Air Conditioner Cleaning

You could certainly make one for a lot less than $430. They also sell siphon mixers. They are used for fertilizers. You put it on your spigot and attach your garden hose. There is a small siphon hose that picks up liquid from a bucket and mixes it with the fresh water. If you had a very concentrated solution, you could just use that without the pump and just use hose pressure.
 
I made a flusher for my A/C this way last year. It works...

1. I bought a spare cover for the sea strainer, drilled through the middle of it and mounted a through-hull fitting (mushroom) with the nipple pointing up. Sealed it up good.

2. Clamped a length of hose to the nipple and added a garden hose female fitting to the end of that.

3. To flush, I close the seacock. Open the strainer, remove the basket and screw on the modified cover. Bring my (shore) water hose into the boat. Screw the hose onto the female fitting and turn the hose on. Open the seacock to reverse flush that, then close it. Turn the A/C on and voila! fresh water flush through the entire system.

4. To winterize, I flush the system first. Disconnect the pressure water hose and put a transmission fluid (long and thin) funnel into the end of the hose on the modified cover. Turn on the A/C and slowly pour a gallon of AF into the funnel. The A/C pump draws it in and pushes it through the system. When the funnel's empty, turn off the A/C. Done.

My .02
 
My ac has been pumping slow.
I flushed using the cap method but still slow
I think you really need to flush after the pump because the pump slows down the flow.
Better pressure if you tap after the pump.
 
All you need is a 5 gallon bucket, a bilge pump with some added wire, hose, perhaps fittings & clamps.
 
Rinse with fresh water isn't going to do much as most of the growth won't be flushed out. You need to circulate a cleaning solution thru the system and for this you need the 5 gallon bucket Bill mentioned. You don't need much pressure so tapping close to the sea cock is best as you will also clear the intake line

You obviously need to return th cleaning solution for the bucket. Depending on the boat set up, you can run a hose from the Condensor outlet or prefers let if accessible from the discharge line near the thru hull so that you clean everything.

Depending on where yo are, growth type vary. In so fo we get small white shells growing in the the system. They look like very small mussels, 1/4" long. They re a pain as when they die after a haul out for instance they come off and clogged the lines for good. Sometimes back flushing with pressure dislodge them and hen they can get trapped elsewhere.
 
quote:
Originally posted by CurrentSea

My ac has been pumping slow.
I flushed using the cap method but still slow
I think you really need to flush after the pump because the pump slows down the flow.
Better pressure if you tap after the pump.

Click to expand...


Have you cleaned out your strainer?
 
Yep, Strainers are clean. I added some bromine to help burn out the growth.
We have been having a bad year for eelgrass on the south shore.
I may use overtemp marine to flush both motors, genny and AC units.
The bring all the solutions, fittings, etc and it gets done.
 
Once you get it cleaned, you may want to try this to avoid future flow issues:
I made a habit of reverse flushing with fresh water through the discharge as part of my winterization.
I removed the strainer and replaced the cap. Then I stuffed a suitable length and diameter of cheap clear hose in to the discharge. The end of the hose that goes in the discharge is bare, the other end of it has a barbed nipple inserted with a garden hose fitting on the other end. I attached a garden hose to this and put fresh water through it for a few minutes while holding hose in discharge.
Once finished, I removed the garden hose and followed up by hooking up a modified bucket to the short length of clear hose. The bucket had AF in it, and there was a cheap Harbor Freight type hand pump between the bucket and the length of hose that was stuffed in the discharge.
I hand pumped a couple of gallons of AF through the system until it came out nice and pink through the intake, then replaced the cleaned strainer, and I was done.
The hose set up, fittings, and hand pump were cheap, and once I had it all set up I used it every year.
The results of the fresh water flush was that I never had a flow problem in the 10 seasons I had the boat so I guess it worked pretty well.
 
My issue is my diesels are so compact (small 4 cylinder) its hard for me to figure out where to hook up to reverse flow.
I am going to watch them do my boat and I will go from there. The exhaust hose that feeds the IPS for exit is about 6 inches thick, no garden hose going in there!
 
Thanks for all the great ideas. I am going to manufacture my own set up instead of paying a fortune for a store bought system.
 
dave,
The bromine is a great idea. U have to flush AFTER THE PUMP. You will have a manifold that splits the water among ur different ac units. That's the perfect place. Its usually right after the discharge side of the pump.( u do each ac unit individually at the manifold ) The barb fittings that come with Sealand head filter will fit perfectly onto a garden hose and ur AC boat water lines. Any questions call me

Rob
 
I bought gallon rydlyme found on ebay bought a cheap submersible pump from harbor freight less the 30 dollars disconnect hose after ac pump stick in a 5 gallon bucket ran a clear vinyl hose from condenser coil back to bucket let it run few hours reconnect system your done and clean
 
Planeguy, what kind problem are you having? In our fresh water I have never noticed any sort of build up, the inside of the lines get stained but that is about it. Couple times in the past and during Lake Erie low water levels my pump actually sucked up mud and I had to flush in season with the contraption I use for winterization. My thing is simple, a bucket from Lowes/HD, I small bilge pump (500) mounted/screwed direct to bottom of bucket, 6' of clear tubing from Lowes/HD attached to outlet of the bilge pump. I got a 12V transformer and connected the wires to bilge pump wires, that way I can just plug into an AC extension cord. Fill with fresh water or whatever and attach the clear hose to the intake of the air conditioner and plug in the cord, it will push water through your system. I also use this to push the pink through the system at the end of the year. I also have a short section of smaller clear tubing that I stick into the larger tube and this allows me to reduce the size. I use this piece for the air conditioners.

Good luck
Niles
 
The water I dock in is very muddy since it is called Mud Brook. I have noticed my strainer needs cleaned almost weekly due to an almost sludge build up. Just want to keep it clean and avoid problems.
 
Planeguy,
For mud simply attach a garden hose after the ac pump. That will clear out the mud from the lines. NO chemicals needed. JUST PRESSURE !

Rob
 
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