Hey yall. New hubitat person here. Love my hub so far! I have an idea for a project and was looking for feedback/suggestions. I have a heat pump in the attic with a condensation tray that collects water which then drains out via a gravity PVC line. Its not very efficient and when its been as host as it is (115 F heat factor today), the amount of condensation fills up the tray which shuts down the AC. I then have to go into attic and out to drain line outside the house and use a shop vac to suck out all the water. Major suckage.
What I was thinking was hooking up a water sensor at a specific level in the condensation tray and a small two hose pump on a smart switch, like a pond pump with one line in the condensation tray and the other run out through the attic. When water in tray rises to sensor level and it triggers condition then have hubitat turn on the smart switch connected to the pump.
Can yall recommend any good water sensors /smart switches or even smallish pump. I see lots of pumps at lowes and what not but most of these pump from the bottom of the base, i need something that will have hose because even though the condensation tray is huge (2x1 meters and 7 CM deep) there on about 1 cm of clearance where i can actually access the water.
The "condensation tray" that you are referring to....would this be the secondary (overflow) drain pan under the cooling coil? If so the cooling coil has its own primary drain line which may be stopped up and is overflowing into the secondary overflow drain pan. If so the solution is to unclog the primary drain line off the cooling coil. If there is any question about the "condensation tray" perhaps you could take a photo of the cooling coil and the drain pan in question, including the piping, and post it here. It sounds to me that you may need an AC service tech to come out and blow out the cooling coil primary drain line with nitrogen to unclog it.
Yes that exactly what it is. Its the overflow. I have sucked out the main line as best as i can with shop vac. Its approx. 40 feet though from unit , across attic then down to the side of house to the ground. I have had the Ac guy come and clean out the line but this $150 a visit.Have tried both white vinegar and bleach down the line but that only works for so long. This would be kind of a backup solution.
As a long time Hubitat customer and HA user I wouldn't depend on HA to solve this. Water in attic is very bad and my parents had $18k of damage happen because their HVAC leaked and caused all sorts of water damage. That event actually prompted me to step up my game by purchasing water leak sensors and I put them all over my house.
These are designed specifically to pump out water from HVAC units. I have one for my HVAC in my crawl space to pump the water out and they last several years. It is also designed to stop the HVAC if it fails too but that will require wiring changes.
I would honestly see if you can rerun the piping of your existing lines as you might have bugs, etc that is clogging the pipe. My attic HVAC goes into an upstairs sink vacuum pipe very close to the air handler - allowed by code in my area.
I’ll reiterate, it doesn’t overflow into the attic. The unit has a kill switch in the tray that shuts it off when it hits a certain level. I’m just trying to pump the water out of the tray so the air can come back on.
Thanks for the advice y’all. Wasn’t really looking for explanation of why I shouldn’t do it just some tips on water sensors and switches.
Totally understand. Stop by your local box store and look at the condensate pumps. You can run a short pipe from your tray into one of the holes on the condensate pump and then flexible tubing from the pump to the outside. It will run automatically based on the fill level. You could even plug it into a power sensing smart outlet to monitor how often it runs.
Yeah. I dont have the clearance on the pvc to run into a condensate pump. That's why I was looking to recreate the setup/concept with something that would fit. See pic. Note the water on plywood is from shop vac spills/splashes not overflow.
They make "low profile" condensate pumps too. Obviously the tank is smaller so they will run more often. They might work for you and I assume one of those PVC pipes is the clogged one and the other goes out through the soffit? You could repurpose the soffit one into the low profile pump.
If you have PVC to the outside you can get one of these or make your own. The idea here is that you can shut off the flow on the air handler side with the ball valve and then you have a hose connector. You use a garden hose pressure to blow out the biofilm etc. After you get this cleaned out make sure you use the tablets every few months.
