Re-routing condensate line?

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CallMeVilla

CallMeVilla

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OK, I am a bit out of my depth here .... c'mon HVAC pros, help me out.

The diagram below explains the situation. The AC unit has a condensate sump actuated pump that sends the runoff in the designated direction of flow. The piping seems to go to the blower unit which does not have AC.

First, does the condensate water get used by the blower unit typically?
Second, if not, can I re-route the condensate to a closer floor drain?

The drop ceiling and presence of walls and equipment makes it almost impossible to insepct the connection point (or not) of the condensate line at the blower unit. Being 98 degrees in the ceiling does not help either!

Your thoughts???

AC DIAGRAM.jpg
 
First, does the condensate water get used by the blower unit typically? NO
Second, if not, can I re-route the condensate to a closer floor drain? YES

What's not making sense here is that you have to blow the air over the evaporator coils to get A/C.
Why is your blower & evaporator coils separate units and how does air get blown over the evap coils.

If this is a high efficiency furnace, then it will produce water vapor when combusting the gas to the burners. This condensate needs to be channeled to an appropriate receptacle. Perhaps instead of running two lines, they just dumped the A/C condensate into the air handler to be channeled away with the burner condensate.
 
Thanks for the input ... I went ahead and shunted overflow from the pumped condensate line to a separate (secondary) line which led water to the floor drain.

The AC unit develops condensate from the evap coils. The condensate gets pumped out (like most AC units) but the direction of the flow was toward a separate unit which I labelled as a Blower unit. That unit has no cooling, just air movement. I suspected the condensate water (being cold) could be push thru a coil to capture the energy as the blower pushed air over it. Think of it as a heat exchanger in reverse.

Absent info to the contrary, I re-piped and all seems to be working just fine.

ICE BLOCK.jpg
 
Just a side note...A/C condensate draining into a blower sounds like an ideal design for a legionnaires situation. It's a good thing that you found this and fixed it. The original installer should have realized this.
 
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