The humid summer weather in North Carolina places extra stress on a home air conditioning system. An AC has to run longer to overcome the additional discomfort that high humidity creates. (An air conditioner isn’t a dehumidifier, however. To deal with serious humidity issues in a home, we recommend you have a dedicated whole-house dehumidifier installed.)
One of the ways that all this extra moisture in the air affects an air conditioner is that it collects along the indoor evaporator coil as the AC is running. This moisture has to go somewhere, so an AC is designed with a condensate pan and drain to catch the dripping moisture and then pump it outside. The occasional sound of water running in the AC cabinet is this condensate system at work.
But like any component in an air conditioner, the condensate drain can run into problems—leading to even bigger problems for a home’s cooling.
The circuit breakers in your home’s electrical panel are designed to protect the electrical system from voltage overloads. If an appliance connected to the electrical system places too high a voltage demand on a circuit, often from a short, the breaker for that circuit trips to cut the connection.
