Air conditioner is a 7 year old Sunpentown WA-1210E. The tank fills (and turns itself off as it should) in only 4 hours. I can only drain out half of its 3 pint capacity. It cools fine however. It's never required draining before, except as reccomended at the end of summer. I've googled for tips and have tried adding a small amount of bleach to through the drain plug hole after draining but problem repeats. Thanks in advance for a solution.
your post doesn't make sense.
I'll try to clarify. My portable AC normally recycles 60 to 70% of the water that would fall into the tank to improve cooling efficiency and eliminate the need to empty the tank every x number of hours that is required on cheaper models without the self-evaporative feature. This is info is from the Sunpentown website. Not as good as a dual hose unit but it does a good job of it when working as it should. Adding bleach to a freshly emptied water tank is supposed to free up any gunk if there is a clog. Right now it has to be emptied every 4 hours which is not normal.
LOL...
How about the humidity level ?
If it is more humid than it has been in the past when you used this AC unit, the tank will fill faster than normal...
~~ Evan
I doubt bleach is capable of clearing all clogs or maybe even most or any clogs. It's good for sanitization and killing mold or other growth that could contribute to a clog, but once one is there I doubt it's going to have a high success rate clearing it.
It's also not clear where this drain hole is in relation to everything else. If I understand the whole system correctly, it sounds like the water is recirculated and allowed to evaporate inside the unit. If that is the case, it would sound like the clog would be somewhere inside that is preventing the water from getting to where it needs to go to evaporate. Have you looked for online service diagrams that might show how it's put together and actually implemented?
Aside from that, I'm not to sure about the desirability of putting the humidity back in the air. I can turn my central AC on and you feel a very noticeable increase in comfort within less than a half hour, even though the temp hasn't even dropped one deg on the thermostat yet. That's due to taking the humidity out. the thermostat yet.
l agree to that, but why over 7 years of summer use has manually emptying the drain tank only become an issue this year? An easy fix would be to remove the drain plug at the bottom rear of the unit and attach the provided plastic tubing and exit it outside but for my application that's not practical.
The bleach kills the mold that form a blockage. If, however, the blockage is already there it should be physically removed (poke with a wire, blow it out with a huff-and-puff or water jet).
If draining to the outside is impractical, you COULD drain to a bigger container or, best case, a sink or toilet.
I often use a shop vac to clear drains on AC and refrigeration units. You can use a water and bleach mix to flush things out and clear the passages with the shop vac. I often have to tape a smaller diameter piece of hose to the vacuum hose to get into the small spaces in a unit like you have. You can also take the unit outside and flush it out with water from a garden hose but be careful of a power stream from the hose nozzle which can bend up any aluminum fins it may hit.
TDD
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