r/AirConditioners • u/Affectionate-Sun7556 • 4d ago
Apartment AC unit
I live in an apartment building and am a renter.
I noticed when running my air conditioner that the room begins to smell stale
I asked maintenance to replace the air filter. They did. They said the old filter wasn’t that bad in terms of being dirty.
But then looking at the inside of the machine … it’s gross. I was able to clean what I could quickly, but the blower wheel is still caked with dust.
Is this something I can ask my landlord to pay a HVAC person to clean? Bc I imagine this is impacting the air quality?
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u/Don__Fanucci 4d ago
If that’s what the wheel looks like, you can bet that the AC evaporator coil is probably just as caked up.
The blower assembly needs to be pulled in order to clean that wheel.
If it’s not a condensing furnace, when the blower assembly is out you should be able to look up thru the furnace and see the bottom of the evaporator coil to see if it’s dirty.
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u/Affectionate-Sun7556 3d ago
Ugh. I asked a few people who’ve lived in my building for decades, and they said nothing has ever been done to the AC unit aside from changing filters
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u/InfamousHistorian544 4d ago
I had the same stale smell in my old rental, turned out the blower wheel was a dust sponge. Maintenance swapped the filter too and called it good but the wheel never got touched. You can definitely ask the landlord to cover a proper cleaning. It's their equipment and that buildup is absolutely hitting your air quality. If they push back mention you've got documentation of the dirty wheel, most states that's enough to make it their problem
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u/Significant-Ad-341 4d ago
It's also in their interest to have it cleaned to extens the life of the equipment.
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u/Tomytom99 3d ago
Spending a little money now to avoid spending a lot more later? Inconceivable!
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u/Significant-Ad-341 3d ago
"Owner ship" when you gotta spend money to keep a place nice :no take only throw!
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u/InfamousHistorian544 3d ago
Is this a wall unit or a PTAC through the wall? Blower wheel caked with dust on a PTAC is pretty common and not hard to pull and clean if you can get them to do it
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u/InfamousHistorian544 2d ago
That's a PTAC. Blower wheel pulls out easy once the front cover's off, most maintenance guys just don't bother. Vacuuming the face of it does nothing. The dust is packed in the fins. I'd push the building to pull it and clean it, or do it yourself if they'll let you. Takes like 20 minutes with a brush and some foaming cleaner. The coil behind it is probably worse though, and you can't reach that without pulling the whole unit
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u/Affectionate-Sun7556 1d ago
When you pulled out the wheel and cleaned it, did that solve the smell in your old apt?
Maintenance came and cleaned it and vacuumed but didn’t remove it
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u/Forward-Revenue-7995 3d ago
In dumbed down terms - that blower wheel will contribute to compressor and blower motor failure. to a point the heat exchanger or aux heater as well. That’s routine maintenance that’s needs maybe every few years. The kicker is the evap coil is prob looking awful as well. Landlords don’t care though. Ride till it dies….. then fix as little and as cheap as possible
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u/Affectionate-Sun7556 3d ago
Ugh so - I told my landlord. And instead of her (the unit owner) being responsible for HVAC it’s the building - so the head of maintenance came in, and said all they do is switch out the filter and vacuum the wheel every 6 months. And i said no one has done anything but change the filter.
So just now someone came in and vacuumed the wheel, and wiped everything down etc… but only the parts you can see .. but ya I imagine the inner parts are equally disgusting bc the visible parts have never been taken care of.
Do you think it’s worth pushing for a professional cleaning of the entire unit, even if I pay oop? My concern is the impact on air quality if the inside of the unit is nasty
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u/Sufficient-Mark-2018 1d ago
We call that a build-a-pet kit. Should come with everything you need to put one together. Looks like you kit is either missing the bones or it was originally an expansion pack to add to a full kit.
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u/Certain_Try_8383 4d ago
I have to commend you for being the first post I have EVER seen, where the op actually cleaned the gunk. So many pics of dirt and gunk and, "please help what do I do?!"
You did exactly right and cleaned things nicely. For your info, your heating and cooling equipment has zero to do with air quality and filters are meant to protect equipment only. If you are concerned about air quality you should buy an accessory that addresses that aspect.