"Principles, Principles, Principles! Great installation services are guided by principles."
I have seen numerous AC conduit installations in my lifetime. Some have left me in awe of its rough installation, some have kept me in awe at the dismal quality of work done. And a few have been quite impressive. Those occasions that I have been impressed, I have sought after the Engineering company or personnel behind the work. One aspect of AC conduit installations is where to run the AC condensates too.
AC condensates will always happen. It's a law. When air blows across the evaporator coils, it gets saturated. The saturated air hits saturation temperature and dew point and release moisture. This moisture is channeled via a hose to where ever the AC installer chooses. Most Split AC installations installed on the surface have the condensate piping extended and channeled outdoors with the refrigerant pipes and indoor/outdoor power cable. In most homes the condensate hose drops directly in a bucket. When full the bucket is emptied and the cycle is repeated over and over again. This cycle can be strenuous and hectic. Most times this exercise is not effective as the bucket gets full and over flows to its surroundings.
To avoid this, there became a need to pipe the condensate to a drain. There was also a need for this piping to be hidden to ensure that the installation looked neat and effective. This problem even became magnified when Building Engineers handled complex building structures like Highrise buildings or multi-storey buildings. Thus there was a need for a Plumbing Engineer to layout a good condensate piping design.
Teknitech Engineering Ltd specializes in offering the best and most professional condensate pipe routing and piping possible for any project possible. Some of our core beliefs is that:
* Condensate pipes should not be joined with Waste drainage or Soil waste pipes regardless of if a smell trap is to be installed or not.
* Condensate pipes should always be run to ducts in buildings.
* Condensate pipes can be sloped at 1% to 2%.
* Condensate pipes can be interconnected with one another.
* Condensate pipes are also to be insulated with armaflex insulation kits. Both the vertical sections and the floor piping sections.
So to answer the question:
Can you link your AC Condensate to your Waste pipe?
No. They should never be linked together.
The reasons are:
* Regardless of having smell traps installed, linking them together poses the connection at a greater risk of having foul smells popping up.
* The Waste pipes to be connected to are already at a particular invert level. Connecting your condensate piping to them will lead to higher invert levels for the condensate piping. This in-turn will lead to higher screed levels required for tiling. Thus if building weight and tiling costs are to be kept to a minimal, then this should be avoided.
For these reasons, it's best to run your Condensate piping independently to ducts. The ducts should contain vertical condensate pipe stack that collects condensate piping from each floor.
