Hvac question, do I clean the evaporator if I have access to it?

As you can tell from the question, I am not an HVAC person, but I recently discovered a rather significant cold air loss in my attic due to a shoddy job of evaporator replacement a few years ago. No telling how much money I have thrown down the drain cooling my attic!

Anyway, I'm up there doing some cleanup and a little sheet metal work to seal this beast off again, and I wonder if I should do anything to clean the evaporator while I am in there? right now, I can't tell how dirty it is if any because it was kind of frosty, but I have turned the unit off and will go check shortly.

If I do clean it, what should I use? Personally I'm guessing that I should leave it alone, but want to hear from experts. And I know I should hire a professional to do this, but I'm not completely inept, however I am completely broke.

Reply to
CMF
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how about a mixture of bleach and water, spray it on and let it sit and then hose it off.... that ought to get off any mold that formed on it...

Reply to
jim

disconnet the fixture from the power supply and make sure you got power to it.. then take the back cover off the box in the light fixture(its gonna be plastic) and there is a small fuse in it... go to radio shack and get a replacement for it(about four in a pack for $2.50) and replace it.. it probably blew with the power outage.. mine did.... real cheap fix. and then you have 3 fuses left over for other things that might go bad if you can find them when needed....

Reply to
jim

The evaporator coil should not have frost on it! It is DIRTY and/or LOW airflow heat load on it! All of the lint and scum will be on the air intake side of the coil. Check to see of the blower wheel blades are dirty! Use a good evaporator coil cleaning fluid. Take the blower out and clean the blower too. -D

Reply to
D-

If there is any chance of a leak you DO NOT want to bring bleach near it. bleach can combine with various chemicals and produce some lethal gases in a flash! Stay away from bleach, really!

Vacumn the thing out as best you can, get a moderate brush and brush it inline with the fins unless they are the tinfoil things that look like Christmas tree dressings. in that case, just vacumn what you can and maybe try reversing the vacumn to a blower and blowing the rest off if possible, But normally, just a wipe with a damp cloth will pick up a lot of junk. Beyond that, you need a professional to do it. they have the tools and experience. Hire a different guy than the last one, as he apparently does poor work. Eric B.

Reply to
Eric

The coils are supplied by a couple copper tubes which contain high pressure freon. be real gentle with these, if they snap, you lose all the freon, and have to pay to have it hooked back up and recharged.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

Sorry to hear that..happens all the time.

Frost? As in ice formation? That COULD be due to several things..most common, low charge, and second most common...low air flow over the coil. If you are sealing the case, and its not covered in hair, mold and dust, and it still ices over, you need to get a tech out and have him charge the unit NOT by pressure, but by superheat method, and find the leak, if he can.

IF you have the coil open, and it needs to be cleaned, two things to remember...bleach is the single worst thing that you can put on that coil. DO NOT use it, and there are several ways to clean the coil....a vac is NOT one of them. IF you have a large buildup of crud on it, you need to get it off with a fin comb...this may take a while, but in the long term, as far as NOT creating damage, its well worth it. Then, if you can get access to a foaming cleaner from a supply center, (some wont sell to homeowners that are not licenced) that is designed for the task at hand, then you can follow the directions to a T on the back and clean the coil. Most are a spray on, walk away cleaner, that will foam, push out the crud, and the condensate will wash the coil off. Of course, it IS best to get a pro to do it, and that way, if any damage happens, its not up to you to pay for the repair...

Reply to
CBHvac

Mr. kjpro,

This is quite interesting. I see your replies to jim here, but I never saw these particular responses from jim, both of which I assume were not meant for me. Can your newsgroup server/reader be giving you headaches? That asked, did anyone else get these messages from Jim?

Actually, it kind of stole my thunder. I was going to come back with a thanks for your responses, but I used a pressure washer post and see who bit.....

Reply to
CMF

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