A Temporary Bypass

We woke up to find the water overflowing from the condensate line. It wasn’t gushing water, but enough to make a small, damp patch on the floor. So we ended up shutting off the upstairs furnace to try to figure out what was going on.

The condensate line goes down through the house, and then runs alongside the North wall of the house in the basement. And best as I can tell… somewhere along that stretch, it got exposed to a draft got cold enough to freeze up. It’s the only explanation I have.

We tried putting in a rubber hose from the top and blowing to clear the blockage (no luck). Tried doing the same from the basement end (no luck).

And so the only thing we could think to do was to bypass the condensate line, and have it empty into a bucket on the second floor. Not ideal, but it would allow us to keep the furnace working over this particularly cold weekend.

The reservoir on the right is where the condensante normally goes to. But I ended up finding some PVC lengths, and used that to route the hoses.

After measuring the amount of condensate over the course of 24 hours, the bucket only filled about 1/6 of the way. Not pretty, but… functional.

Related:
Taking Down the Tarp