Journey to the Center of the House

Journey to the Center of the House

by Liv Published on December 19th, 2008, 3:20 pm Rift: Advice

I really wish I took the camera. Let's just say perhaps it wasn't the most fun thing I've done in a long time. In fact I've been putting it off for quite awhile. I've been wanting to check out the air-handler which sits in the crawlspace in the center of the house. I've been concerned with the number of colds we seem to always acquire at the annual firing of the heater for the first time each year. I was convinced that no one has been down there in 15 years, and that it was clogged up with lint.

Technically it still might be as I only made it to the "blower" side of the handler. If you're wondering what the heck an "air handler" is... it's a giant metal cabinet that is apart of your central air conditioner that does the cooling or heating and blowing....

Apparently someone had been down there before as I found motor oil, and what appeared to be a fairly new part on the unit. The downside is the numb-nut put the air-handler access panel on upside down. Worse yet the whole damn thing was rusted and bent.

When I got it apart I found a lot of mold spores... not very pretty. Whether alive or not I don't know. I run Lysol through the intake shaft about twice a month but something out of this whole process tells me I'm counting the days that this unit is going to have to be replaced. Unfortunately I don't have the money now, so I don't have the choice to not run the heat or A/C...

I'm wondering if going with a "all-in-one" unit would be a better option next time since all the duct work and handler has to be replaced, or maybe I'll discover something much better.... Thankfully, it's not going to be me who installs it.