Can I lift my AC pad to grade without breaking lines?
Lifting an outdoor AC pad a few inches to properly grade the side of the house seems doable from online videos, but the primary fear of damaging the refrigerant lines stops people from attempting it. This leaves homeowners hesitant to fix a leaning unit or manage yard drainage themselves.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Waiting until the unit fails and having a professional replace the pad and level the ground during installation
- 2Grading around the pad instead of lifting it
- 3Leaving the pad alone and waiting until the system is replaced
- 4Keeping the area around the unit clean
- 5Waiting for the installation company to come out and inspect it
- 6Checking how movable the unit is and looking for missing mountings
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Would it be feasible to life 3 inches maybe? Doing this in order to properly grade the side of the house.”source ↗
“Saw some videos, seems doable but worried about the lines.”source ↗
“Saw some videos, seems doable but worried about the lines.”source ↗
“Anyone have any ideas how my HVAC came to lean like this? Probably happened within the last week and we haven't had any major storms lately. Unit is only 1.5 years old.”source ↗
Where this came up
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