Q: I bought my home in the Stone Oak area of San Antonio, brand new, on September 21, 2007. It has no heat pump but gas heat and air conditioning. Since the summer of ’08, I have been experiencing a horrible odor, like living in a musty tent, coming from the air ducts as the a/c runs. Doesn’t occur in winter with heat.
The A/C company that installed the system for the builder has been out several times, checked the ducts. They think that the system turning on and off, wet then drying, has something to do with causing the odor. The cleaned the coil, want me to run my a/c at 74 degrees to prevent it from turning on & off frequently, and most recently put an ozonator in the system. . The ozonator worked a little, but a faint odor still exists, sometimes more than others, but better than before the device was put in the system.
The a/c company is ready to sell me a Guardian Air Cleaner System for better than $1200. Before spending this small fortune, I researched Dirty Sock Syndrome on Google. Sounds like a coated coil is a better bet. Even though I don’t have a heat pump, is DSS the problem? Either way, what should I do at this point?
From your account of things it seems that you may have what the industry nicknamed “dirty sock syndrome”. When you go from the heat side to the cool side it is quite noticeable and every year it gets worse and lasts longer before the coils wash themselves off. We experimented with all the different ways to handle this problem and finally landed on a new coated coil. Reusing a contaminated coil to coat will not work, best to get a new coil and have it coated. Once this condition appears it seems to remain in the home and it reappears, coating the coil before installing has made a difference for us and works well. The coating we use is Bronz-Glow out of Florida.
As far as the advice you were given to run your air conditioner that cold, you will just be cold and may have some sweating windows but you will still have the dirty sock syndrome.