Water Leaking From The Furnace?
I am new to home ownership, and I have a house with a gas furnace and central air. When the air conditioning is running, there is a steady stream of water leaking from the side of the furnance. It appears that the previous homeowner had tried to plug the leak using some sort of rubber compound, but now it's leaking through a big mess along a seal down the side. What should I know before fiddling around with a furnace. Basically, what is the reason for water when running air conditioning. Any help would be appreiciated, as I have no idea what my first step should be.
Answer:
It's water condensation. Because the cooling coils in the air conditioner are much colder than the warm humid air blowing thru it, water from the air condenses on the coils and then drips into a pan meant to collect the water. There should be a hose or pipe from the pan that goes to a drain or to a sump pump. Possibly this drain hose is plugged up and that's why the pan is overflowing. I have a similar problem. For the last couple of days water has been dripping from the top part of my gas furnace. I had my central air conditioner unit replaced less than a year ago and I think the fellow did a good job. Over the last few days, I would say that about 2 buckets of water have slowly drip out of the furnace. The air conditioner was working hard a couple of weeks ago, but it has barely been on this week as it has cooled off. The dripping seems to be stopping. There was a fair bit of rain just before this started and I wonder if water has made its way down the chimney. This happened over a year ago and then the problem seemed to go away until this week.