We basically have two zones in our house – for our purposes, it is all single-level. Each zone has an air handler in the attic and a condensate pipe that runs down to the crawlspace for drainage. But whoever put in the system(s) didn’t run the condensate directly out to the outdoors – they ran a good length of PVC pipe in the crawlspace to somewhere in the middle, and added a small LG condensate pump that would then pump the water to the outdoors.
The thing that brought this up in my mind is that two years ago we had a crawlspace company come in, do some cleanup, and replace and old no longer functional dehumidifier. They installed a 2nd condensate pump (Liberty) only for the dehumidifier. A few weeks ago that dehumidifier failed (it was a simple warranty repair – that’s working again now), but it got me thinking…
But this seems overly complex, and given the recent failure of the dehumidifier, I started to wonder if the LG pump is still working or not. We have an HVAC service contract, but when they service the unit, they never check anything in the crawlspace. And the guy who worked on the crawlspace dehumidifier was saying that it made no sense to have a pump for HVAC since gravity should work fine. For the crawlspace, they obviously need a pump because they need to lift the water to get it out, but for HVAC, it seems like a direct line to the outdoors is a better approach.
This system was put in before we bought the house, so I simply can’t explain why they might have done it this way. This is just the way it is now. One other odd note – at one point we noticed sewer gas smell – turns out that some idiot drilled into the sewer line and stuck the clear plastic tube from the LG condensate pump in there. That got fixed by a pro who ran the clear plastic line outdoors and sealed the sewer pipe, but there was clearly a real MacGyver who did some of the work on this back before we bought the house.
Thoughts? And if what I am saying makes sense, who should I call? The company that services the HVAC? Or a plumbing company?? The company that services our HVAC also has a plumbing division – I just don’t know which one to call first..