This is a Drain Pan full of liquid sludge and mold on the inside of an air conditioning unit.
The conditioned air that comes out of the supply air grills passes over the drain pan. Odor
and bacteria can be picked up by the passing air and distributed throughout the covered zone.
The sludge and mold would also clog up the drain outlet causing the drain pan to overflow
onto the roof, or saturate the ductwork inside the building. This could cause water leaks and ongoing mold issues. Finally, leaving a drain pan in this condition would ensure that the drain
pan would rust out well before its time.
How Can This Be Prevented?
A Planned Service Agreement that includes cleaning drain pans, blowing out drain lines,
and inserting biological growth inhibiting tablets is the best protection against growing your
very own drain pan ecosystem. The next best thing would be an Annual Unit Inspection
that would identify areas of concern. Service Only customers can count on Synergy to look
for potential problems above and beyond the purpose of any individual service call and bring those issues to the attention of our customer.
It is the cheapest and easiest component on a unit to replace, and it is often the most
neglected. Obviously, no one would want to breathe the air that passes through this filter.
But what else does a filter do? A lot actually! A clogged filter restricts air flow in a unit to
the point that the unit cannot function and the evaporator coil freezes into a ball of ice.
This is very hard on other components and can impact the life of the compressor. A frozen
coil can also cause water leaks inside the space as the coil thaws. A unit that is operating
with a dirty filter has to work harder and harder to keep the zone at the thermostat setting.
The increased energy usage on a single unit is substantial. Multiply the increased energy cost
by the number of units at your business and ask yourself, how much money are you burning
every month because of dirty filters?
What Are Your Options?
Synergy offers unlimited filter choices to meet the varying needs inside your building. You can have units on different filter change cycles. There are hundreds of filter options from: filters
meant to reduce allergens in the air; charcoal filters to deal with odor and emissions; filters to
remove oil and mist; and eighteen choices of the “standard” pleated filter to meet each customer’s needs.
Clean on the Outside
Doesn’t Mean It’s Clean on the Inside
One of our “Service Only” customers was locked in to a nationwide agreement for HVAC
planned services for all their stores that included condenser coil washing. We were called
in to provide a second opinion on a unit that was not working properly. What we found, was
a unit that looked perfectly clean from the outside. When we opened up the unit, the
condenser coils were completely clogged with dirt and debris to the point that the unit
could not run. When the customer confronted the maintenance company they said, “It is standard operating procedure to wash the outside of the coil only. We didn’t price into our Agreement opening the unit and splitting the coil to clean it”.
What was the cost to the customer? For starters, a hot show room due to the unit not
working. Imagine running a marathon with a heavy coat on. How much harder would your
body have to work to keep cool? It is just the same with a unit with dirty condenser coils.
The run times are longer which uses more electricity day after day after day, right up until
the unit fails. Now the customer has a repair bill and the unit has experienced excess wear
and tear on its’ components.
How Can You Be Sure
What You’re Paying For Has Value?
Not many customers are going to get up on the roof and inspect the equipment following a service visit from their HVAC company. What can you do? Synergy will provide you with a free second opinion if you have a unit that is malfunctioning. We will perform an equipment survey which includes “show and tell pictures” if you would like a competitive bid for your current
Planned Service Program. (Call for details.) If you choose Synergy as your Planned Service
Provider, one of the owners will provide ongoing surprise quality checks to ensure Synergy
standards are being maintained.
A unit generates heat by using either electricity or natural gas. Natural gas is the more
efficient for heating purposes, and is most common in commercial applications. In order for
a unit to produce heat it contains something called a heat exchanger. A heat exchanger is
a continuous serpentine metal tube that is heated up by a flame fueled by natural gas. Air
blows over the heated tube and warms the air to be distributed by the ductwork. The innate design of the heat exchanger with its twisting tube and composition material lends itself to
metal fatigue. A crack or a hole in the heat exchanger can allow gas in the form of carbon monoxide to be blown through the ductwork and out the supply air grills. The poisonous gas
is colorless & odorless, and it can make you sick or kill you.
What Condition Are Your Heat Exchangers In?
An annual inspection prior to the start of the heating season is all it takes to verify the heat exchanger integrity of your units. This can be done as a service call, a quoted project, or as
part of a Planned Service Agreement. Heat exchangers often times have a ten or fifteen year warranty from the manufacturer. Discovering a cracked heat exchanger before the warranty expires can be the difference between a one thousand dollar repair and a four to eight
thousand dollar repair depending on the unit. Synergy checks the warranty status of all units
prior to preparing a quote for repairs so that we are always acting in the best interest of our
customer, not the best interest of our bottom line.
