Up on the roof doing a little preventative maintenance here noticed a fan baffle was missing a screw. Don’t want that. The fan baffle will fall into the unit. Than we’ll have a real mess on our hands. So I located another screw and going to use my garbage disposer tool to lift it up. Lift up the fan baffle and reset the screw. There we go. Oops. I lost my garbage disposal tool. But. No big deal I have got plenty of those. If I ever need to take this lid off. I will recover that. At least now the fan baffle is not going to fall in there. Hit the fan. Give us a no cool call for an AC not working. Good to go.
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I have killed a lot of power tool batteries over the years and I wanted to try to spare you the same experience. In each instance what I did wrong was over use the tool so that it was overheated and kept pushing the battery to finish a job even though the battery was clearly low on power. What I have learned is that it is good to use your batteries till they are low on power and then recharge them in order to get good charging cycles. But what you don’t want to do is drive the battery into the ground when it is low on power. It can be frustrating if you are trying to finish up a job and your batteries run low. It is always good to have a backup battery for these instances, or even a back up tool.
I have killed a lot of power tool batteries over the years and I wanted to try to spare you the same experience. In each instance what I did wrong was over use the tool so that it was overheated and kept pushing the battery to finish a job even though the battery was clearly low on power. What I have learned is that it is good to use your batteries till they are low on power and then recharge them in order to get good charging cycles. But what you don’t want to do is drive the battery into the ground when it is low on power. It can be frustrating if you are trying to finish up a job and your batteries run low. It is always good to have a backup battery for these instances, or even a back up tool.
The KFM Blog Vertical Blinds Skyscraper Video Repair List Post
KFM gives an Ultimate Video Vertical Blinds Skyscraper Video repair list of links to the most likely vertical blind repairs you will need to make in your lifetime.
Vertical blind headrails are often very sharp being made from thin sheet metal and slats can also cut you as they are often thin plastic. Extra care should be taken around these sharp parts. Make repairs at your own risk. I have donated blood many times and would spare you those experiences.
Perhaps the most common vertical blind repair needed is Vertical Blind Slats Broken Repair.Vertical blinds often break off the portion of the slat where the vane is inserted into the stem.
Vertical blind vane breakages are often caused by wind through an open window, not turning the blinds open before sliding them open, and sometimes these just get pulled on and broken off.
There are many ways to repair broken vertical blind slats.
ThePunch Method you use a hole punch to punch three holes side by side on the opposite end of the blind slat to make a new hole for the slat to hang from. Than, if preferred, the broken side can be trimmed off to be straight. This does make the slat shorter than the others. Sometimes the last blind slat overlaps baseboards and shows less. So this is sometimes a good slat to trade with to give a better appearance.
The Knife or Chisel Methodis similar but uses a different technique. You can see each method by clicking on the video links. This procedure you use a small chisel or knife to puncture a new hole similar to the punch method and having the same problem of a shortened blind slat. Again changing the slats to one of the ends can leave the blinds with a better finished look.
TheHot Glue Method does work and does not shorten the blinds but sometimes can be a bit of a mess. I think it is better used for broken blind stems that have fixed grommet ends where stems are not as easily changed.
TheVane Saver Methodis I think one of the best methods of repair short of replacing the blind slat with a new one. These slat savers are especially useful for special finish designer blind slats with unique finishes that are not easy to find or replace. Here is link http://amzn.to/2kKrdoY(Amazon Link) to the Vane saver repair clips. This is the best way to repair these in my opinion as the repair does not shorten the blind slat. Repair clips are usually made of metal and slipped over the broken portion of the slat making a new place to hang the repaired vane.
IfAll The Blinds Wont Turn this is often a case off all the slats overlapping the wrong way. The way to quickly remedy this situation is to poke the top corner of the wrong way blind slat(as shown in the video) to change the way the blinds overlap.
If anIndividual Stem Wont Turn the cause is often a broken stem or missing comb gear. ABroken Stem often has broken teeth so it may only rotate partially or it may keep popping out of step. This can also be caused by a Broken Comb Gear.
Missing Stem And Comb Gear Replacing as shown in the video is not too difficult but the parts are very small and the repair takes a little patience. The easiest way is to rotate the blinds open center. Hold the replacement stem with its gears inserted into the replacement comb gear and push it up and into the carrier with the missing stem.
If you can not get them to go in together another way is to put the comb gear in first, teeth up, ridges facing the opening, with a pair of needle nose pliers. Than insert the stem and pop it into the carrier. Often when you do this the stem will pop in but the comb gear might not have popped in all the way. The trick here is to examine the comb gear. Look to see which way rotating the wand will draw the comb gear into the carrier. If rotated the wrong way the blinds will often fling the comb gear and stem out like a pair of tiddly winks.
Here is a Trick To Replace Gear Stems For Fixed End Blinds. The trick as shown in the video is to carefully drill through the top of the vertical blinds headrail. Position the hole according to the stem position. If centered drill the hole in the center. If off center drill the hole off center. This will create a place that you can push up the old gear stem through the headrail and than insert the new gear through the hole into its place. Often the grommets that hold the headrails together are one time use only. Drilling through the rail can make a way to make repairs in the present and future.
If you haveVertical Blinds Stems That Popped Out.the procedure is similar as above and shown in the video. This sometimes happens when something is in the way such as a toy or couch and the blind wand is rotated. This sometimes forces the stem and or comb gear to pop out. This happens quite often with self aligning vertical blinds as they are engineered to pop over into line a bit easier if out of step.
With self aligning blinds first make sure all blinds are overlapping the same way or correctly and than you can just gently rotate the wand all the way one way and than the other way. Each gear has a little stop on the outward facing end that cause the gear to pop over as needed to bring the slats in step.
With other blinds do not try to force the master control to turn the blinds or it will break the control. For these you will want to take off the corresponding slat than grasp the offending stem with a pair of pliers and gently pop the stem over into the correct orientation. Yes this procedure sometimes breaks the stem, comb gear, or carrier, so be ready to make further repairs if needed.
If you have Vertical Blinds Individual Stems That Won’t Turn the repair is often similar. Sometimes it is broken stem gears and sometimes the comb gear will have popped out. Sometimes you can find the little comb gear fallen on the floor or in the window track.
Sometimes, with wand controlled vertical blinds, if I need just one comb gear I will take it from the first carrier. That takes away the rotation of the first slat but it turns the first slat into a window viewer to see if anyone is outside easily. It being right next to the wand control makes it convenient to control that first slat by hand.
If you have a Vertical Blind Wand That Came Off it is a fairly easy task to set it back on. Just position the wand at the correct angle and you can hook it back on to the master control. There are a few other types of wands. Some have a slide that slips up to cover the hook opening. Some have a hook that rotates into place to open and close the hook.
Vertical Blinds Master Control Brokenis often caused when something is in the way of the blinds turning (couch, toy, box, broom, mop, chair, clothes, curtains, out of line slat etc..) and the master control is forced in an attempt to rotate the blinds closed.
To get at the master control for either repair you will need to remove the end cap. There are many types of end caps. Some use a clip, some use a grommet, some a screw, some multiple screws, some various combinations of the above and more to hold on the end cap. Just understand that these were engineered to be able to be easily assembled plus somewhat easily disassembled (even if a little less so) and repaired.
After removing the end cap you will often need to release the rear carrier catch or stop so that you can slide things out of the headrail. Some of these use a c clip. Some a hook. Some you can can just press up on the hook, others you will need to remove the hook by removing or loosening the end cap screws. One trick if you have a c clip break when you try to remove it or re seat it is drive a small screw through the headrail to create a new stop to act as the final carrier catch stop.
Vertical Blinds Sticking When Sliding is often caused when manufacturing, shipping, or installing. (See my tip towards the bottom of the page for getting less damage when ordering.) This can also be caused if the headrail was hit or dented somehow. Anyway what happens is a slight bend, dip, or twist. in the headrail causes that carriers to hang up, click, or even cause the carriers to come out of the track completely.
Sometimes damaged headrails can be repaired by first sliding the carriers back on track properly and than bending, twisting, or hitting the headrail back into proper shape. Sometimes it is best to just change out the offending headrail.
Headrail damage is also the most often cause of Vertical Blinds Carriers Separated although if something was in the way such as a broom fell between the slats and the blinds were forcefully slid open that could also cause some carriers to separate. Sometimes you can repair the carrier link or sometimes you can link the separated carriers together.
To relink the carriers you will need to follow the instructions above for removing the end caps and releasing the back stop. Once done you can slide the assembly forward out of the headrail far enough to expose the broken portion of carrier linkage. Sometimes you can just reinsert the carrier linkage by rotating it back into the corresponding next carrier slot. Sometimes you will need to change out a broken carrier. The video Vertical Blinds Carriers Separated makes this a bit clearer.
Vertical Blinds Hard To Slide can sometimes also need the headrail to be bent into shape but before you go there it is a good idea to lube the blinds first. Petroleum jelly will work in a pinch however I think it is best to use a silicone sprayhttps://amzn.to/2BF7SzW(Amazon Link) as it dries and still maintains its lubrication qualities. It is a little smelly when first applied but a dry lube will be less likely to collect hair and dust.
Silicone spray is also great for patio door sliders, window tracks, garage, and screen doors!
Vertical Blinds How To Lubricate.So you have your silicone spray ready. What you want to do is slide the blinds all the way open. Then spray the entire track of the head rail with the silicone spray. Wait about twelve minutes for the spray to mostly dry. Next slide the blinds closed and rotate them opened and closed a few times. Waiting the twelve minutes will keep the spray from dripping onto the slats but still leave it a tiny moist to work onto the teeth of the comb gears. If you see any dripping before sliding wait a bit longer before sliding closed to prevent getting any drips on the blind slats.
One of the main causes ofVertical Blinds That Wont Turn Open All The Way is brackets that do not extend far enough from the wall or a portion of the wall. This can also happen from blinds out of step or from anything else that would block the blinds. Also sometimes a whole set of blinds can have a portion of the the slat stems rotated out of step and need to be rotated as discussed above in the section on Vertical Blind Slats Out Of Step.
Check out these videos also on Vertical Blinds Hitting Wall and Custom Extension For Vertical Blinds Hitting Wall In the custom extension video I wound up using the existing brackets and than adding the new brackets to the old so that I could slide out the headrail to get the further needed clearance. There is always a way!
Vertical Blind Slats That Are Too Long can be trimmed down with strong scissors such as butcher scissors. It is a good idea to use a template such as already trimmed to size slat. Slide the top end of your template blind and the blind you want to trim and cut the bottom of your new blind to size. Continue to use the same template for your new blind slat and cut one slat at a time for best results.
If you have Vertical Blinds With Loose Bracketsthere are a number of ways to tighten these up. Sometimes you can just tighten up the screws but sometimes you will run into some stripped out screw holes. In some instances you can just run new screws or larger screws into the studs.
If the holes are in a spot where there is not a stud you can use a drywall anchor or a molly to strengthen things up. Sometimes you will want to move the bracket to a stronger location where a stud is available. In some instances you may want to just add a new bracket to add strength and avoid the need for patching and painting.
Vertical Blinds Fell Off Brackets. Yes this does happen. Sometimes one way to keep it from happening again is to squeeze the freedom loving bracket or brackets a little bit, either with your hand or a pair of channel locks. Than you can insert the side ridge of the headrail into the groove hook of the bracket and rotate it up, snapping it into place of the flatter release tab portion of the bracket. Freedom is good but we still have a job to do to keep things going!
Vertical Blinds End Cap Came Off. As written before there are many types of end caps. Some use a clip, some use a grommet, some a screw, some multiple screws, some various combinations of the above and more to hold on the end cap.
Vertical Blinds Dragging On Floorcan happen from headrails that have fallen out of the brackets. This can also happen from blinds that are positioned to low or sagging mounting brackets as shown in Vertical Blinds Dragging On Floor Cheap Trick. If something is added behind the bracket you want to make sure that it can not fall out and become a choking hazard.
Before you reset a Vertical Blinds Valance That Came Off you may want to watch this video. I show how to reset the valance clip without breaking it. Okay, okay. I will just tell you the secret here. What you want to do is make sure that you clip the back on first and then rotate the front portion on. The back portion has a bit more of a hook and is more likely to crack if you put the front on first. This type of valance clip the valance portion is rotated into place inside the valance to hold it.
Vertical Blinds How To Replace Bent Slats. Replacing broken or bent slats is not to difficult. For many blinds slats you just lift up on the vane/slat and pull it to the side to remove it. For other types you have to pick up the back of the stem a little bit. For those once you remove one slat you can use the slat to slip under the next stem so that you can pull out the next slat.
Most often times it’s a flapper ball that deformed. Time to change the flapper. This is a regular maintenance item. Sometimes the chain gets trimmed too short. This one the front of the flapper has begun curling up.
These are supposedly a five year flapper but if people use additives and what not than they won’t actually last five years. Because of the additives. Especially in a toilet where people go on vacation or out of town for periods of time or don’t use like a second bathroom very often. The additive will become concentrated and can eat the seals. Especially the flapper.
Change the flapper. We should be all set. Sometimes the fill valve itself can wear out. The seat can get a little ridge in it. There is a kit I have for replacing that. It sticks on the existing ridge.
Okay. Got a new flapper. You probably noticed all the cloudiness. How white the water turned. What happens is the tank gets built up with calcium and mineral deposits. They just build up and get built up.
So what I am going to do is as I’m changing this out. Trimming the new chain down to size. We don’t want the excess chain there because it can get bound up and hang up.
You can see how cloudy the water is. That’s because of the calcium mineral deposits that just get built up every time this thing is flushed for however many years old this is. What we are going to do is rinse all that out as we change this flapper here. Here goes. Unclip the old one. Unclip the chain off the handle. Before I put the new one in I am going to pull this off and rinse all the sediment off of the bottom. Just direct that into the drain. Using a wet dry vacuum works good to. This will get a lot of it. As well as off the sides. That’s just going to minimize how cloudy the water is.
Alright, here goes our new flapper. Put it back on the chain. Test it out. We’re good. But if we need to we can bend the handle a little bit. Here we go. Bend it either way. We have enough slack in the chain. We also get a full lift. Perfect.
Alright. It’s still going to be a little bit cloudy. It’s not perfect but it is better than it was. Let’s see if that is going to stop the dripping sound that we had going earlier.
And here is our old flapper. I usually just take this and put it back in the case. But these just get rippled over time. And the question is. Is it going to stop? Answer is. Yes it is.
Alright. Good to go.Got cleaners coming to clean. So just getting everything ready.
A quick search of my Youtube channel you should be able to find a bunch of material that will be helpful to your maintenance needs and links to tools and parts can be found in the descriptions below.
Welcome to the show welcome back to Kung Fu maintenance where I show you how to make the most likely repairs that you’ll need to make in your lifetime if you’d like to get latest videos subscribe and then hit the little bell icon right of the Subscribe button and it will notify you of any new videos when they’re released for you welcome back to confirm maintenance well today I got a smart key that wasn’t so smart it didn’t behave and the key didn’t take and this happen sometimes and it can be really frustrating especially if it’s your last one and you try to finish up a job it’s very frustrating but I have here is a smart key cradle tool that’s used to reset a smart key that went bad well this one it’s jammed there we go okay now with this kind what you do is get under here there’s a lever right here you get under there and lift that lover and then you can pull the Center Post out with a pair of pliers or what not so we push up on that and pull the Center Post out then this prom deal you’ve got to insert it straight down inside to release the deal if you have a second key that works good if you don’t or if you have a second cylinder removal tool you can put it in here and hold that portion up see how it moves that Center portion up and allows you to insert the tool so a second key works good so you can lock it in like that and then push it straight down and release or push out the cylinder that pushes out the back part in this basically pushes these two tabs and let you release them okay so now what we want to do is remove the keeper which is the little metal part now on deadbolts there’s a washer behind that on the handle there is not and then we need to remove the spring clips here that hold the entire cylinder in so there’s a spring clip and now that that’s says remove the whole cylinder so this one now I don’t need the key anymore now this is where you’re going to want to be careful that you don’t separate these two portions because if this comes out which happens very easily then you can lose the little springs and there’s sidepiece that’s kind of tricky me and I can show a show at in the deadbolt re-keying video the smart key cradle tool for deadbolt but this one’s for a handset so smart key rekey for handset what we want to do is line up the little icon of the reeking deal with the arrow so just like this and then line up the cylinder and insert that in there like that and then we’re going to turn the whole deal until the arrow lines up with the line here and maintain pressure and maintain it so it stays like that take are smart key pin and push it all the way in until it collects until it goes in all the way next you’re going to take a key that you want to rekey it to and answer the key no this is where you going to want to be careful you’re going to pull it straight out and just make sure you get the back of it and the whole thing together it’s very easy at this point to pull this out of the cylinder and then it’s a mess okay so that I can turn it to the right 90° and then again just use one finger on the front before pulling out the key or use your other fingers to hold the front before you pull out the key okay now every kid and we going to take it and we’re going to recert it back into our housing okay. Now we’re going to reset insert it into the deal depending on how you wanted the handing at this point because depending on where your lock is that would open it you ideally want this portion down okay so but anyway now you going to take it we’re going to insert the spring clip and then we’re going to insert the keeper it’s important that you insert the keeper because if you don’t it can pull out the center from the spindle and now we’ve successfully rekeyed our lock and from here if you wanted it to it’s the regular smart key rekey procedure suffer this one I’d turn it 90 degrees question the pin full out the old key insert the new key that you want to rekey it to insert the key and now I’ve successfully rekeyed my lock good to go and that’s how you can rekey these not from here this is where you insert it That way with the key portion down and now we are successfully rekeyed find the key that I rekeyed it to and we’re all set our smart key that wasn’t so smart just got a little bit smarter thanks for watching Kung Fu Maintenance over and out that’s the cylinder cradle tool and it’s got instructions on the side and it came with instructions in the bag or the Box all right thanks for watching Kung Fu Maintenance over and out
Kung Fu Maintenance Show shows you a couple tools that are commonly used to repair freon charge leaking schrader valves. KFM demonstrates the importance of wearing gloves and the use of the valve core removal tool to fix a bad refrigerant leak. The valve core removal tool allows the replacing of the schrader valve core without losing the freon charge.
I got two tool here, to show you. This one here, it’s got all the new Schrader valves inside the cap. This tool, you can use to tighten the Schrader valves. And this particular tool is used for replacing a Schrader valve without recovering all the refrigerant. It’s got this deal, here, that locks onto the Schrader valve, and it’s got, on the side here, a valve that you can close off, so you can take the Schrader valve out and replace it. Let me show you that, here.
Hopefully, this one, I can just tighten it down, to repair our leak, here. It’s leaking out a little bit. And, you just insert this onto the Schrader valve, and then twist it. This one seems to be tightened down all the way, the valve seems to be sticking and of course, I just made it a lot worse. That’s why you always want to wear gloves, because you can get frostbite, it is very cold.
All right, that one’s giving me a hard time, I’m going to have to use this other tool, here, to replace the Schrader valve. It’s even freezing the gloves. Okay. So, with this tool, you insert it on and tighten it down all the way. It’s going to be tight quarters, but you’ve got to do it… wow, the refrigerant really froze the gloves out. That’s why it’s good to — definitely important to wear gloves.
Now we’re tightened on there, what you do, is you insert the bottom of the tool and it’s got the same type of tool head on it, so you’re going to remove the Schrader valve from the inside. This is the tricky part here, it takes a degree of feeling for it to catch. To know that you’re actually pulling your valve out. It doesn’t want to turn, either, tight quarters. Got to get your channel locks on it and push it back. I’ll see if I can turn it out. It doesn’t want to budge, going to be a tough one. There we go.
Hopefully the Schrader valve doesn’t break, sometimes they do break inside, and then you’ve got to extract them. Make sure the bottom portion is screwed on enough, okay.
Let’s untwist it out, hopefully we got it. Now, what you do is turn the valve off right here; this’ll shut the refrigerant flow off. Then we can remove the bottom portion of the tool. Hopefully our Schrader valve will be inside. If we’re lucky, yep. There it is. So, there’s the old Schrader valve.
So, this tool allows us to replace the Schrader valve without taking the entire refrigerant charge out. So, there’s our old Schrader valve. Inside my other tool, we’ve got the new Schrader valve. And, all you do is insert this into your tool, like so, and then we put it back up inside, nice and carefully. This is tricky, because it’s tight quarters. Okay, tighten that all the way on.
Now we’re going to reopen the refrigerant line, here, so we can get past, with our Schrader valve, back up inside. You know, it takes a degree of feeling, for the seating of the valve, to seat properly. You always want to wear goggles and gloves, when handling refrigerant. Okay. Now we’re going to push it all the way up. Just gently feel for it, as we twist it in. Feeling for the valve, to seat. Feeling for it to seat properly. Which, it feels like everything’s going smoothly.
In hindsight, I probably should’ve replaced the Schrader valve when the system was turns off, so that it would have no pressure on the valve, but you get the idea. Just, we made it a bit more dramatic. But, also, you can feel what’s going on, differently, when it does have pressure by turning it off would minimize the amount of refrigerant lost, so that’s actually the better way to do it.
Okay, so I tightened it up as much as I could, there. The rest, we’ll have to tighten up with this tool, afterwards so, now, we’ll pull our valve back down. It does just not want to release, for me. Now, I’m going to go ahead and turn the system off, since we’re pretty much done in our…
Let me disconnect this way, we can kind of minimize any refrigerant loss, if there is any. Okay. There we go, it doesn’t want to let go of my tool. There we go. Sweet. Okay.
So, we got our new Schrader valve in. Try and give you a peek at what we’re looking at, there. And, now we can leak-test it with the bubbles. And, for further test, you can go ahead and start to put the cap on, and if you see any bubbles coming up, that would indicate that it is leaking. Tiny bit. Okay. Go ahead and tighten this down, with the tool. Okay. Still had a couple turns on it, there. Okay.
Now, sealed real good. Again, bubble test it. And, put our outer cap on. Again, looking for any bubbles. Seeing a little bit, there. Not seeing any more, though. That could’ve just been the air that’s in the cap, itself. So, we’re good, there. Now, I want to clean this all out with clean water. Clean off our valve, and our Schrader cap. Okay. We’ll tighten this all on. And, I’ll tighten it down a hair tighter, with channel locks. Got a little quarter turn past tight then we’ll bubble-test it again, to make sure. The high side and the low side. Everything’s good, there.
Now, I’m going to plug it in, so that it’s under pressure. It’s been about five minutes, so, it’s safe to plug it in again. And, then, I’ll go ahead and bubble-test it again, once it has pressure on it. All right, try our valve, and no more leaks. We’re good to go! I’ll go ahead and clean all the soap, off, here, with fresh water and we’re good to go.
So, that’s how to replace a leaky Schrader valve, without having to recover all the refrigerant in the system.
Kung Fu Maintenance demonstrates how to unclog a clogged air conditioner condensate drain that has made a small flood and wet carpet in front of an AC.
Oh no, wet carpet. Well it’s all right here in front of the air conditioner. And most times, what this is a clogged condensation drain line from the AC; it’s pretty hot these days. So let’s open this up and take a look. And where the leak is at, we’ll have different options, just kind of wanted to go through a bunch of different steps today on clogged condensation leaks. So let’s take a look here, let me open service panel door here. So it’s got this little keyed latch that that we need in order to open the service panel, I usually just use my screwdriver. That lets us remove the panel. Oh yeah, this one is actually at the pan. You can see how full the pan is full of water and it’s overflowing. You’ll see some setups out there where you’ve got a pan like this filled with water and if it overflows, there’s an exterior pan that has a condensate float switch. So if the pan overflows then it will trip the float switch until you can clean it up. My particular setup does not have it. Here’s the condensate drain, and what it has is a vent in the condensate drain so the entire drain line goes out back. There’s a trap right behind here for the vent here.
And so what we can do is vacuum from the vent or vacuum from outside. If water was overflowing right here, we’d actually want to vacuum from outside. My particular setup drains into gravel well. Because our clog is right here at the drain, it’s either at the drain or it’s in the trap there, most likely in the trap. I should be able to unplug it here and not necessarily need to unplug it outside. If I did need to unplug it outside, what I’d do is hook up my wet/dry vacuum back there, come over here and seal this side where I’ll pull in the water out with the wet/dry vacuum and that way it pulls all the way to the clogged drain here. So anyway, get this going, check it out here.
I regularly change air filters, so I’ll be changing the air filter today. And also add condensate pan tablets to the drain so it doesn’t form mold and fungus and all that funky stuff so that it’s not just water. So when they have a leak like this, it’ not just water, it’s actually treated water with anti-mold, anti-fungal, anti-coagulant, and it also keeps odors away, all that good stuff, anyway, going to be vacuuming this out right here. These drains work via gravity, just like normal drains, so it drains to a well out back where the level is lower than it is here at the drain pan and as well as at the vent. So as long as it’s lower there, it’s draining to there.
And sometimes if I hook up my wet/dry vacuum from here, we may need to go and put a cover. I usually use, when I have to cover either these vents or that outside cover, I’ve got these little tags that are very laminated material. And so I’ll just fold that and put that over the hole and that makes a really good seal. If you have a cap or something like that, you can use that, but I like to use these. Anyway, get this going.
I’ve got my nice little Stinger wet/dry vacuum, this thing is a tool of champion’s right here. This little Stinger wet/dry vacuum converts to a blower so it’s really useful for situations like these. So we’re going to be hooking up my suction hose right here, and the nice thing about this is it just pretty much slips right over the top, I can use my hand to seal the rest of it off. So here’s to the vacuum.
And I’ve actually got a plug usually right here at the area, so it makes it nice and convenient for getting this done. Plug it in there and we’re ready to vacuum and we’ll see if it pulls it from the pan or not. So ideally it’s going to pull it from right there and we’ll know that we’re clear. So here it goes. You can see a lot of sludge in there. So there’s definitely a lot of sludge in there and I also just want to ensure that the other side is clear. So, I either vacuum it from out back or what I can do is plug this side. So I’m just going to tear off a piece of this laminated deal that I showed you earlier like so. What I’m going to do is insert it and just block the condensate drain line right here. Block the hole and then run the vacuum and pull water from outside.
I only needed to do that for a little while just to ensure that everything was clear there. And then now, whatever I can, I’ll vacuum from the pan. Although, this is a slant coil so there’s not really much room to get in there but I’d like to vacuum out some of that sludge. The problem is you can see some rust in the pan. We want to avoid putting any kind of pressure on that pan, we just want to vacuum it but without pushing the vacuum because we don’t want to create a leak or put a hole in the pan. And it is older, it’s probably solid and it’s probably fine but, again, no reason to cause a situation.
Okay. So I’m just going to vacuum down in there, pull my vacuum hose up here. Let’s see if we can get any of that sludge. And there’s, again, not much that I can reach but slip that down in there and vacuum it up.
Okay, I got what I could that way. Anyway, so we’re all clear now and now it’s just going to be a little follow-up and preventative maintenance here, changing the air filter. This particular air filter is a 16 by 20 by 1. So it just slides out of this side here, this, again, is a slant coil filter. So now it’s just the preventative maintenance side. And coil is a tiny bit dirty but not too bad, definitely not the worst I’ve seen. Changing the filters regularly is really the key to keeping that all working good and running good. So let’s slip our new filter in, just going to make sure that the arrows that are on the filter are pointing the correct way. The arrow is pointing in, that’s where the air goes through. Let’s do the filter through the coil. All right, then we get this heat from the unit.
Okay, now what I have is these condensate pan tablets. These are really good in that they have, again, an anti-mold, anti-fungal, helps minimize odors and get rid of smells and irritants and stuff that can cause all kinds of troubles, especially people that are sensitive, has asthma or any kind of a situation like that. Anyway, it calls for at least two tablets for three tons; this is a two-ton system. What I’m going to do is try to position the tablets where they’re going to be dripped condensate on. Probably some of the sludge that we saw in there might have been from old tablets. Anyway, I’m going to put two in the front, back here. There we go. And then I’ll put two in the back also, if possible. This one doesn’t seem like there’s really any room to get to in the back so I’m just going to have to put them in the front again. I can try to push one down a little further but, again, I want to avoid putting any kind of pressure on that pan. It is solid but still just don’t want to make things worse. Anyway, set the tablets up there and the condensate will drop across them. This is better than bleach; bleach actually can cause some people some irritants. And so this stuff is a little bit milder than that but it also does the trick of what it’s supposed to do and some added functions. The anti-coagulant keeps dirt from clumping together so they really help keep everything going here.
So we’re all set to go here, just going to give one final little vacuum pull the rest of the water through there. Just to make sure all the sludge is gone. Okay, so now we’re all set there, Sting did its job. Let’s take a look at this water here and see all the sludge, yeah, yummy, delicious stuff. Okay. So now it’s just a little bit of dealing with the carpet. So, get that going, put my lid back on and my air conditioner is ready to roll again, ready to keep things nice and chilly and keep everybody breathing easier with the new filter and the tablets to keep everything nice and comfy and not stinky.
Okay, and again, if we did have a leak in the future, the nice thing of putting those tablets in there is the water won’t just be water; it will be treated water. It’s kind of like pouring a cleaning chemical on stuff. Okay. So we’re good to go there. One AC ready to roll.
One other thing I should tell you is some units will have two drains, a primary and a secondary drain. Especially your units on a second floor or if you have a unit where a unit is in the attic of a house, a lot of times you’ll have a primary and a secondary drain. Some out there might even have three drains, so just something to be aware of, you might need to clear them all.
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