Kung Fu Maintenance discusses the purpose of the condensate pan and condensate drain lines in air conditioner systems. With some maintenance tips.
OK This particular part on the bottom is a condensate pan. Unfortunately these sometimes clog and can make a mess. They can make quite a mess.
It’s a good idea to at least at your cooling season to put these condensate pan tablets in the drain pan. They contain a rust inhibitor as well as an anti fungal anti mold just to help, also they contain a anti coagulant which kind of prevents the dirt from clumping together and clogging your drain lines. The nice thing about using those condensate pan tablets is if you did have a flood, I mean a leak, a clog, and that water was to run onto your stuff. Well at least that waters been treated with an anti mold anti fungus treatment. So the water is not just normal water. It is kind of the equivalent of spraying like a cleaning chemical on something. But obviously we don’t like clogs.
These condensate drains are often vented and sometimes in multiple spots. That can make clearing the drain line pretty tricky. Often times you can see this one has a second vent here which you can see someone has covered most likely to be able to vacuum out the system. But in order to vacuum out a system like this with a wet dry vacuum you have to cover over the other vents. Sometimes with your hand, a piece of paper, or strong piece of cardboard or plastic laminated piece of something that can block the condensate vent and that way you can clear the entire system.