Carrier 58mvp ( odour ) - Contractor Talk - Professional Construction and Remodeling Forum

mike201 · 01-05-2009, 07:51 PM

Hi everyone this is my first time on this sight and I have a question on my 5 year old 58mvp gas furnice. The unit is running fine but we get a musty odour when all door and windows are closed. At time it even gets to smell like a sewer. The condensate drain is running into a floor drain which is full and has been flushed and even a little bleach put in it.I been looking around and heard that I should clean the condensate system out, if this is true can someone explane how do this.If there are any other suggestion please let me know.

thanks mike

greghvacguy · 01-05-2009, 10:50 PM

First do you have a co detector. 2nd it could be a humidifer full of mold. a-coil dirty or mold. If your duct work runs under the house in slab it could have gotten water in it and now you have smell. 3rd if your on a craw it can be from that. good luck

mike201 · 01-06-2009, 06:39 PM

Yes I have a co detector and is working fine with no alarm and is approx 10 ft from furnice.No humidifer. Duck work is a standard setup (backsplit home) And I don't know what you mean by a "craw". Any other ideas?

mike

hvaclover · 01-06-2009, 10:38 PM

If you have a register in your cold air drop or if your cold air boot or return duct you can pull in stack smells. Especially on cold days.

mike201 · 01-07-2009, 06:07 PM

None of these thinks I have. I think I should clean out the condensate system Anyone know how to do this?

thanks mike

flashheatingand · 01-07-2009, 08:23 PM

Go to your local Carrier supply house and pick up a new condensate kit and replace all the parts. It shouldn't cost too much (about $30.00). Or, you can go to the local hardware store and buy new hoses & re-pipe the pvc to the floor drain. That is what I would do to clean it out.

Having said that, the condensate should not be exposed to the duct work, so I am not sure how it would be the source of the foul smell. But, I am not on site. It wouldn't hurt to spray the evaporator coil with a bleach water solution.

mike201 · 01-08-2009, 07:41 PM

Thanks for the info. I did remove the condensate trap on the furnice and cleaned it out and found a black like slim in it. When I put it back together it seems more water is running to the drain. I also open the back of the furnace and inspected the A coil for the central air, everything looks good.That said I think the smell is coming from the floor drain that is only a foot away from the furnace and it pulling smell from there and pumping it through the duck work. Like I said in my first post I flush the drain and put bleach in it but it seems to come back.I think what I'am going to do is drop a chlorine puck in the drain to see what happins. I think the condensate as a very Ph level and is making the drain sour. What do you think?
mike

flashheatingand · 01-08-2009, 08:17 PM

I don't know the ph level of the condensate. It should have no effect on making the drain sour. Maybe, the funk was in the trap, and when that water was draining into the floor drain, you had the sour smell residue but that is a long shot. Does that room smell sour? Bottom line is that you don't want to be drawing anything from the floor drain, so you should make sure both the coil condensate run & furnace run to the floor drain are trapped in one way or another. Also, I would make sure that all duct connections are sealed with mastik or mastik tape since the drain is so close.

If the drain does not have a sour smell, I would think the source of the funk has to be from somewhere else. I hope someone else has a better idea.