Paint in the Air Conditioner

[labestia]

Recently I had the dometic unit on my sailboat removed for cleaning, flushing, etc…

The unit had some external rust that was cleaned and painted.

I believe that the technician also painted the element where the room air is brought in to be cooled before being blown back into the room because now it looks white to me, where I don’t think that it was white before. Is this element always a metallic color, as I think, or can it look white after cleaning. Can I assume that if bright white it was definitely painted?

It doesn’t make sense to me that this should be painted; if it can be painted what kind of paint should be used?

Should I be concerned or is this OK to do with older units?

Please advise,

La Bestia

[fullkeel7]

Painting an air conditioner's evaporator or condenser units will only hinder the transference of heat/cool. The only exception I know of is a special flat black coating that is applied to the condensers of auto air conditioners to help in this transfer.

Sounds like the tech. got a little carried away with the corrossion control...I'd ask. It could be that whatever they used to clean the fins with turned them white??

[eolon]

Could it be aluminum oxide? I can't imagine why anyone would paint it.

Aluminum oxide is white and would form all over the aluminum fins of the heat exchanger(s).

Best Regards,


e

.::.

[bentmast]

Sounds like its a corrosion prevention coating and was probably on there already. I work on residential ac and I'm not all that familiar with marine ac, but I suspect that any ac on a boat has a protective coating on the coil.