How do I access the evaporator coil for my AC unit

Silver solder, it's sold at the ac supply house. You should be able to buy it by the stick instead of a whole tube.

Evaporator coils (evaporator) is the unit inside the car that the cold air come from in the air conditioner. They are expensive and in most instances need the dash to be removed to have them replaced. Fortunately they are seldom prone to failure, but suffer from blockage in the fins from dust build up and leakage at the pipe fittings . They have a TX valve at the inlet end which may block up but this is a replaceable unit . Get an opinion from an accredited ac specialist shop before replacing the evaporator.

Airflow from your air conditioner can be low for a number of reasons, if would greatly help if you had said whether it was a window unit or a furnace/ac type of split system. That being said, here are a few places worth looking.

1) AIR FILTER - if you have a furnace, this will be inline with any duct work. If you have a window unit, the filter will usually pop out from the front(usually these are a nylon mesh and can be washed in the kitchen sink). If you have the former furnace based air filter these are replaceable in most cases and can be bought at any hardware store and sometimes walmart.

2) EVAPORATOR FAN MOTOR - Your evaporator fan motor may have something caught around the shaft, or the blades may have broken. A lot of window units use plastic fan blades, and they do on occasion break. In the case of a home furnace/ac you have a blower wheel, or "squirrel cage", these blades are usually metal and can rust out over long periods of time without proper care. If you have a belt drive motor, the belts may need to be tightened, or changed. A belt drive motor would be very rare in a residential application.

3) EVAPORATOR COIL ICING UP (FREEZING) - The evaporator coil is the portion of the system which absorbs heat (it is later rejected outside or in a more desirable area by the condenser coil). This coil gets cold, usually about 40 degrees F to provide you with 55 degree discharge air. At times, and for a number of different reasons, it is possible for a coil to "freeze", or "ice up". This can be caused by dirty air filters, or bad fan motors/blades, not to mention low refrigerant charge and a host of other problems. If this is your issue, deice the coil, and restore power to the unit. Especially if you have a basic unit with no frills, if left on long enough in a cool enough room with high humidity, a coil can accumulate sufficient ice to lower air flow. Air conditioners of the residential type have no defrost cycle. They instead utilize "off cycle" defrost, meaning that the coil will defrost whenever the unit is not calling for cooling. So it is easy to see if left on for too long you can have problems from this.

1 and 2 are easy to check, 3 may not be so easy. The evaporator is an A-coil and named so for its shape, it will be located the furnace, and you will have to remove a few panels in order to see it in most cases. In a window unit, remove the air filter to gain visual access to the evaporator coil.

I hope this helps, I wish I knew what type of system you were using.

There is an access panels on some package units. If you cant find the access panel then remove the top. I use a garden house. Make sure to kill the power to the unit before servicing.

Assuming the ice is on the front of the unit it's a good bet that your inlet filter is dirty/clogged and is restricting the air over your evaporator coil. The first thing you need to do is turn off the unit and let the ice melt; in other words - 'defrost the AC.'

I would then try cleaning the filter (usually just needs to be washed out) but I'm betting you will need to clean the evaporator coil too.

Cleaning the evap coil is not that difficult, sometimes it can be as easy as pulling a 'sheet' of matted hair/wet dirt from the front of the evap coil.

Often you will need to use a brush of some sort and clean the coil. The object is to get the evap coil clear of all dirt so that air can flow easily through the coil.

good luck!

heater element is burnt out more than likely. It is located between the fan and the front evaporator coil. The element looks like the element inside of a toaster. They can burn out a number of ways mostly though it is due to constricted air flow. Clogged filter or dirty evaporator coils are the number one reason. To access the coil you will need to remove the unit from it's mounting sleeve. Once you have removed the unit from the sleeve look between the fan blade and the back of the a/c coil and there it is. You can remove it by taking the screws out and take the element to an a/c parts house for proper part replacement

Hope this helped

Dave

The coil is likely froze up due to dirty evaporator plugged ,air filter or low on freon .Tom

check to see if your evaporator coil needs cleaning

remove the lower assembly and tighten the bolts that hold ac down to coach or pull shroud and check to make sure unit is not frezing up due to dirt