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DerbyDad03 DerbyDad03 is offline
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Default Questions About Internal AC Coils

I have a Conquest 90 Max gas furnace with central air.

I also have a bunch of questions:

1 - The internal coils have not been clean since it was installed 5
years ago, so I decided to take a look and see if they needed
cleaning. Problem is, I'm not sure how to access them.

I removed the screws from the panel where the condensate and
refrigerant pipes are, but as you can see from this picture, I can't
remove the panel because of the vent pipe.

http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/62/furnacef.jpg/

If I could tilt the top or bottom of the panel outwards, I could
remove it, but the vent pipe prevents any significant tilting.

There is no other panel that I can remove. The other 3 sides that
surround the coils are a single piece which has the duct work on top
of it. The duct work would have to go up in order for the 3-sided
surround to come off.

How do I get to the coils?

2 - Through the limited opening, I can see into the coil area with a
flashlight. I see 2 tee-pee sets of coils and as far as I can tell
they are perfectly clean, at least on the surfaces that I can see with
the panel open as shown. Should I just close it up and forget about it
or are there areas I should check - assuming I can gain better access?

3 - When I removed the panel I saw 2 stickers, both of which raised
questions in my mind:

3.1 - One sticker has a picture of a "condensate drain trap" made from
a piece of flexible tubing attached to the drain output pipe. As you
can see from the picture, I don't have a trap. At the bottom of the
PVC pipe seen behind the gas line is the condensate pump.

The pump sends the condensate up a flexible tube and across the
ceiling to the utility sink.

I don't need a trap with that set up, do I?

3.2 - The other sticker says: "Coil is shipped with a low pressure (5
-10 psi) charge of dry nitrogen. Evacuate system before charging with
refrigerant."

Would the unit work (i.e. cool) if the system was not evacuated/
charged when it was installed?

I'm not saying that it wasn't evacuated/charged because I don't
remember if the installer did it or not, so I'm just curious.

Thanks!