Professional Member
Hi,
Does anybody have any advice on how to de ice evaporator drain pans FAST in grocery stores and supercenters? What do you do when the condensate is pumped out and can't handle the amount of water you need to put down the drain to de ice the coil?
Regular Guest
Heat gun, torch, warm water. A senior tech taught me a trick. Unit off, hook up your guages and equalize the pressure on high and low side should speed things up. Take drain out of condensate pump and place in bucket or other large container, recirculate this water until ice is gone.
Professional Member
Nothing beats hot water, and a shop vac will replace a condensate pan. (18v vac is great)
Professional Member
I also do the shop vac with very hot water in a pump up sprayer, if you circulate the water wouldn't it get too cold to be as effective ?
Professional Member
Been playing with an idea that kinda works.
Got a smallish submersible pump from Lowes that I carry in the truck. When I've got to deice a case and can't run hoses to it, I'll put a large trash barrel on a cart, fill it with hot water and drop the pump in.
Pressure and flow rate isn't quite as good as you get with a standard garden hose, but it is adequate for the job. Better hose helps that a LOT.
Drawback. Leaving the pump idle in a barrel of HOT water tends to cause thermal overload trips.
I suppose that this rig could be modified to work in a walk-in by draining the coil into the bucket and just using the same water supply. Yeah, it'll get cold eventually, but cold water still melts ice.
I also like to use the hot water to "cut" the ice into manageable chunks and remove it from the case rather than melting all of it.
Professional Member
Pump-up sprayers work well on smaller equipment.
Professional Member
they make shop vacs with a built in pump that you can connect a garden hose to. They work awesome for these situations.
I was once thawing out a case that was solid ice while some guys were steam cleaning the butcher section with a high pressure hot water/steam cleaner. He saw me bumbling around with my hot water garden hose and came over with his diesel powered steam gun and blasted all the ice away in less than 5 minutes. it was the most amazing thing I've ever seen. I slipped him a $20 bill
Professional Member
A pump!!!!! Great idea!!! No more 200ft of garden hose strung across the floor with managers and employees complaining. I'm totally going to buy one. Wonder how hot I could get the water before tripping the pump on thermal OL....wonder if they make hot water submersible pumps?
Professional Member
I always wondered how much more effective steam would be!Originally Posted by craig1
The pump is a great idea! However, hot water or cold...water is still much more effective than a heat gun. Water carries far more BTU than air.
Gotta be careful if using a torch. I never used one to defrost, but we had a tech who did and had done some damage to the coils that our company ended up having to pay for to replace.
Now I've never been convinced that hot water was so much more better (more better...?) than regular, room temperature tap water. The difference in BTUs per lb of water isn't huge factor (only 65 BTU difference between 75 to 140ish degrees) compared to the fact that you're delivering still 144 BTU of latent heat of melting per lb of water IF the water you're using was a frigid 32 degrees. (At 75 degrees? 144+43 more=187 total BTU per lb of water you sprayed with your pump up)
Still, I've always felt I was getting it done a bit faster with hot water over cold.
Professional Member
I like hot water to kind of cut a channel to the drain. If the drain is iced too, I'll use my turbotorch on it for a few minutes. If anyone knows a better way, I'm all ears.
But you're right; trying to use a torch or heat gun on an iced coil is a total waste of time.
Educational Committee/Professional Member*
I use a sump pump with a 8' garden hose with a spray handle. Oh and hot water.
I love the smell of phosgene first thing in the morning:
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Professional Member
Like I said, my pump tends to trip on thermals if I leave it in the hot water too long.
Mine is also a fairly inexpensive pump that I bought at Lowes to help dry out my basement after a sump pump failure. Perhaps a pump of better quality would run better in the hot water.
Educational Committee/Professional Member*
Mine is from harbor freight and will last through 3-4 big trash cans before tripping on ol.
I love the smell of phosgene first thing in the morning:
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Professional Member
i agree with all solutions here. i personally like to make the ice into managable chunks to remove it faster. works for everything. hot water is best.
Professional Member
Overload is probably bad....
Educational Committee/Professional Member*
Overload is probably bad....
I love the smell of phosgene first thing in the morning:
To apply for professional membership click here
Educational forums are open.
If you would like to submit a link or an article or other related info to the EF. click here
Educational Committee/Professional Member*
Overload is probably bad....
Or there isn't one.
I love the smell of phosgene first thing in the morning:
To apply for professional membership click here
Educational forums are open.
If you would like to submit a link or an article or other related info to the EF. click here
Professional Member*
I'm working on a set up now that I think will work. I've got a 30 barrel will have a dip tube in one "Bung" with a quick connect for a hose that I put together.In the other smaller bung, a connection for a "air hose".
Fill the drum with hot water and pressurize with constant C02 or nitrogen pressure.
Hose is set up with a spray handle.
Jim
Tucson, Az
Keeping the Ice Cream Frozen!
Professional Member
Chunks...yea, that's how I do it. After settling in to the hour-long or so task at eating away a terribly iced up coil - just YOU, your pump-up sprayer and that ice...it becomes almost therapeutic. I've been told I need therapy anyway, so that must be good...
Professional Member
Ya know, I've had a similar idea brewing for spraying leak soap and coil cleaners...
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