Condensers are at the mercy of the outside elements. Your home's outdoor air conditioner unit is subjected to many elements, from high winds to leaf debris buildup. Although the main components are hidden carefully within the air conditioner's outside housing, the interior coils, or condenser, can acquire a layer of rust over time. If the rust is allowed to accumulate, it can slowly deteriorate the condenser's heat transferring coils, which will stop cool air from moving into the home. Removing the rust from the condenser requires specific chemical agents found mainly in aerosol canisters. Turn the air conditioner's circuit breaker off at the main electrical panel. Use a non-contact circuit tester at the outdoor air conditioner unit to verify that power is effectively off. Do not attempt to service the unit with the power on; it can easily electrocute you. Remove the outdoor air conditioner's side panel screws with a screwdriver. It may be necessary to remove more than one side panel to access the condenser.

Consult your owner's manual to verify the exact location of the condenser in your outdoor housing. Lift the top lid off of the air conditioner if necessary to access the condenser. toshiba floor mounted air conditioning unitsAsk a friend to help with the lifting process; hitachi split system air conditioner manualthe lid can be heavy since it typically houses the unit's fan assembly. harga ac portable merk panasonicLocate the condenser inside the air conditioner. It should look like a square or rectangular panel with numerous coils or fins creating its outside texture. Spray the entire condenser surface with condenser coil cleaner aerosol spray. The foam should rise and cover every surface so that it can dissolve the rust and other debris particles.

Allow the spray to remain on the coils. This type of spray is typically the no-rinse type; the foam will slowly run down the coils into the drain pan. Place a 50/50 quart mixture of water and bleach into the drain pan to ensure that the draining action does not become clogged with the debris falling from the coils. Reverse steps 2 and 3 to reassemble the air conditioner's outside assembly. Turn the circuit breaker back on at the main electrical panel. Set the home's thermostat to "Cool." Allow the condenser to function normally. The condensate produced by the condenser will help the foam dissolve even more for rust removal. Things You Will Need Non-contact circuit tester Screwdriver Condenser coil cleaner aerosol spray 50/50 quart mixture of water and bleach Warning References Handyman How To: How to Clean Air Conditioner Evaporator Coils – Part 2U.S. Department of Energy: Maintaining Your Air Conditioner Photo Credits Jupiterimages/Comstock/Getty Images Suggest a CorrectionPeople ask, “What’s the most frequent home maintenance problem you find at a typical home inspection?”

When I answer, “The A/C evaporator unit,” many people scratch their heads, looking puzzled. They don’t know what I’m talking about. The folks who do know what I’m talking about are always surprised, because they think this item is taken care of when the air conditioning gets serviced once a year.  And it should be, but many cooling system technicians never remove the evaporator cover, much less clean and service it. If you don’t want to take the time to read all the details below, here’s the bottom line: . For those of you who want the long version, let me explain. The evaporator is the inside component of your cooling system. Some people call it the A-coil or evaporator coils. It’s the part that is located physically on the air handling equipment inside your house. It’s always inside a metal cabinet, with an inspection or service panel that must be removed to get to it. And that panel is one of the reasons that it gets neglected. Many times the evaporator is in a hot attic, and the panel has several screws, and it’s hard to find the last screw holding it on, and the panel never goes back on as easily as it came off, and ….

You get the picture, right? In short: the panel is a pain in the katoosh. But here’s the problem: the evaporator coils are a critical component for the system, and these coils take the most abuse, because they get wet from all the moisture the system is removing from your house. Moisture means abuse on metal parts. Copper corrodes and gums up and will develop pin holes and leak refrigerant. And all that moisture will clog up the system. The moisture has to be removed from the system on a routine and systematic way. So home inspectors frequently find the evaporator in bad repair. Sometimes there is even water dripping into the overflow drain pan under the evaporator. If the home owner is lucky the water is dripping at the exterior secondary drain line. If they are unlucky, the water has dripped out onto the ceiling under the evaporator, and there is a huge water stain on the ceiling in the house. The water is the problem, but it could have been taken care of if the service technician had taken the few minutes required to examine and clean the evaporator coils while he or she was checking the air handler equipment.

This ain't no love shack! May 18, 2010   SubscribeI have a six year old house with a Goodman AC system. Three years ago the evaporator coils rusted like crazy and leaked out -- replaced under warranty. Three years later, low and behold, the coils have started to rust up like crazy. Techs and I are stumped -- "This shouldn't happen." When I turn on my air conditioner at the thermostat the vents kick on but nothing outside. Also the last time that it worked it took a few minutes to get going and was pretty loud. I checked the electric all the way from the breaker box to the outside fuse box for the air conditioner and everything was good. The unit is about 3-4 years old. When I took off the side panel I noticed a lot of rust and found that some of the electric tabs were ready to fall off. Here are some pictures: There was a yellow wired that just crumbled when I touched it. I am guessing that was the culprit but could be any or all. Is this a normal amount of rust for the inside of an air conditioner after a few years?

The outside looks brand new, it sits under and overhang, and the area where the compressor is looks brand new. All of the connections to both of these pieces is heavily rusted. What is the suggestion to fix? Where can I buy the items and all that good stuff? I am good with electric, just have never used caps or worked on air conditioner. And lastly - how can I keep this thing from rusting out so fast in the future? electrical repair hvac central-air I would strongly encourage you to replace this unit (the Siemens component, not the entire AC) and replace the ends to those electrical wires. Simply put if the rust situation is that terrible I wouldn't be at all surprised if the integrity of the unit is already compromised, i.e. ready to fail you at any time. Your yellow wire is almost certainly why it's not working now, but it's a pain to fix it, and then have to fix it again only a few days/weeks later. This is not a normal amount of rust; a great deal of humidity is getting to it, more than usual.

I'm a Florida resident who had a 12 year old AC unit at one point that had been through a number of hurricanes and tropical storms, and it was only slightly oxidized, no rust. (Though I had to regularly open it for service because for whatever reason ants loved to commit suicide by throwing their bodies in between the electrical contacts) To fix the rust you'll need to find where it's getting exposed to so much humidity from. Likely a seal or gasket is bad. You can either replace the broken seal/gasket or there are after-market products used as essentially spray on sealants. I recommend fixing it properly and replacing whatever seal or gasket is broken, but in a pinch squirting some sealant into the location that's leaking (with the AC OFF and given enough time to dry) will resolve minor leaks (depending on the severity). IMO that amount of rust is not normal. I live in Texas and it gets really humid sometimes. I've repaired both my last unit that was 8+ years old and my new unit that is 4+ years old and neither had any rust whatsoever inside the enclosure.

Just ants and spiders for me. I'd imagine that your relay is having trouble closing. After turning off the power you could use WD40 on it and manually push the relay in and out a bunch of times to work it in. Or you could go buy a new one. I think the part# is 45DG10AJA for your unit. That part is a single pole but you probably want to find out the double pole equivalent so that if one poles foobars down the road the other has a chance of continuing to work. Most enclosures have a gasket around the edges that fit snugly against the cover. You can just use good 'ol weather stripping if yours is damaged or not there. It wouldn't hurt to use that foam in a can product at the top of the inside of the enclosure to prevent any water from leaking in up there too. I don't have HVAC experience but here's a few ideas you could investigate For the wires, it might be best to cut off the corroded connectors strip a short part of insulation and crimp on new connectors. For the spade terminals on the various devices you could use a wire brush to remove as much corrosion as possible.