Something is disrupting the usual cooling cycle if your AC is dripping water. You can look out for indicators. Have you smelled mold or noticed a puddle near your closet or basement ac unit?
While you are away, water from an attic appliance leak might cause your ceiling to flood and drip down your walls.
How it works
First and foremost, your air conditioner does not cool your air. It takes the heat from the room and sends it outside.
A filtering return vent draws warm, moist air from the interior rooms and directs it to the evaporator coil. The heat is conducted by the cold refrigerant in the coil, which heats up. A fan blows the now cold air back into the interior rooms through the supply vents.
The hot gas in the coil travels towards the compressor outside, where it is compressed into an even hotter vapor.
Heat is discharged outside when the hot gas hits the condenser. The refrigerant, now a chilly liquid, goes back to the initial station to take in more of the warm inside air.
The moisture from the humid indoor air collects on the evaporator coil during this process, which involves repeatedly blowing warm, humid air over the coil while extracting heat from it. From there, the condensation drips into the main drain pan and then runs down a drain line that leads outside.
With each cycle of the air conditioner, water flows into the drain pan and along the drain line. You may be asking how to identify a problem with your air conditioner if water buildup and dripping are usual.
Your ac drain pan is damaged
Keep in mind that the condensation that drops off of the coils in your AC system is caught by the drain pan. The location and type of your AC unit will determine how your drain pan is set up.
But the goal is still the same.
There is a primary drain pan on every system. It is located immediately below the evaporator coil. In order to catch any runaway liquid from an AC dripping water, horizontal systems require a secondary drain pan to be built beneath the entire unit (not just the coil), particularly if the unit is located in your attic. These drain pans are frequently made of galvanized steel, stainless steel or polymer.
If they are compromised for any reason, then water will leak where it shouldn’t. If this is the case, you’ll need a heating repair or complete hvac optimization to be done immediately.
