Air Conditioning - Really dumb question

I have an old a/c unit. I don't know when it was installed, the house was built in 1986. The odd thing is that there is a piece of garden hose coming from the unit that discharges water into a bucket. Obviously not the proper way it should have been installed. I don't know why they would have done this. The only thing I can think of is the previous home owner installed it himself. I've seen a number poor installations of other things. Anyway, what would be involved in having this fixed properly. Is it a big job. I'm sure I would need a professional service to do the work but I'd like some idea as to what would be involved.
Thanks

Hi Spider:


Normally the drain is piped to the outside so it would be a matter running some 3/4" Schedule 40 PVC pipe from the unit to the outside of the house. The line has to be pitched in the direction of flow and has to be trapped. If that isn't feasible, you can drain the water into a holding container/pump mechanisn [we call it an air conditioner condensate pump] and then run copper tubing from the pump to the outside of the house. For an idea of what the pumps look like, do a web search for Little Giant Pump Company. You'll see several different models at their website.