OT HVAC experts: Cracked condenser pan

If it is just the pan, remove it and have it headlined at an auto shop.

If that's too difficult, JB weld water weld will seal almost anything.... While burning your fingerprints off.

ask your boyfriend or husband to fix it

No BS, but if the pan is rusted just replace it. That's not a big ticket item. The coil, pumpdown/recharge and labor is your big ticket. A pan is just a pan.

Just had the pan replaced on my 5 ton Len ox. Under warranty a little under $300 labor. Because it’s a two person job apparently

1) If he's advocating changing the coil because the pan has a boo-boo, you tell that guy to leave your property IMMEDIATELY and if he squawks, you tell him you're going to get your shotgun and it's his choice whether or not he's there when you return. IMMEDIATELY.

2) Go to a smaller sheet metal shop. A big one likely won't take the job. Tell the guy you have a leaking drip pan and you need a new one. He will build you a drip pan and crawl up into the attic to install it. It will cost you several hundred dollars because you don't know how to do it and you don't want to be in a 150 degree attic to install it.

3) Don't brush this aside. That leaking drip pan can seriously frick up your house and cause rot over time.

4) If there is something actually wrong with the coil in addition to the leaky pan, none of this applies, and you're going to be opening your checkbook. There's not much you can do outside of the factory to RELIABLY fix a problem coil. You can try to fix it and it's PROBABLY going to be cheaper than a new coil/air handler, but it's still going to be expensive and there are no guarantees that the fix won't fail and you still will have to replace it. Many times, you'll fix one leak only to have another open up due to how the first fix subtly changed the coil. Coils that have problems are just a bitch.

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He said he "didn't recommend" replacing one without the other. I guess we'll see if it holds.

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That's a strange thing to say. You don't replace an evaporator unless there's a reason. Which is a more expensive part.

However, it depends on your personal case. If your evaporator is on it's last leg, it wouldn't make sense to pay $200~$300 to change the pan this year and need a replacement evaporator next year. Call and talk to the guy and get a first-hand report. Might be time for a new AC.

My guy put sheet metal tape over it as a temporary fix. He was supposed to come back and make a new one not long after. Well we both forgot until a few months later when I noticed a few round circles on the ceiling sheetrock. To his credit, he came late that night and looked at it and said he'd be back in the morning to fix it and he was. It took 3-4 hours with 2 people but they swapped the cracked one with a new one they made and it works like a charm.

Never use pieces of sheetrock stacked together as support under the evaporator coil pan. Once it got a small leak, the sheetrock, pan, and water reacted together and rusted out the pan.