AC not dehumidifying. Anyone know anything about these?

[Kelemvor]

Our AC has always worked fine but it's somewhat old. I've noticed recently that it doesn't seem to be removing the moisture form the air as it should. It's cooling the house just fine but the humidity is staying around 55%. I'm pretty sure it should be able to be lower than that and would prefer it be in the 30s.

Here's two pics of the system. I'm not sure if I just need to clean a clog somewhere or what.

Pic 1: AC1.jpg

This is the tube that the water should be coming out of. I took the rubber hose off and do feel at least some air coming out of it.

Pic 2: ac2.jpg

This is below the first one. The rubber hose was originally to the right of where it is now by the two white hoses. The area with the white hoses is full of water which I'm not sure it's supposed to be or not. The rubber hose was not connected to anything but was just hanging in there so I'm not sure if it was supposed to be there or not. The rubber hose going down leads to the drain so obviously that's where the water should be going.

Maybe it's working fine but it sure doesn't seem like it. Anything I can do? Humidity outside has ranged lately from 30 to 90 but the inside doesn't matter and stays at 50ish because of the AC and it sure feels sticky.

Thanks.

 

[KK]

Your hose should be draining somewhere outside the house. Go locate it and see if water is coming out. If it isn't then you need to find out why. We had to correct our drain pipe at our hunting mobile home this weekend. it was kinked preventing water from flowing. We took the hose off right at the inside AC unit and water just poured out. Once we got that fixed the AC worked great.

 

[Kelemvor]

The hose goes to the drain on the basement and no, I don't think there's water coming out of it. The rubber hose in the pictures is the drain hose. I'm just not sure why the first part of the hose was going into that white reservoir area and not down with the rest of the hose.

I don't see anything clogged but don't really know where all I need to look.

Thanks.

 

[KK]

If you take off the drain hose straight off the AC unit, do you get any water coming out of the AC unit.

 

[iamwiz82]

Check your condenser. It's behind the sheet metal in the furnace and it usually looks like an upside down V. The air gets blown through it and condenses the water, which then drains out. If it freezes over, the water won't drip, obviously. Also, if it is really dirty it also won't condense.

 

[IGBT]

..some of the newer hvac's mabe not yours have a narrow window of operation and won't go into cooling on demand for dehumidifying if the ambient temp is below a preset threshold. This is the mfgr's succumbing to epa/eco-theist demands to limit hvac use.

 

[wedi42]

your a/c could be to big for your house.
if the a/c doesn't run long enough it won't dehumidify

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: iamwiz82
Check your condenser. It's behind the sheet metal in the furnace and it usually looks like an upside down V. The air gets blown through it and condenses the water, which then drains out. If it freezes over, the water won't drip, obviously. Also, if it is really dirty it also won't condense.

Actually that's called the evaporator. Technically with a heatpump when in heat cycle the indoor coil is the condenser. True, ambient moisture condenses on the evaporator but the function of phase change relates to the cycle of refrigeration, not what occurs on the outside.

How long does your unit run for? Short cycling (unit too large for heat load) is the biggest complaint of excessive indoor humidity when temperature (calls for cooling) are satisfied yet the indoor air feels "close".

 

[Kelemvor]

Well, I peeled some of the sheet metal back so I could see inside and it looks fine. Not clogged with dirt or anything. I did only see a few drops of water on the bottom.

As for the AC unit, it's probably 15-20 years old and I don't remember ever having this problem before. I'm not sure how long it runs for at a time since I've never really pad attention. We did have a new thermostat and furnace installed a couple years ago but the AC wasn't touched and has worked fine this whole time.

HMmm.

 

[Kelemvor]

If I set the temperature down a bit to force it to run longer, it does seem to get less humid but I don't know what I can do about that. We have a really well insulated house so it cools down fast and doesn't need to run very often. It's just something that I've noticed new this year for some reason.

Oh well.

 

[KK]

from what I've been reading, 55% isn't that high. 30% would probably not be able to do with just a AC, you would need a dehumidifier. Seems like ~50% is common.

 

[biggestmuff]

http://arnoldservice.com/troub...ditioning_problems.htm

 

[Pepsi90919]

Originally posted by: iamwiz82
Check your condenser. It's behind the sheet metal in the furnace and it usually looks like an upside down V. The air gets blown through it and condenses the water, which then drains out. If it freezes over, the water won't drip, obviously. Also, if it is really dirty it also won't condense.

the condenser is outside and the name has nothing to do with condensing water.

 

[sdifox]

You have to clean up the drainage. unhook the hose and try to clean the connection out. Mine plugged up and made a huge mess