Leak at hvac condensate

[vrcat25]

I have a leak at hvac condensate and it appears to be backed up. Could it be that it's clogged up in sanitary. I don't appear to have anything else backed up and it's been leaking for a couple of weeks. Any clues as to why it's not draining? You can see from the attached pic that it runs straight down to p trap and into sanitary. The other drain running horizontal is an abandoned sink link so i know it has nothing to do with that. As a temporary fix, i turned off HVAC for the time being and that's not very convenient since it's 90+ out.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[frodo]

cut into it and find out why ? could be algie build up

 

[vrcat25]

cut into it and find out why ? could be algie build up

I'm thinking the buildup is close to the bottom or at least below the sleeve in the middle. Should i run a snake into it since it's iron?

My biggest fear is that the sanitary may be getting clogged, but wouldn't i have already had more issues if that were the case? Like i said, it's been leaking for a few weeks. Probably more like a few months, just a slow leak from condensate water.

Any other hunches as to what it could be?

 

[frodo]

rod it out, thats all you can do

or cut it out and replace

 

[vrcat25]

rod it out, thats all you can do

or cut it out and replace

the p trap is probably where it's clogged. Should I try taking a pipe wrench and loosening it from the sanitary? It's really close and it doesn't seem like it would be a good idea to cut it there. I'm thinking it might even be a bad idea to loosen it. I tried rodding it out and the snake is running into the ptrap and not wanting to make the turn up. Can you give me some more detailed instruction on how to cut it? I don't want to cut it at the wrong location. THanks!

 

[Caduceus]

If you cover, plug or seal any other openings except for the openings on both sides, you can try blowing compressed air through the pipe to remove the organic build up in the pipe. Clearing it from condensate drains is sometimes easiest by using a gallo gun, if you are willing to pay for it.[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLCgpNhBZjk[/ame]

 

[vrcat25]

My problem is I don't know where a good place would be to cut it at the bottom since it's so close to the sanitary. The top is no problem since it's about 4-5 up and has a sleeve in a vertical line. See by the ptrap how the smaller drain runs into the sanitary at the bottom? Should i cut it or loosen it? Not sure where a good place to cut it would be.

I'm thinking it would be better to loosen with pipe wrench at sanitary on bottom. If i loosen it, will i have a hard time sealing it back up at sanitary? Once i get it off of there i can blow air or rod it out. I can take a pipe wrench to it and see if it loosens that way, but I just wanted to ask first. Any instructions are greatly appreciated.

 

[vrcat25]

With a ong breaker bar and pipe wrench, compression fitting loosened up and it was clogged at sanitary connection. Sanitary is running fine and cleaned out all the gunk from sanitary connection. It was pretty nasty! Like I said in earlier post, there use to be a sink hooked up here, but it was abandoned. You can see all the gunk that I cleaned out from sanitary connection in second picture.

Should I replace anything or convert from the ptrap cast iron line to pex? Should I reconfigure piping so p trap is not all the way at bottom and flow is quicker and maybe self cleanses or do I have to have ptrap? All there is on here is hvac condensate. Does plumbing code require ptrap for just condensate? what's is required so it's correct. the plumber didn't know what he was doing obviously when this house was built in mid 70's.