Gunk is familiar to HVAC technicians, since they spend some of their time on the hottest days of the year cleaning the gunk out of the drains that catch the drips from air conditioning units to prevent them from overflowing. If they don't catch the drips in time, unfortunate side effects occur.

AnnArbor.com's Community Team members found that out this week when water from the air conditioning unit overflowed its catch pan, ruining some ceiling tiles in the first floor Community Space. A buildup of gunk caused the overflow, according to a repairman.

In 1938, Alton F. Curran of Malden, Mass. patented a liquid emulsion for the degreasing of surfaces, which was marketed under the trade name of "Gunk." Many systems have gunk in them, and many products have been used to either create or remove gunk since then. Here is some small sample of them. To look at the original patent, see Patent 2,107,288. Google Patents is a good source for patent research.

Michigan football gunk

Receivers used to put gunk on their hands to help them catch the ball.  Now, they use tacky gloves.

HVAC gunk

Dust in the coils, combined with water from condensation, creates gunk. Gunk can clog the drain, leading to overflow. Gunk is a good breeding ground for municipal microflora like mold and mildew.

Gunk in the laundry tub

The lint from your laundry turns into gunk when combined with the water from your laundry. The filter in your washtub is designed to catch this before it heads to the laundry drain. Once it gets to the laundry drain, there is another trap that needs to be cleaned regularly so that your laundry tub doesn't overflow.

Sewage gunk

If you have a trap in a sewer drain, it will collect some of the same dust and debris which provides a place for the bacteria that live in sewage systems to spend some of its time. If this drain is connected to a municipal sewage system which is in a part of town that is doing heavy construction, some of the air in the sewage system will be burped up into the drain.

Drains are generally designed to have a water trap, so that the sewer gas is absorbed by the water and then flushed back down rather than going back up into the air.

Sewage gunk in the water system

When gunk from the sewer system gets into the fresh water supply system, it creates conditions suitable for diseases like cholera.

Nose gunk

Parents of toddlers will be familiar with nasal secretions mixed with dust from playtime.

Pine gunk

Resin from pine trees is sticky enough to produce gunk on cars.

Links

The University of Michigan Department of Microbiology and Immunology, department home page, features the work of Maria Sandqvist:

"Since 2005, cases of cholera have been on the rise worldwide, and some studies suggest that severe weather events triggered by global warming may further the spread of this and other water-borne infectious diseases.

Rather than killing the cholera bug Vibrio cholerae,Sandkvist wants to interfere with its ability to make people sick, which it accomplishes by secreting a potent poison known as cholera toxin."

A crash course in the mid-winter blues, comment by AnnArbor.com photographer Lon Horwedel: "Good: winter goes quicker the older you get; blasting the frozen ice-snow-mud gunk that accumulates in the fender wells of your car with one swift karate kick!"

Word-origins.org thread on the origin of the word Gunk, quotes from the first entry in the OED, a trademark application: "1932 Official Gaz. (U.S. Pat. Off.) 23 Aug. 864/1 A. F. Curran Co.,.. Gunk. For Liquid Soaps and Liquid Cleaners for Hard Surfaced Materials or Articles."

Edward Vielmetti has a finger on the pulse of municipal gunk for AnnArbor.com. Contact him at edwardvielmetti@annarbor.com.