Ductless systems have been increasingly growing in popularity, and for good reason. Rather than operating through a network of ducts connected to an indoor air handler and evaporator unit, ductless units break up the indoor unit and blower fans to distribute air through handlers that operate independently of each other—meaning the temperature settings can be different for each air handler.
This makes ductless systems operate much more efficiently than a standard central air conditioner, which is forced to cool your entire home, even if you don’t need conditioned air in your entire home at the time. There are a number of benefits to the installation of these systems—but there can also be drawbacks if you don’t have yours professionally installed.
We’ve covered some unique ductless repair needs below. These can happen even with proper installation, but they’re a lot more likely if the install is done by an inexperienced amateur.
Water Leaks behind Air Handlers
Each of the individual, wall-mounted, air handlers have a series of connections routed through a hole behind it—a power line, a refrigerant line, and a condensate line. That condensate line is responsible for removing water moisture form the cooling process so it doesn’t enter your home instead.
These lines can leak, and if this occurs then water starts developing between the back of the air handler, and the wall. As you can imagine, this is going to start weakening the wall material as moisture sets in, causing the air handler to rip away and fall off the wall. This will definitely damage the wall, and it will almost certainly break the air handler. If you notice signs of water damage around any of your air handlers, be sure to call for repairs.
Broken Air Handlers
There’s bad news and good news here.
The bad news is, having a broken system right after or shortly after installation stinks! That likely goes without saying. You now have to call for repairs or potentially call the professional who installed it to see if they’ll come fix it if it was an error in installation.
The good news is, if a single air handler breaks—whether due to poor installation or a failed motor over time—the rest of the air handlers throughout your home will still continue to run. The only part of your home that loses cooling or heating power is the one with the broken air handler. When one of the units stops working, call for repairs, and then you can go hang out in a different room until the trouble is fixed.
Leaking Refrigerant
This one isn’t so much unique to ductless systems as it can happen in any type of refrigerant-based air conditioner. But it can be more detrimental. Since the refrigerant lines run up your walls to the air handler, if you have a leak it means you could potentially risk exposure to this chemical.
If you notice anything amiss, such as low cooling power, coils icing over, or even moisture behind an air handler, please call us to inspect right away.
For reliable air conditioning repair in Snellville, GA, contact Wall Heating & Air Conditioning, Inc. today!