Common Air Conditioning Issues Found On The Inspection
This isn’t something to worry with today, but warm weather will be coming soon and these types of problems should be dealt with and taken care of so to be ready for the upcoming warm weather.
At the inspection the other day, we saw some real troubles associated with the home’s air conditioning units on the outside of the house. As you can see by the picture, we have a couple of condensing units and the one on the left is a little older than the one on the right but look at the problem with the one on the right, it’s got an extreme slope to it, in other words, it’s sitting tilted on the platform, and even a ten degree slope can prematurely wear the compressor. The recommendation is this unit on the right needs to be leveled out.
As I look and see what the trouble is, it’s clear what’s happening, the condensate drain line that brings all the moisture outside is broken off. So instead of all the
moisture, which can sometimes be ten or fifteen gallons a day, being deposited away from the home, instead it’s just ponding up right at the platform and allowing that air conditioner to lean back.
One of the other things about these units that’s a little bit of a problem is the insulation on the refrigeration line, on these 
copper lines, the insulation is gone, or ruined, and these pipes can and will freeze up during the summer months when the units are running.
Another thing I noticed with these units is the clothes dryer vent is located right behind the air conditioner unit, and when the clothes dryer is running, it deposits lint out through this vent. The lent can then be drawn into the air conditioner unit, when it’s running and can clog up the cooling fins. So your clothes dryer vent really shouldn’t be located behind your air conditioning unit.
The last thing I noticed about this one is there’s wiring for the unit on the outside of the unit. You can see the wiring laying across the unit and it’s on the outside. So it appears that a new fan motor or something was installed and instead of running the wire on the inside, they ran it on the outside.
These are just some common problems we see with air conditioners.
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