Plumbers in Kyle, Texas

Where the water goes, and who owns which part

Cooling air condenses moisture out of it. A working system in August can produce ten to twenty gallons a day, which is more water than most people expect to be routed anywhere.

The primary drain runs from a pan under the coil. It leaves the air handler, picks up a trap, and goes either to the outside of the house or into the sanitary drainage system at an approved point. In new Kyle houses with the air handler in the attic, that run crosses a good part of the roof space to get anywhere.

The secondary route is a warning, not a drain. An overflow pan sits under the whole unit with its own line, and that line is deliberately put somewhere you will see it: over a window, above a door, at a soffit. Water dripping there means the primary drain has failed and the pan is catching it. It is doing its job, and it is telling you to act now.

Where it ties in is a plumbing question. Condensate may not simply be dumped into a vent or connected to a drain in a way that lets sewer gas back into the attic. A proper tie-in has a trap and an air break, and getting this wrong is why some houses smell faintly of drain when the air conditioning runs.

The split of trades is simple in practice. The coil, the pan under it and the float switches belong to your air conditioning contractor. The drain line, the trap and the connection to the house drainage are ours. When a ceiling is wet, the useful first question is which of those two it is, and that is usually answerable in a few minutes.

Why the line blocks every summer

Condensate lines block for one reason: the inside of a permanently damp pipe is an excellent place for biological growth.

The blockage is a slime, not a solid. Algae and bacterial growth builds up in the trap and the first few feet of pipe, then holds dust and insulation fibre. It builds all season, which is why the failure comes in the heat of summer rather than at the start of it.

A flat run finishes the job. The line needs continuous fall. Attic runs get supported badly, sag between hangers, and hold a puddle at the low point, which is where growth concentrates. A sagging line will keep blocking no matter how often it is cleared.

The trap can lose its seal. The little trap on a condensate line dries out in winter when nothing is running, and then lets air pull through in the wrong direction come spring. That shows up as gurgling at the air handler and poor drainage.

Clearing it is straightforward, keeping it clear is a routine. A vacuum at the outside termination pulls most blockages out. After that, it is a pan tablet or a flush of the line at the start of each cooling season, done deliberately rather than remembered.

Float switches are the safety net that matters. A switch in the pan or on the drain shuts the system down before the pan overflows. Houses with a working float switch get a warm afternoon and a phone call. Houses without one get a ceiling. If yours does not have one, it is the cheapest insurance in the building.

Telling a wet ceiling apart in ten minutes

A stain on a ceiling has a small number of possible causes, and in summer the order of likelihood is not what people assume.

Where is the stain in relation to the air handler? A wet patch below or just downstream of attic equipment in July is condensate until proven otherwise. A stain in a bathroom ceiling on the ground floor of a two storey house is more likely plumbing above it.

Does it track with the weather or with use? Condensate leaks follow run time: worse on the hottest days, better overnight, nothing at all in March. A supply leak does not care what the weather is doing and does not stop.

Is the overflow line dripping outside? If water is coming from that small pipe over a window, the answer is already established and the question is only how quickly it gets cleared.

Is the water clean and cold, or does it smell? Condensate is clean and unpleasantly lukewarm from an attic. Anything with an odour points at drainage instead.

Go and look, but do not stand under it. A saturated ceiling can come down. Turn the air conditioning off at the thermostat, which stops condensate being produced at all, and that alone tells you a great deal in the next hour.

Photograph the stain with something for scale. Ceilings dry and the mark fades, and a picture taken while it is wet, with a door frame or a light fitting in shot, is worth having if the cause is ever argued about.

How a call plays out

Someone answers at any hour. Tell us whether the air conditioning is running, whether anything is dripping from a small pipe outside, and roughly where the wet patch is in relation to the attic unit. Turn the system off at the thermostat before we arrive if a ceiling is actively wet.

Kyle, Buda and the rest of northern Hays County are on our daily route, with overnight dispatch. We clear and re-pitch condensate lines, correct tie-ins that were never right, and tell you plainly when the fault is in the equipment and belongs to your air conditioning contractor rather than to us.