AboutHoward Livingston Expertise Can answer questions on electrical control circuits, power supply,airflow & distribution, electrical components,refrigerant problems,gas, electric & propane furnaces.No boiler or refrigerator or oil fired furnaces experience.Just HVAC questions please.
Experience 35 years experience in residential & light commercial repair & installation.
Question Howdy sir. I will try to use to use all the technical lingo I can, and what I have tried so far to diagnose this problem. I recently had a Goodman High Efficency 16 SEER Outdoor 3 ton Condenser (home only required 2.5 tons), with a matched indoor Goodman Air Handler. In addition, a Goodman Humidifier and a 2-yr Goodman Electronic Air Cleaner is installed in the system. Since the system has been installed and within about 2 weeks, we noticed that a strong "rotten egg" smell came out of the vents. Our installer came out, and removed an old water softener that was in the room that contains the air handler (the 'brine tank' was filled with water) and the smell in that room somewhat improved. A basement floor drain is right next to the air handler, and we have added bleach to the drain several times. The drain still contains water (our plumber suggested that if water was in the sewer trap any sewer gas would not flow through the air unit). We have also ran Drain-O throughout all of our drains. We recently had our city sewer department come and check their side of their drain; they placed a cap where their responsibility starts. We have had our vents cleaned two years ago, and just this week (an attempt to check for a dead rodent). The carpets in the home had been cleaned before the installation, and just today. The smell still remains!
It seems as though the only thing we have not tried is replacing the water heater (it is electric and is in the same room as the air handler; could the anode rods be going?), or is it time that I have my sewer drain line cleaned? I can't honestly imagine that new freon in the system would be bad or a compressor would be bad. The system does have a TXV valve, and I have read that when a compressor starts to go bad a "rotten egg" odor begin to emit in the system.
Any ideas you could give me would be so helpful; we have no idea where to turn and our installer pretty much does not think we have a problem.
Answer Jon, I have the answer !!! Just got a reply from "Shirley" that solves the problem. The rotten egg smell is coming from a coating on the fins. I presume it is the evaporator coil fins. Need to replace it to get rid of it. Thats a new one on me.
