Hi, We are dealing with an issue similar to this one, only the HVAC closet is on the ground floor - the lines were cloged and the emergency line was also not working. The water not only backed up to the pan, but also drained into the pedestal box and one of the HVAC lines that hung below the unit. In our experience, it is never a good thing to have the AC off. Regardless of how dry it seems, mold can grow in humid areas. I would recommed you get the pan installed and have your HVAC guy out to keep it running. In the meantime, I agree with another posting on getting the dehumidifier in. Regarding the insurance company. They are basically trying to save the company money only and do not have your best interest at heart. I haven't heard of any insurance company painting whole rooms or casing not damaged by the incident. In your case, it might be better just to either do the rest yourself or have whomever painting finish the rest - via an additional quote - so you know exactly what they want to charge. I hope you get good sincere workers in there. On another note, the home we are working on also had window leaks. Everything went unchecked and the maintenance person that did painting and caulking simply covered and filled rot up. The house now has primary and secondary termite colonies, not something to take lightely and a true lesson for the absentee owners (vacation home). I would seriously think about visiting your vacant home periodically - make sure your windows are not leaking, weather stripping on doors is in good shape, your HVAC will need monitoring. You will also want to think about a few other things. When a house is vacant, the sewer line does not get flushed out - there's a trap (elbow) at each fixture - sink, toilet, tub, etc. I believe this would be the case with your own septic system, so please ignore if you are on some city or county sytem (unless someone corrects me there). To continue, your best bet is to flush the toilets and run water in your sinks and tubs - not for long, just a few seconds. It just simply puts water back in the elbow, preventing sewer gases from coming into the house. Prevention can go along way. As they say, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" Good luck, I hope you can sell. Remember curb appeal also - make sure the yard is taken care of - it does go along way and when someone stops by if they see its taken care of outside, they will assume it has been inside. Small details will also get noticed. Go room by room and just check small details, do cabinet and regular doors hang and shut correctly, what about drawers - these are things that people will look at, minor yes but if they can't pull apart your house, it may satisfy them with what they see first hand. Another HVAC tip - even though the house is not getting used, make sure to change the filters. You could get the reusable ones or just use the paper ones. At our house we purchased reusable and vacum and then rinse the extra dust out (they have a plastic frame with washable screen). Check around the perimiter of your home outside also - keep it clear. If there's a moisture issue, try and get it diverted or fixed, termites love moisture. Well, hopefully I have been helpful. - Rachael

Condensation should not be dripping into the pan at all. The pan is the backup telling you that something is wrong in your drain line. I had a similar overflow problem in a new installation. There is normally a trap installed in the line to prevent backflow into the blower unit. However, if after the trap the line does not continue horizontal or down, ie angles up for a short time and then down it will in effect form a SECONDARY trap. An air column will form between the first and second traps thus blocking any water from draining through the first trap and thus overflowing. Basically.. everything before and after the trap must go downhill. In my case the secondary trap formed in the basement ceiling at a right angle because they pushed the vertical drainline down too far in the new installation. I discovered it when the pan overflow drain outside started dripping. IE the overflow worked and alerted me to the problem

This may not be a clog problem at all. The house is 55 yrs old which tells me that the line in question may be an 1-1/2" cast iron drain line. In the mid to late 80's the appliance industry began using a higher volume pump in washing machines, which in turn prompted the plumbing industry to change the standard size of a laundry standpipe from 1-1/2" to 2". To the untrained eye this may appear as a minor change but in fact a 2" line has nearly twice the volume of an 1-1/2" line. 1-1/2" cross sectional area = 1.76sq.in 2" cross sectional area = 3.142cu.in. In the final analysis I think what you will find is that the size of the line itself may be marginal for the discharge rate of modern laundry appliances, which in itself would result in a minor backup as the machine pumps out. This problem is further complicated because the original pipe is most likely cast iron. While cast iron is a fantastic material for DWV piping it has one minor drawback. In its new state the interior walls of cast iron pipe are comparatively rough, which means a high coefficient of friction. This is further complicated by the fact that the pipe will rust slightly as it ages which in turn further increase the friction loss. This was further complicated by habitually cleaning tools and buckets and discharging the residue into the drain, which no doubt has by now caused a severe buildup of foreign matter in the pipe which cannot be removed even with a powered auger. At a minimum the line will need to be cleaned with a good heavy duty powered auger with the proper sized cutter head, and even that may prove to provide marginal relief. We are then left with two options as a permanent solution. 1. The preferred solution would be to replace the existing line with 2" PVC. An even better option would be to opt for the exception in the Plumbing code which allows us to increase a pipe diameter by one nominal trade size. Understanding that the code now requires a 2" line for a laundry standpipe, the option would then allow us to increase the line to 3". The second option is much simpler although sometimes less desirable. You could discontinue the use of the laundry standpipe and install a laundry sink beside your washing machine. You then discharge the washing machine into the sink. A laundry sink is only required to have a 1-1/2" trap and drain line. In this configuration the sink serves as a reservoir for the discharge from the washing machine, then the 1-1/2" drain line from the sink will meter the flow into the existing 1-1/2" drain line at the proper rate to insure good flow under gravity flow conditions without causing the lines to back up.

We most likely have a clog problem that we can't seem to resolve. These are the details: The drain has been slow in the tub in bathroom #1 (located on the east end of the basement of our ranch home) for a while, but it was always keeping up pretty close and finished draining within 30 seconds of the end of a shower. Earlier this week, the toilet in bathroom #1 plugged so my husband plunged it, and a bunch of stuff backed up into the tub (he thought it was from the toilet, but I questioned if it had actually come from the garbage disposal). After that, the tub was extremely slow draining, and then water started backing up in the floor drain of our furnace room (there is no sink in this room, but the water softener and air conditioner drain there, and it's in the middle of the home to the west of bathroom 1). You could run less than a pencil sized stream of water before the floor drain started overflowing. We tested each of the drains after that, and bathroom #2 (located in the middle of the basement to the west of the furnace room) has had no effect on it, nor has bathroom #3 (located on the main floor to the west of bathroom 2 ). The kitchen (located above bathroom 1 on the main floor), and the laundry room (located to the north of the kitchen) both cause the furnace room floor drain to overflow as does bathroom 4 (located just to the west of the laundry room). So far, we've tried Drano in the tub in bathroom 1, but that did nothing (we discovered the floor drain was backing up after we did that). We tried vinegar and baking soda in the kitchen, bathroom 1, and the floor drain and then slowly running water through, but that did nothing. We've tried dawn dish soap in all drains and then flushing them out (slowly in the drains that cause backups), but that did nothing. We tried a flat snake (loaned to us by a neighbor) through the floor drain, but we couldn't get it to maneuver the turns of the pipes. We tried forced air through the floor drain, but that just pushed back into bathroom 1 and started to cause a sewer gas smell. We tried leaving it completely alone for 24 hours, but that did nothing. We tried a 25 foot plumbing snake through the floor drain, but I'm fairly certain it kept going the wrong direction and kept heading east towards the bathroom rather than west towards the clog because it did nothing, and I can't imagine the clog is more than 25 feet to the west of the furnace room. We also tried the snake from bathroom 1, which likely only got us about five feet past the furnace room. We then got a 50 foot snake, and ran it through twice from bathroom #1, but nothing changed. I attempted to run it from the floor drain in the furnace room but I couldn't get it past one of the turns because the 50 foot one doesn't have an auger on it (the 25 foot one did which made it much easier to get through the turns). None of our other drains are affected after using the 50 foot one, so it's not like I just pushed the clog further. Is it possible we have two outlets to the house, and what are the chances the clog is 50 feet away from the originating spot? We checked each of the four vents through the roof, and they are all clear from a visual check as well. Is it possible the snake is taking the wrong route without coming out another pipe? We looked and listened for any signs of it coming through the wrong area, and didn't notice that with the 25 or 50 foot snake.