A/C and Mildew - Landlord Forum thread

A/C and Mildew by Lee (Florida) on June 21, 2012 @21:05

Hi all, a little insight from the more experienced among us would be much appreciated.

Due to work we have had to rent out our home in orlando and are just coming to terms with the whole landlording thing!

Just recently the A/C overflowed and water obviously sat for a while and so mildew has established. I've called a couple of A/C companies to get a quote for cleaning it up, but all I get back are claims that the whole unit needs to be replaced and a quote in the thousands.

Sounds like sales pitch to me. Does this seem reasonable? Isn't there some kind of magic detergent that can be sprayed on the coil etc to eliminate the mildew?

Any insight much appreciated.

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Re: A/C and Mildew by Anonymous on June 21, 2012 @21:27	[ Reply ]

The mildew is in the AC now? As in the parts? If it is in the unit, it might actually end up being cheaper to replace it than take it apart, clean or replace those parts and reassemble.

Re: A/C and Mildew

Re: A/C and Mildew by anonymous (ga) on June 22, 2012 @08:26	[ Reply ]

Hi, Sorry to hear of your troubles. I'm an accidental landlord too, having quite the month of June with hot water heaters, dogs, etc. We had a problem just like the one you are describing in the foreclosure fixer upper we bought to live in near my husband's new job. The entire house had been very neglected, and the A/C was basically non-functional despite a good report from the (useless) inspector. The first couple of companies we called said the coils had to be replaced at $$$ since they were "too fragile" to be cleaned as they needed to be. We called a guy from our old area whom we trusted, and he cleaned the coils thoroughly on our who-knows-how-old A/C. It works like a charm now and has done for the last two years, even in June in Georgia. As to the mildew, which we had here as well, we just cleaned the area well and it hasn't come back now that the A/C works properly to keep the house at an appropriate temp and humidity. Our Home Depot mold tests came up negative as well. I believe our problem is fixed. Good luck, K

Re: A/C and Mildew by K (FL) on June 22, 2012 @11:50	[ Reply ]

1) get an overflow thing installed. When the drain tube overflows, it shuts off the unit and mine has a second pipe where the overflow can drain out 2) periodically, you have to run some bleach down that drain tube. Mold forms quick, most especially if you run the ac and then shut it off, don't give it a few days or weeks to dry out, then run it again. The thing just works best if it's on all the time or off. There is no need to pay anyone to clean that up. Get bleach. Do it yourself. 3) do you actually have mold in the coils? Never heard of that. Sure it's not pet fur? Get in there with a shop vac. They aren't delicate. I just took a freakin' carpenter ant nest out of mine. They came up the drain pipe! Had to open the whole thing up, hose it down with bug spray and shop vac all the nesting material and corpses out. Didn't hurt a thing.