Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Heater Condensate Pump

Okay. I'm hear to brag about my Loving Wife (LW) again.
So on the first day of freezing weather, we got up to no heat.
Freezing has been unusual here in West Linn Oregon until this past week.
I was due at work. So LW sent me off on my way and assured me she'd take care of the heater problem.
Our Trane furnace-air conditioner a TRANE XV90 has a condensate reservoir and pump which pumps the water to outside the back of our garage.
About 10:00 AM I called and we talked about the problem. LW told me the condensate pipe to outside the garage had frozen. Our heater has a shutoff mechanism which triggers to turn off the furnace if the condensate pump reservoir is overly full.
She disconnected the pipe and the heater started to work.
Then our neighbor who was venturing out in the snow and cold agreed to get her some pvc pipe and 1/2" hose.
LW hooked up the hose where the pipe had previously come out of the pump, and put a length of pipe under the garage door to protect the hose from the garage door. It worked.
Then the next morning, I discovered the pvc had frozen. I just put the frozen pipe into the sink and warmed it up. We now leave the hose in a bucket each freezing night.
Our one son's house has the same type of heater. His hose drains from the basement furnace to the condensate pump reservoir and then into the basement deep sink by the washing machine. The warmth of the basement keeps it from freezing.
We may take a lesson for the success of one installation over the other.
Our garage furnace is adjacent to our laundry room. It would be easy, but require a hole through the wall between them, to drain the hose into the toilet tank, bowl or sewer drain pipe hole there. We haven't decided yet. I'll let you know what we agree to do.

1 comment:

Ruth said...

I have the same or a similar unit at my house in MO. I also have a second floor air handler in the attic but, as with J's, mine drain both drain into the basement which is heated. It's a long run of PVC pipe into the basement drain (attic one) and the sump pump (the other), but it works great. Sounds like the run into the laundry room is the answer.