Wed 12 Jul 2006
Yuk! Mildew in the A/C unit
Sometimes it’s better not knowing things, like how badly mildewed your air conditioner is, regardless of how much you’ve been sneezing since moving back into the house. The service guy opened it up and showed me the other day, and of course, offered to replace the unit for several thousand dollars.
The problem is mildew in the insulation of the air handler cabinet. It should be a simple thing to replace the insulation, right? Certainly this is a common problem in Florida, right? Nope. My question about this to the manufacturer’s tech support (in Texas where I thought there was more heat and more humidity than Florida) was met with one of those, “Hmm. I’ve never heard of that before.” comments.
So it looks like I might as well tear the thing apart and try to replace the insulation myself. Apparantly there is nothing to lose, as everyone else’s solution for replacing $75 of insulation is to install an entire new A/C unit.
While our days in Hungary were seldom marked by receiving outstanding service, they were rarely marked by this type of “just throw it away and get a new one” mentality that seems so prevalent here. I’m sure I could have easily found someone to replace the insulation, and I bet it would have been hard to find someone who would have replaced the whole unit – even if I wanted them to!
Anyone know a good insulation contractor who knows air handler units?
3 Responses to “ Air Conditioning Dilemna ”
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Pingback from Hertzler’s Outpost » Air Conditioning Solution
July 19th, 2006 at 8:31 am[...] I finally gave up trying to fix my air conditioner problem by myself. Regardless of how I tried to figure it out, I couldn’t find a way to replace the mildewed insulation without removing the heating coil and separating the unit from the duct work. While I’m sure I could disconnect it all, I am quite sure I could not reconnect it again. It meant I needed a professional. [...]
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Pingback from Hertzler’s Outpost » Pop Quiz - What Color is the Insulation?
July 19th, 2006 at 11:56 am[...] There are few mistakes I’ve made more expensive than this one, although in my defense, I was either deceived or ill-informed about my conclusions. After hearing an air conditioning service agent tell me that our inside air handler unit was full of mildew, after seeing black insulation myself, and after speaking with no less than five different air conditioner companies, no one questioned the conclusion that black insulation meant mildewed insulation. [...]
July 24th, 2006 at 7:48 am
at least u get to have that dilema
did u forget that air conditioning here costs thousands of dollars for one room?! thats why no one has it here, my mom gos to the grocery store just to be in their air conditioning and its not even that cold in there (nothing like american stores)