In case you don’t know, every are conditioner creates water (condensate). In my case, the air handler, which creates the water, is in the attic. There is a drain pipe that allows the water to drain out onto the ground. The problem with the drain pipe is that it is constantly wet. Wet things always grow “stuff”. Mine is no different. It tends to grow algae in the drain pipe. Once it builds up enough, it stops up the drain and it has no where to go.

Now, if an air conditioner is installed properly, code normally requires that the air handler is installed on top of a metal drain pan. The drain pan catches the water if it backs up so that it doesn’t leak into your house. Then, the drain pan should have a secondary pipe that will drain if the tray gets full.

This is exactly what happened to me today. I came home from work and my secondary drain (which happens to be right above the outside garage door) was leaking. I’m glad it was installed there because it is a clear sign that there is a problem.

In this video, I show you how I flush out the stopped up drain. It doesn’t take very much time and it will probably save you $75-$100 on a service call to your local AC repair man.

PVC Pipe Cutter

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