3 Potential Reasons Your Small Business' Central Air Conditioner Is Leaking Water

Has your small business' central air conditioner recently started leaking water? If the water is leaking under the outdoor condensing unit and you've recently had rain or snow, the moisture is likely coming from those natural and harmless sources. But if the water leak is under the air handler located inside your business' furnace, there could be a problem that can continue to cause water leaks and potential damage inside the unit.

Here are three potential reasons for a small business' central air conditioner that is leaking water. If you can't diagnose the problem yourself, call in an air conditioning service in your area for help.

Clogged Drain Pipe

The air handler contains a set of evaporator coils, which accept liquid refrigerant passed from the outside unit and then change that liquid into a gas. The phase change causes the coils to quickly become cold and this both provides the cooling source for your circulating air and naturally produces some condensation. The condensation drips off the coils into a bottom drain pan and then runs into a nearby drain pipe to clear out of the unit.

If the waiting drain pipe becomes clogged, the condensate can start building up in the drain pan until an overflow occurs. The water will continue to overflow until the problem is fixed and the spilling water can start to get inside the unit and cause water damage.

Call in a plumber or HVAC technician to complete a drain cleaning on the pipe to ensure that the condensate can easily and freely move out of the drain pan.

Broken Condensate Pump

The drain pan and drain pipe system requires that the system is positioned in such a way that gravity can guide the condensation into the pipe. If your setup doesn't allow gravity to do this job effectively, you would end up with overflows all the time. Instead, non-gravity units receive a motorized condensate pump that pushes the water towards the drain pipe.

Condensate pumps can malfunction or break due to part failures. The pumps are cheap enough that it's easier to simply buy a new pump rather than try to repair the old pump. Call in an air conditioning technician to install the part.

Freezing Evaporator Coils

Does your condensation seem to drain fine but there seems to be too much water in the unit regardless? You could have evaporator coils that keep freezing over then thawing, which creates an excessive amount of condensation that the drip pan can't keep up with.

Repeated freezers are usually due to a problem with either the levels of refrigerant or the type of refrigerant loaded into the system. In most areas, only certified HVAC techs can legally work with refrigerant. Call to have an air conditioning repair technician come out and looks at the refrigerant levels in your unit and to make any changes as necessary.


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