How in the World Do you Clean those Evaporator Coils

[heytom]

I have a 14 year old Lennox Central A/C Heat Pump System.  The Air Handler is a vertical mount that is located in my garage on top of a 3' x 3' x 3' base (Lennox Elite10 CB29M).  Due to years of my frugelness and buying cheap A/C filters over the years, the coils have become quite dirty downstream of the replacement filter. I have recently noticed my system working almost full duty cycle to keep the house cool.  After checking the outside compressor/condensor and seeing that it had a good R-22 charge, my next check was the Evap. Coils in the airhandler.  This vertical unit has a Pair of Coils leaning towards each other making an "A" frame.  From removing panels on the air handler in the garage, I can see the downstream side of the coils, and they did not look that bad.

However, I took the 2' x 2' filter/grill off inside my house that goes into this 3'x3' base that the handler sits on, crawled inside and laid on my back and looked up into the "upstream side" of these coils and found that even though I religously replaced the filters (with the cheap ones), I had a fur coating on my coils that matched the hair from my current dog and the dog that passed away 4 years ago!!!!  I did my best to shop-vac this hair off until I actually saw the coils, but there are still parts that the hair is stuck to them and due to this "blanket" of hair being on them for so many years, it appears the aluminum fins are disinagrating and there is still an aluminum/hair mixture keeping these coils from what I would call "clean" since this fur coating was causing quite a bit of condensation to "sit" on the coils. 

While my A/C is now functioning much better after shop-vac'ing it (about a 50% duty cycle in the heat of a Florida Afternoon), I would like to do a better job of cleaning these coils, but don't know how without making a complete mess.

Is there a way to remove these coils?  Seems the entire system would have to be evaculated and unsolder the copper lines, which I do not have the equipment to do evacuate R-22.  I have seen YouTube videos on using a garden hose to wash out coils, but all this water would come down inside this insulated 3'x3'x3' return register and I can't imagine how to caputure all the waste water coming down from "flushing" the coils.

Any tricks of the trade I am missing?  Can you typically clean the coils much better than shop-vac'ing them as I have.  I hope I did not trash this air handler by using cheap filters and need to buy an new one.  I purchased the entire system 14 years ago, which is not bad, but I bought all top of the line Lennox hoping to get 20 or 25 years out of the system.  Also these days, if you are replacing the airhandler, I have heard it is best to replace the outdoor compressor/condensor at the same time so that you have a "matched system". 

Please advise if there is anything I can do to better clean or flush these coils and stretch a few more years out of this Air Handler. 

Thanks!

[dkpd1581]

You can use a 3 gal pump spray bottle which will wet the coils and not have any pressure high enough to damage the coils. 

You can get commercial evap coil cleaner or can use something like Simple Green to 3 parts water.  Thoroughly wet the coils and keep the wet/vac handy to help out.

There are fin brushes with nylon bristles that you can use to help work out the debris between the coils. You can buy some cheap stiff bristled paint brushes from the local Walmart and accomplish the same.

You may be well served to use a commercial foaming evap coil cleaner - it pulls the dirt off the surface rather well.  It will most likely take several rounds of cleaner and clear water rinse so be prepared to stay a while.

[applianceman18007260692]

Go to the HVAC store and get some non rinse cooling coil cleaner. Spray it on wait 10 minutes and restart the unit