It’s Raining, It’s Pouring
The southern US has been getting soaked recently. While the rain is great for making the trees grow, and even better for sitting inside with a book, the accumulation of groundwater can cause a variety of problems to homeowners including water damage to your AC unit.
If you are noticing water rising around your AC unit, and you think it could potentially make it’s way into unit, the first thing you want to do is go to your breaker and turn off the power to your AC unit. This will minimize damage that occurs due to water entering the unit, or if has already suffered water damage will prevent more.
The second thing you should do if your unit has suffered water damage. is contact your homeowner’s insurance company to check if you have coverage for flooding or storms – many policies exclude flood damage itself, but will cover storm damage such as a tree limb falling on your AC.
Here is a list of steps to take following storm damage which need to be performed on either an interior, or exterior HVAC unit
Exterior
- Turn off the breaker
- Have the coils cleaned. This should be done from the inside of the unit by removing the top of the unit.
- If any electrical component was submerged, it should be removed and checked for corrosion and faults
- The condenser fan motor could be damaged if the seal around the motor is bad. These motors are designed to be in the rain but not submerged.
- Compressor terminals should be cleaned as rust and corrosion will build up over the next 60 to 90 days.
Interior
- Turn off the Breaker
- Water will damage more components in the indoor (furnace or air handler) as their are many more electronic controls in this unit. They are also not built to be water resistant as they are usually installed in dry areas but many get installed in crawl spaces under homes. The unit should be a couple of inches off the ground but with the 6 inches of rain could easily submerge parts of the unit.
- Turn off the AC unit at the thermostat. If the thermostat has a battery backup, there could still be low voltage signal being sent to the control boards in the submerged units.