I had central air put in 4 years ago for my ranch house on a crawl space. The HVAC installers pipe the condensate drain directly into the crawl space and let it run on the ground. This has always been a concern of mine. The unit needed servicing this week and I ask the HVAC guy if this was standard practice. He stated I have water in my crawl space anyway so this is the way they do it. Is that the way it is usually done??? Doesn’t sound right to me. Thanks for your help.
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Sounds like somebody took the really easy way out. "But we always do it this way."
Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell'em "Certainly, I can!" Then get busy and find out how to do it. T. Roosevelt
I would not think that it good. You should have vapor barrier in the crawlspace anyway (on the ground (preferably several iches of sand.) Ho sense in adding to what will come up from beloe anyway. Why didn't they vent it outside?
Absolutely, have this fixed. You are pumping a lot more water than you think under your house. You can get a condensate pump that will pump the water thru a 1/2" plastic tube and allow it to be run outside. I consider this to be a lazy fix if I see my HVAC guys doing it this way. I prefer a simple gravity drain. But, in this case it would be an easy DIY solution.
BTW, I am sure that our building code would not allow this.
in houston my ac guy tried the same trick, but not in the crawl space, just outside the house, I was collecting about 15 gallons of water per day, and the ground was like a swamp. I moved the drain line so that it drained into a tub drain and have had no problems since. If you can't get to a drain, and the ac line must be behind a pea trap, if not, during the cool months it will allow sewer gas to seep into the ac area, then run it outside and maybe to your garden. good luck
jwinko
I was collecting about 15 gallons of water per day ... in houston What's the problem? You only running the a/c half the time? Usually it's so humid in Houston that you can squeeze the moisture out of the air with your bare hands.Whenever you are asked if you can do a job, tell'em "Certainly, I can!" Then get busy and find out how to do it. T. Roosevelt