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How much is riding on that drain?
An air handler above a ceiling makes gallons of water a day in summer. Four questions about yours, and an honest answer about what stands between it and your ceiling.
The check
About the protection around the equipment, not about the equipment itself. What it cannot see is condition — a pan can be present and rusted through, and a float switch can be fitted and wired so it does nothing. It runs in your browser and nothing is sent anywhere.
Where this stands
A pan, a tested switch and a recently cleared line is the arrangement that keeps water out of ceilings. Keep it that way.
- Clear the line once a year, before the wet season rather than during it.
- Have the float switch tested at the same visit — a switch nobody tests is a switch nobody can rely on.
- Look at the pan while the hatch is open: rust or standing water in it means it has already saved you once.
Something in the chain is missing or unverified. It works until the drain blocks, which on this coast is a matter of when.
- Get the line cleared and the pan looked at in the same visit.
- Fit or test the float switch — this is the cheapest protection available and the one most often skipped.
- If there is no secondary pan and the unit sits above living space, ask what fitting one would involve.
Without a working switch and a clear line, the first sign of a problem is usually the ceiling. That is the expensive order to find out in.
- Have the drain cleared properly — vacuumed and flushed, not just dosed with tablets.
- Fit a float switch on the primary line, and a second in the pan where the unit is above living space.
- Check the pan itself for rust and for a drain that actually runs somewhere visible.
- Until that is done, look at the ceiling under the unit once a week through the summer.
Because it is above living space: the pan drain should discharge somewhere you will notice — over a window or a door is the classic arrangement, precisely so that dripping outside tells you something is wrong inside before the ceiling does.
In a commercial suite: the ceiling below is usually somebody else's tenancy. Ask who is responsible for what before there is water, not after — and keep the service record, because it is the first thing anyone asks for.
Four things about drains in this climate
- VolumeA system running through a Florida August removes a great deal of water every day. All of it leaves down one small pipe.
- Tablets are not a serviceThey slow growth in the line. They do not clear a blockage, and they do not test anything.
- Switches fail quietlyA float switch that has never been tested is an assumption. Testing takes a minute during a service.
- Insulation matters tooAn uninsulated line or plenum in a hot attic sweats, and that water looks exactly like a leak until somebody checks.
