In the spirit of Halloween, Kalos Services is doing a miniseries of 13 homeowner horror stories about scary home monstrosities that could’ve been fixed or prevented with proper HVAC, plumbing, and electrical service.
Without further ado, on this Friday the 13th, let’s begin with Homeowner Horror Story #1: The Double Trap Monster!
The Double Trap Monster
Long ago, before the founding of Kalos, an on-call air conditioning technician was awoken from a dead sleep when he received a call at 2 AM:
“You were all out here earlier today and replaced an evaporator coil, and now my WHOLE CEILING JUST FELL IN!”
While it wasn’t the ENTIRE ceiling, it was a large portion of the customer’s master closet ceiling over his suits and ties and patent leather shoes. All of this happened because the tech who went out earlier that day hadn’t paid attention to how he strapped the drain, and there was a newly formed sag, resulting in a double trap. Double traps allow water to collect in two places, trapping air between them. This air gap prevents water from draining, so the drain backs up into the pan under the coil instead and can overflow.
On top of that, the last guy had “moved” the pan switch out of the way and forgot to reinstall it properly. The pan switch stops the unit when it fills with water, so in this case, it couldn’t stop the unit from running, which caused the pan to overflow.
Our Kalos techs work diligently to prevent water damage, mildew, the even dirtier four-letter “M” word, and 2 AM service calls by paying attention to the following:
- Drain pitch
- Float switch location and testing
- Drain cleaning
- Pan positioning
- Proper configuration of drains in horizontal applications
- Drain cleaning (which you can do, too!)
Florida has high dew points, so A/C units sweat a lot. It’s the Florida HVAC techs’ responsibility to keep the moisture where it belongs and prevent the horror of ceilings falling in.
