OT: Way to remove clog from 3/4" AC drain?

You could cut the pipe near the AC and try to blast out the plug using compressed air...

Bert

Go into the attic and blow out the line with a garden hose. At the old house north of Shea I installed a Kobota coupler that I could pull and attach a hose. During the winter spiders were building in the line :-( ...Jim Thompson

I have always blown them out with a portable air compressor at the A/C unit end.

-- Les Cargill

I don't ahve a compressor, but did try my shop vac on the outside end. Nothing came out... :-(

house

tach

=A0 =A0...Jim Thompson

=A0 =A0| =A0 =A0mens =A0 =A0 |

=A0 | =A0 =A0 et =A0 =A0 =A0|

=A0|

=A0 =A0 =A0 |

are both ends open? I was thinking about just stuffing mesh into the exit pipe to prevent crawling upwards from the outside, but if the pipe is open at the other end that won't solve the spider problem.

exactly how did you do this? I dont have water access [at least to my knowledge] in the attic to blow the pipe out to the outside.

Try a garden hose (city or pump water pressure) on the top end (cut for access if need be) to blow it clear. Toss a bit of liquid soap in first if it's really stuck. Probably has a rodent carcass or the like stuck in it.

Or rip it out and do it right so you don't have to go through this again. If you are going to mess about with anything this small for drainage, (mis-)use 3/4 conduit so you can have sweeps that a snake or fish-tape will go through, rather than mis-using water supply pipe fittings. Or go up to the minimum size you can find DWV fittings for (usually 1-1/2") and make sure you are using DWV (not water supply) fittings and provide clean-outs so you can get a snake in there when needed.

Presumably a bit late to make the bozos that put it in wrong fix it right - A/C guys seem to love doing this part wrong...

Pull a garden hose up thru the hatch and used a tapered rubber nozzle. ...Jim Thompson

stick your shop vac on the end of it and start it up! of, if you have an air compressor, place the line on the end and pack it with plumbers putty and duck tape it up and start compressing.. It'll most likely break things loose so that it'll drain out.

You can get plumbers balloon from the hardware store design to expand in the pipe when you put a garden hose on it. THe idea is to close of the hole while you compress it with water to blow it out.

Jamie

You connect the hose to the nearest hose tap (outside or in the laundry room, usually) and run it through the house (or an attic window) to the attic. Attics almost never have water supply built-in, at least anywhere that freezes at all.

That's how I solved it, cut PVC, add fitting to mate to garden hose, blow the liberals "brains" out ;-) ...Jim Thompson

I'm a great fan of strong caustic soda solution (sodium hydroxide, NaOH, Drano). If you can get it into the pipe above the blockage and leave it to work for a few hours it turns most things into water- soluble sludge. You may need to block the final outlet so that you can keep the clog soaking in caustic soda for a few hours, rather than having the caustic soda solution leak away when it has just etched a channel past the clog.

Drano takes the idea a bit further, by adding powered aluminium to the mix, which reacts with some of the caustic soda when it gets wet, producing heat and hydrogen gas.

Caustic soda solution is nasty stuff. Wear eye protection and rubber gloves, and wash it off exposed skin immediately if you get splashed. The skin surface of the eye is very thin, which is why eye-protection is a very good idea.

-- Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

But you don't need to do that, they sell the balloon that you just stick int he pipe and connect the hose to it.. It works perfectly and it holds much better. That will either push it out or it'll find the hole in the pipe.. THat is, if your water pressure is up there.

If that fails, then I would suggest he has a problem with somebody nesting in the pipe..;)

Jamie..

If you can find a universal speedometer drive cable, it will make those turns.

A foot pump for car tires can build up an incredible pressure, much more than a garden hose. You just have to make sure that its nozzle makes an airtight connection. And let nobody stand in the way. If it flies off it will do so with gusto. Oh, and nobody should stand near the outlet of this pipe either while pumping. Move all furniture that can't take dirt at least 10ft away.

As others have suggested use a water hose up in the attic at the air handler. I had to do that this spring - pesky dirt dobbers. You will probably have to take a side panel off to get access to the inside drain pan. If you have expansive soil you should also try and direct the water away from the foundation. Does not look like much trickling out but over the course of the day a lot of water is coming down that pipe. I put in kind of a small "mini" french drain to disperse the water out in the yard. If you do not do some type of drain use some stainless steelwool on the bottom end to help keep the critters out.

Sometimes an AC draining problem is just hydraulic lock. Do you have a vacuum breaker on the drains? I had a system that just would not drain condensate until I spliced a tee fitting at the condenser drain. with a 2" nip aimed straight up. Then it flowed very nicely.

--Winston

How about a jug of some really aggressive drain cleaner?

Can you drag a shop-vac to the attic and suck the crud out, maybe with a helper down below shooting compressed air into the pipe?

Good Luck! Rich

In a 3/4" pipe ??

My clog was actually in a 1" pipe... some kind of ground spider :-( Wife calls me at work, screaming, "Water is pouring out of the ceiling" :-( ...Jim Thompson