Got a clogged primary a/c drain line.
 

I've tried everything. I cut out the p-trap after the a/c inspection guy told me that's alway the culprit. And it was pretty clogged. Before replacing I decided to pour some water down there and have Mrs. Lee watch outside. Nothing came out. Then I tried a two litre bottle of seltzer water. Nothing. I read that mold can cause the clog and bleach can cure it. Poured some bleach down there. Nothing. Then I dragged my air compressor 50' hose up into the attic, got a good fitting for the pvc and hit it with 140 psi. Nothing. The I tried a coat hanger up the outside end. It came out wet, but nothing dripped out of the drain pipe. Joeaksa gave me a 3' piece of bailing wire. Came out wet on the end, but no drainage. Today I got a 15' 1/4" snake and ran it up both end of the pipe. It came out pretty wet, but, again no drainage. I have a board under the outside pipe drain so I can see if even a drop of water hits it. Nothing. How the hell can this clog be in the very middle of what looks to be about a 40' pipe? Now I need to grab a 50' snake, but don't know if they make one in 1/4". WTF is going on here?

You could try an electricians tape as well - if a plumbing snake isn't available.

Maybe there is more than one path the drain takes.

I'm surprised you couldn't blast it out with air......did you have air coming out the other end or no?

Pouring the bleach in I think is a good idea.

I'm not a plumber so take my comments with a salt lick.

No air came out the other end. Mrs. Lee stood there with her phone and earpiece and I had my phone and earpiece in the attic. She couldn't even hear anything coming out and was standing right there. By contrast, I hit the secondary line with air and she heard it right away. I poured some water in the there and it came right out the other end.

I don't know where the line could go other than to the lower drain at the side of the house. And if it were draining somewhere else, then the secondary drain line wouldn't be spewing water when the a/c runs in high humidity in the summer. The pan fills up and drains out the secondary pipe, so the primary is definitely clogged and backing up to the pan.

Try putting air pressure going up from the outlet end? Just be aware that you may get a face full of bleach that you poured down the other end.

Thought about that, but the outside drain pipe is too close to the ground for me to get my air attachment onto it. I'd have to get really creative with some rubber hose and, if successful, it'd blow everything into my attic.

This is the next step I would do - figure out a way to use the airgun into the outlet as well as some kind of bucket inside a plastic garbage bag tied at the top to capture any junk that came out.

It's PVC? Just be darned sure you don't blow up the pipe in your face with too much air pressure too... No happy times there. :)

is the drain exposed outside? If so, cut a few inches from the house and shove your snake through. this way, you cut out 20' or so. Then run the snake from the other end. It will have to clear it. Reconnection is easy with PVC.

The drain is only exposed about 3-4" on the outside. In the attic I'd have to really do some crawling around in the insulation to cut some length out of the pipe and I don't want to do that.

Not sure if I read it right but, usually, the condenser drain is tied to plumbing drain and the pan overflow is set to drain outside, that way you know that the condenser drain is plugged.

When you put compressed air to the con. drain did it flow air?

Dave

There are two drain lines, both go outer side of the house. The primary line drains a few inches above the ground. The secondary, the one that goes from the pan when the primary is clogged, drains from about 20' above the ground, but also just a few inches outside the outer wall. When you see the high drain dripping, you know the primary one is clogged. Pretty sure it doesn't go into any plumbing pipe in the house.

Not to sound stupid, but are you looking at the right pipes? Could you be looking at the hot water heater expansion pipe? All that water is going somewhere, so either you have a big leak some where or the wroing pipe?

No, hot water heater is in the garage and the pipes there are copper and way below the a/c air handler. I have this right from the a/c inspector's mouth. He and I went up to the air handler in the attic and looked this over. He was sure the clog was in the p-trap. And it was clogged. But it's much worse further down that line. And I don't think that water is going anywhere because the a/c hasn't run in over six mos. and the snake is coming out of the pipe very wet. So that has to be the water, bleach, etc. I poured in there myself last week and today.

Rick, looks like you got some crawling to do. Hiow hot is it in AZ now?

It's not too bad, mid-70's today. I'm not going to make a big project out of this. I can replace the p-trap and let the secondary line handle it, as it works perfectly. I'd just need to keep an eye on it. If the primary line weren't cemented into the side of the house, it'd probably be no problem to remove and replace. But I'm not cutting drywall and digging out stucco for this.

We had a clog in our kitchen sink drain. Turned out to be a mouse past the clean out which was down in the basement. It was a lovely smell pulling that out with the snake. Hope yours isn't similar.

I suspect a calcium clog. The snake end does smell very mildewy, but then there is also vinegar and bleach down there. I'm sure it's not a dead mouse, or else, if it is, it's been mummified for a while.

it is a slime mold bleach will clear it
but you put water in first
and that may dilute the bleach too much too work well/quickly

it is a good idea to dose with bleach full strength ever few months

draino or other drain cleaner will sink thru the water and clear it check first that the cleaner will not react with the bleach/vinegar in there now

btw you can use a stiff wire as a snake no need to buy a small snake

I had a AC PVC line that would not drain so I put a PVC garden hose bib and blasted it out. I installed some valves so I could flush as necessary.

These lines often do not have sweep L's in them making snaking impossible past the 1st L. You may have to go at from both ends and there may still be a section in between 2 L's that you can't get to.

And, the fact that HVAC guys use typical fittings found on irrigation lines probably has something to do with where the stoppage is.

My question is if you apply 140 lbs. of pressure to the line and no air comes out of the other end, are you getting back pressure there in the attic when you release the connection? If not, the air is going somewhere else. You could be blowing the whole wad into a wall cavity somewhere.

But, I know you aren't stupid, so I'll leave it at that.

Back in the day, I combined two 25' 1/4" snakes for better reach. I just fed it until I got to the end of the first snake and then reloaded the drum, threaded one end onto the other and kept feeding.
it's a pain because the torque required to spin that much snake tends to tie em in a knot, but it's not un-possible.
BTW don't hit reverse or you'll retrieve one snake but not the other.
On a good/bad scale that would be down at the bottom, near the "bad" zone.

He already did that with the piece of stiff wire that he got from me. This one is a mystery to me...

How about a donkey dick? I think that is the correct plumber slang for it anyhow. You connect it to a garden hose, and it forces water under great pressure through the pipe to knock out clogs. The first time I heard this expression, I thought they were messing with me, but it worked
They look like this
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That's crazy. You should not have to do that.

Garden hose? Unless you want lot of water up in the attic, depending which way you are blasting it from. The best thing is to go up and cut out the section and run new piece (s). It isn't in concrete. After you cut the PVC pipe, turn it with your hand and free it from the stucco and put it right out. No problem with water all over the attic. You have to get in there to blast it with water anyway. Lots of fun dragging the hose up there on your belly.

NO JOY!

I got a 25' snake today and got all but about the last 5' down the pipe from the attic end. It felt like it was pushing something, but I just could not feed any more of it in. Did it from the outside too and probably got 15' in from that end. Also felt like it was pushing something, but could get no more in there. Then I tried 140 psi of air from the attic end. Nothing. The snake definitely was wet when it came out and smelled of vinegar. But there is not even a drip coming out the lower end. I think I'm going to have to call the home warranty co. tomorrow and fork over the $75 for the service call, but then be done with it. A/C season is coming very quickly.

at this point I wonder if something crawled down there and died.

I'm wondering that too, but there is no stench at all. No goo or guts on the end of the snake, just water and vinegar.

All that might be left is bones, hair and a mold plug. Your snake would push thru it but not remove it. It gets wet coming back thru the P trap. The sewer cleaner I posted before has a rotating cable and various cutter heads for different size pipes. I'd lend you mine ( I have a 75' cable HD model) if you were closer.

Call a rotor rooter type guy and get him to snake the line from the ground up. If there is a blockage he will be able to remove it. It will cost about what you are willing to pay for your home warrantee service call.

P-trap is removed. I called the home warranty co. and they're sending someone out. It's a $55 service call. Once this is done, I can replace the p-trap (already have the stuff) and then my a/c will be ready.

Most of these things are 3/4" PVC lines. Is that what you have? All this talk about snakes is irrelevant. Plus, a lot of them aren't much more than Schedule 20. You could break that easily with a cable. Hope this thing isn't separated and open in the wall somewhere.

I would worry about that, except that the secondary drain line works like a charm and there's a near steady stream of condensate dripping out of it when the a/c runs in hot and humid weather, which means the primary line is blocked and the condensate is backing up to the drain pan. If it were broken, the condensate would not be backing up to the pan.

Right, forgot that part.

Mine was plugged. I cut the PVC and put in a ball valve on the condensate pan end to close it off, put next too it a t fitting with a hose bib. Ran garden hose up to the attic, closed off the ball valve opened the hose bib with garden hose, son turns on outside hose for a few seconds. Line cleared, open ball valve, to drain pan, close hose bib.

You could have installed a new line by now.

Gawd, I'm an idiot. All is solved now. Turns out the primary drain line runs into the guest bathroom sink drain, which I hadn't read anywhere. And I did research this a bit. The a/c guy came, immediately said the lower drain pipe on the side of the house was from the hot water heater and went to the guest bathroom sink. He pulled that hose off the drain pipe and there was the vinegar. Since that only took five min. and he was gonna bill an hour to the warranty co., he offered to go up and replace the p-trap for me and first run some water through it to see if I could hear it draining in the bathroom. Worked like a charm. Just need to clean my coils off today and then the a/c is ready to go. What a fool I used to be.

Glad ya got that solved, I was gonna suggest you pour this stuff down there and that coulda got messy:

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