Hi all, I've got a Sears Kenmore room air conditioner unit in a thru-the-wall sleeve in my living room.
When it's running, it keeps spitting out little pieces of black--something--perhaps dirt, that are really dirtying up my nice carpet. Not all the time, but maybe a half dozen chunks each day.
I cleaned the A/C filter, but that's not stopping the problem.
Where is that black stuff coming from, and how can I stop it?
-- Steven L.
Disintegrating insulation? Gasket?
I used to work in a building where the central air spewed black soot. We made them tape filters on top of the vents. They practically tore apart he building for ten years trying to figure out what it was. After I was long gone, they figured it out. Turned out the grabage trucks used to pull up right by the intake and spewed exhausts into the building HVAC. THis was a building chock full of world class engineers!
- = - Vasos Panagiotopoulos, Columbia'81+, Reagan, Mozart, Pindus, BioStrategist
Probably a dried out foam gasket. I have an older car that is doing the same thing. Brown sticky pieces of foam come out of the vents sometimes.
My old unit had a sponge rubber filter right under the front vents that dried out and began to crumble after a few years. It was pretty worthless to start with. While it did catch some dust, it was hardly enough to keep the cooling fins from getting pretty gunked up so I tossed it.
What does the black stuff look and feel like? Could be pieces of the foam filter, but can also be wads of mold that built up in there over the winter.
He never said he had a foam filter.
"Ron" wrote
So what? It may or may not have one. Maybe it did and it was replaced. It is still a possibility and I'm sure he is capable of looking as to the type of filter he does have.
replying to Steven L., Leftfeilder wrote: I purchase two a/c units from Sears and the same black confetti looking particles are coming out of my vents and on to my nice furniture. I've literally cleaned my vents where there is nothing visible in them and I turn on the a/c and more comes out, but not as much. When I try to remove it; it smears. I've never had this problem before.
tg
replying to Leftfeilder, Brenda wrote: I have the same thing...When I clean it off the surfaces it lands on, it is damp and smeary. Not sure if it's mold, rotten foam, gasket liner. Pieces are about a fourth the size of a corn flake. Nobody around here wants to clean window units. Suggestions
replying to Brenda, Shanmukha wrote: I have the same problem with the ac in my living room of the apt I am renting. Please suggest how to fix this issue. My community maintenance guys are so dumb they don’t know why this is happening and they were suggesting this is isn’t a big problem.
Probably chuncks of dust and mold. Coils need a good cleaning.
That's the problem with renting because you're at the mercy of your slumlord.
If you owned the window AC, you could take the unit apart and clean the coils as needed.
Maybe it's caulk?
Maybe it's decomposing mouse turds?
My units from the 1990s started doing that a few years ago. Blowing sheet-like chunks of smearable stuff that has no mold odor to it, as well as finer particles. I'm sure its not mold (I hope) because I am allergic to mold and I always feel better - breathe better - with the units running. I took the front off - the face bringing the grill mount with it - and cleaned what I can get to, but it makes no difference in the debris production, especially at first use after the heating season. I clean the dust filters once a week when I'm running the units. They sit in the windows over the winter as I can't heft them out anymore and have no place to put them if I could. They work well - my hunch they are better than anything I could replace them with. One is made in the US and the other in Japan.
Same issue here. I have a living room 30year old GE thru-wall-unit made in Japan that still works! Came with my condo and for the past 3 summers it has spit pepper size black particles onto the floor that are soft and easily smear when I clean them almost daily. I took out this very heavy until in 2019 and throughly cleaned it with paper towels and vacuum and it was disgustingly dirty and rusty. Less particles spit out but it did not stop. I live in Chicago area so I cover the until both inside and outside to stop the cold air from coming in so I'm wondering if this would build mold, however my bedroom a/c does not have this problem. I really miss the mini-split a/c units we had in Europe, seemed cleaner and more efficient system. I'm thinking of purchasing a new unit this summer as as I jokingly googled it but seems I'm not crazy now but even more disturbed. Cancer survivor here so its scary to think it could be mold. Good luck to you all in resolving this issue!
Sounds like mold. I'd get the coil and fan professionally cleaned outside of the house.
I.ve seen that before - but the rubber was not only rotted but slimy
- with mold or something very mold-like that came off with bleach - bleach does not take off rubber - - - I cleaned it up and used some weatherstrip foam tape to replace the "seals" then sold it.
replying to Clare Snyder, Chuck wrote: I have a window unit a/c installed through the wall. It's about 6 years old. I've had the black flakes that smear blowing out of the vents for probably all but the first year I used it, including this year. A couple weeks ago I sprayed it with Frost King a/c coil foaming cleaner. It hasn't helped at all. Has anyone found an actual working solution for this problem? I'm a renter and my landlord is stingy so even I tell him the issue I don't know if he'll even do anything about it. But would a professional be able to do anything for less than the cost of a new unit?
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