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Originally Posted by Cooked

Somebody stole the fan motor and covers off that unit. Sad......

LOL. I admit it, it was me.

Somebody stole the fan motor and covers off that unit. Sad......

Originally Posted by walterc

Now the compressor will fail and the customer will say "Its because you cleaned it".

I fixed an old comfortmaker at an appartment building. After I was done i hosed it off. Next to it was a 25 year old spine fin Carrier completely packed with cottonwood. I hosed it off too. Next day the compressor terminals burned off. luckily I was able to use one of those repair kits on it.

Thats like the 3rd time I've killed a unit with kindness.

Originally Posted by walterc

Now the compressor will fail and the customer will say "Its because you cleaned it".

Bet on it.

No good deed and all that...

Now the compressor will fail and the customer will say "Its because you cleaned it".

The trick with cleaning organic's from a trane coil is to have the condenser fan motor running while burning the coil off. Keep the torch moving. It works great for cottonwood and grass clippings.

It did take me awhile to pull it apart, even with the impact. The panels didnt want to slide up and out even after getting past the plastic tab on bottom

After you've taken them apart a few times it gets easier, especially with a cordless drill and a 5/16 magnetic nut driver bit. I've never seen that much packed dirt.

Also. I didnt want to pull the panels. It became obvious washing it from the inside wasnt doing jack $hit. I had to get the layer of surface dirt washed off before I could get the packed dirt to start washing out.

Originally Posted by mark beiser

I use a propane torch all the time to burn cottonwood seed, grass clippings, drier lint, etc., off spine fin condenser coils.
It does absolutely no harm to the coil, and makes cleaning a breeze.

BTW, the coil pictured isn't even that "bad", certainly not for 10 years of no maintenance.
"Bad" is when the layer is so thick that it is not visually identifiable as a condenser coil.
That looks like the average 1 year accumulation we get around here!
2 minutes with a propane torch, and 10 minutes with a Water Saber and I'd have it looking nearly as clean as new, without removing the side panels.

Dirt doesnt burn well. This was all dirt, packed deeply

Originally Posted by -80guru

Maybe start from the top next time

Duh?

Originally Posted by jude_b23

I've seen this much accumulation in a 3 month span...

Yeah, and if the cottonwood tree is in their back yard, maybe just a few days!

Most of the cottonwood trees in my service area have died off or been removed, so I'm not running into the really shockingly packed up condenser coils nearly as often as I used to.

Originally Posted by mark beiser

I use a propane torch all the time to burn cottonwood seed, grass clippings, drier lint, etc., off spine fin condenser coils.
It does absolutely no harm to the coil, and makes cleaning a breeze.

BTW, the coil pictured isn't even that "bad", certainly not for 10 years of no maintenance.
That looks like the average 1 year accumulation we get around here!

I've seen this much accumulation in a 3 month span...

I use a propane torch all the time to burn cottonwood seed, grass clippings, drier lint, etc., off spine fin condenser coils.
It does absolutely no harm to the coil, and makes cleaning a breeze.

BTW, the coil pictured isn't even that "bad", certainly not for 10 years of no maintenance.
"Bad" is when the layer is so thick that it is not visually identifiable as a condenser coil.
That looks like the average 1 year accumulation we get around here!
2 minutes with a propane torch, and 10 minutes with a Water Saber and I'd have it looking nearly as clean as new, without removing the side panels.

I've used my torch as well but only for extreme amounts of dog hair clogging the system. Worked fine with no issues. Not an every time practice...

Sent from my ADR6350 using Tapatalk 2

Maybe start from the top next time

Originally Posted by ryan1088

I thought I might share what they told us at the Intellipak school in LaCrosse a few months about cleaning cottonwood and other heavy particulates off of those brush coils. One of he instructors said to take a propane torch to the heavy stuff and you can burn it off. We don't have. Lot of cottonwood trees around here so I haven't had a chance to try it.

Believe it or not I've tried that and it works....

Not with cotton wood. A local Hotel has ( had ) their American Standard condensing units under their industrial dryer vents.

9 units of varying tonnage and the worst thing you could do was hit it with water.

They were white, like someone wrapped them with a T-Shirt

White linen COMPLETELY embedded and causing every one of the units to bypass at 380 psi plus.

I thought after trying everything " hey, cotton dryer linen is flammable ".

Wen't back the next day with a helper who stood fire watch with a water hose, stripped them down like the pic in the OP and took my MAP gas torch and hit the bottom of the coil.

Good thing he had the hose.


Extremely dry linen sediment goes up like a match but doesn't produce the heat necessary to melt aluminum.

A good wire brush then hit it with the air compressor works every time.
Spine Fin Tube speaking.

Originally Posted by ldmth44

That seems counterproductive as you will see how quick aluminum melts!!!

There's a vid on youtube of someone using this method with a torch and it worked pretty good. Just keep that torch moving

Originally Posted by ryan1088

I thought I might share what they told us at the Intellipak school in LaCrosse a few months about cleaning cottonwood and other heavy particulates off of those brush coils. One of he instructors said to take a propane torch to the heavy stuff and you can burn it off. We don't have. Lot of cottonwood trees around here so I haven't had a chance to try it.

That seems counterproductive as you will see how quick aluminum melts!!!