to catch any water that leaks from the primary drain system we have been discussing. The secondary pan is the pan that the furnace or coil sits in and it looks like a big cake pan with a drain line coming off it. Often times there is a float switch attached to it with wires and the job of the switch is to cut off your air conditioner before water damage can occur. Check this pan and make sure there is no water in it or no evidence of mineral deposits where water has dried and evaporated. If there is any evidence of water in your secondary pan you need to make sure that the problem is corrected by yourself or by a professional as the standing water will damage the bottom of the furnace cabinet..

With just a small amount of time and preparation, you can be assured that your condensate drain will flow freely all summer long and you will no longer have to worry about water stains or damage.