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Condensate Drain Heater Replacement

Hello,

I'm working on an RDI evaporator in a walk-in freezer. The condensate drain was previously ran with standard PVC which had a heating wire inside the pipe to keep from freezing. The wires have spade connectors and are connected to the control board in the evaporator.

As you might guess, the PVC was melted, black in some spots and had completely died and broken. I am replacing the drain piping with sweat copper. The heater wire needs replacing also, but I don't know where to get the wire from. I called RE Michel, and Sid Harvey. No luck.

I work in heating, but don't do AC or refrigeration so my experience is limited. Any ideas on where I can find this heater wire that runs inside the condensate line?

Comments

  • EBEBRATT-Ed
    EBEBRATT-Ed Member Posts: 15,455
    heat tape
  • JUGHNE
    JUGHNE Member Posts: 11,042
    I see a lot of empty ice cream buckets under evap drains.
    Often no simple place to direct the drain water and be sure it does not freeze as it leaves the freezer box.
    The buckets are just standard procedure.
    I tell the workers that that bucket should be gaining water, freezing to ice a couple times a day. When full they have a block of rough ice to throw out or use.
    "If the bucket fails to gain ice then your defrost system is not working...if it goes too long without servicing we may have to unload the freezer box for repairs." No one wants to unload a walk-in freezer so the bucket does get some attention.
    This works also in walk in cooler where the drain would have to go outside and freeze in the winter time.....heat tape would be ignored until there is a problem in either case.
    MilanD