Yucky moldy air conditioner!

[dustin92]

Today I went to my grandma's house to let her dogs out because she had to work later than usual and while I was there I thought I would do her a favor and clean the filter on her air conditioner. she had mentioned that the air conditioner in her bedroom was not working well, so I pulled the filter out and it was totally clean.(she uses it every night, and the filter has not been cleaned since last spring ) so I turned it on and almost no air was coming out of the vents, but it smelled really mildewy. ok , now what? so then I took off the front cover to find the cooling coils totally covered in black, wet, dust and dog hair like 1/8 th of an inch thick. the air vents also had little spots of black on them. so I peeled this sheet of nastiness off to find more mold between the coils. I put it back together and left to go home but on the way home realized that the fan would blow the mold spores out into the room. so i told her DO NOT turn it on and I would come over tomorrow and bleach everything to kill the mold. BTW it is a small(5000-6000 btu) Hampton Bay window unit. I plan on taking it outside and wearing a dust mask to avoid breathing the mold. Does anybody have any warnings or suggestions to keep this from happening again?

 

[tomturbomatic]

First of all, you want to get a real filter in it, not that white pull-out thing that lets 90% of the dust go into the coils. Buy one of those cut-to-fit foam filters and put it against the coils, leaving the do-nothing filter in the grill. Be careful with the bleach. It attacks aluminum and does not to copper much good either. If you go to an appliance parts place you can find acid coil cleaner which will not hurt the metals. If you have to use something like bleach, make sure that you neutralize it with vinegar then clear water. At the bottom of the inside coil try placing two or three pennies so that they will be in contact with the water. Most plants do not grow in the presence of copper.

You can use bleach on the plastic grill, but rinse it well. Pay particular attention to the cage wheel blower when cleaning. It will no doubt be full of dirt. Plug the unit in outside so that it can blow anything you dislodged but maybe did not rinse away out of the unit into the outdoors.

 

[launderess]

IMHO

Personally would skip the bleach and use dedicated HVAC products. My favourite brand is "Nu-Calgon", but there are others and one can find them at Lowes, Home Depot and other professional supply places.

You need at least two cleaners, one for the condenser coil, and another for the evaporator coils, though some professional products will work on either. Nu-Calgon also sells a mildewcide called "Bio-Fresh CD", which designed to deal with mold/mildew in room AC's, central air systems, and so froth. While it is chlorine based, it will not harm drain pans, coils, and so forth. We spray a bit into our AC every few weeks or so to keep mildew and algae at bay. However when the unit is taken out of the wall every year for a cleaning, much of the inside gets a good spraying after all the cleaning is done.

I'd stay away from acid based AC cleaners, leave them for the pros. Before got wise to myself and read up on things, purchased a bottle of "AC coil cleaner" from local hardware store. The stuff can and will cause severe skin burns that often don't show up until quite awhile after you get it onto your skin. Once skin contact is made, one has to rinse, rinse, and rinse the affected area for one half hour or more to prevent a nasty burn.

Also if not properly neutralised, acid based cleaners will eat away at the metal coils. In short there are far safer products on the market.

Am not huge fan of foam AC filters, as according to our man they don't trap much. 3M and others make washable electrostatic filters that do catch dust, dirt, mold spores and so forth. It's like turning one's AC into an air cleaner.

 

[dustin92]

Well it is all cleaned and back together, it works beautifully now. it took me over an hour and about 3 cups of bleach. even the styrofoam insulation and blower wheel were covered in mold. I had to use the bleach because I couldnt find any coil cleaner, but I rinsed everything really well. I took everything apart that I could and bleached it, then rinsed it all with the garden hose. when I put it back together I put 3 pennies in the water tray. my Grandma is absolutely thrilled and says it works better than it has in a long time.

 

[petek]

Good job... I was told that it's a good idea to run the air conditioner, central air as well, for a few hours on just the fan setting to dry everything out before you "put it away" for the season so mold doesn't grow Not sure if that's valid advice or not.