How to clean and maintain your air conditioner
Why a dirty air conditioner costs you twice
An air conditioner that hasn't been cleaned in a while doesn't usually fail outright, it just quietly gets worse, and because it happens over a couple of seasons you don't notice the room taking longer to cool or the power bill creeping up. What's actually happening is that dust builds up on the filters until the fan can't pull enough air through, so the unit runs longer to reach the same temperature, and you pay for every one of those extra minutes.
The second cost is the air itself. A filter that's damp and full of dust is a decent place for mould to get going, and anything the fan can lift off it ends up circulating through the house, which matters a lot if somebody in the place has asthma or hay fever.
Before you touch it, kill the power
Turn the unit off at the wall or at the isolation switch rather than just at the remote, because a unit that thinks it's off can still start a fan cycle, and you don't want that happening while your fingers are inside the housing. If you can't find an isolation switch and you're not sure which breaker it's on, that's the point to stop and get a sparky rather than guess.
The clean itself
1. The filters, which is most of the benefit
Open the front of the indoor unit and slide the filters out. On a split system they usually lift up and pull down towards you, and there's often a second, finer filter clipped behind the main one.
If they're the washable sort, rinse them under a tap with lukewarm water, shake them off, and leave them somewhere airy until they're properly dry. Putting a damp filter back in is how you get the musty smell people are usually trying to get rid of in the first place. If they're disposable, replace rather than wash them.
Do this monthly through the months you're running it hardest, and you'll have done most of what a clean achieves.
2. The vents and the face of the unit
Wipe the louvres and the front panel with a damp microfibre cloth. Anything greasy, which happens more often than you'd think in a kitchen-adjacent room, comes off with a weak detergent solution. Don't soak it and don't spray water into the vents.
3. The coils, gently
The fins behind the filter are what actually move the heat, and when they're furred up with dust the unit can't shed heat properly. A soft brush or a vacuum with a brush head lifts most of it. Go easy, because those aluminium fins bend if you look at them wrong, and bent fins block airflow just as well as dust does.
4. The drain
If you're getting water pooling under the indoor unit or dripping where it shouldn't, the condensate drain is likely blocked. Clearing the outlet end is usually enough. If it keeps blocking, or if water is getting into the wall, that's a service call rather than a DIY one.
5. The outdoor unit
Clear leaves and rubbish away from the outdoor unit and cut back anything growing against it, because it needs room to throw heat and a shrub pressed against the back of it is doing real damage to how well the whole system works. Hose the outside of the housing down if it's filthy, keeping water away from the electrical side.
What is worth paying somebody for
A yearly service by a licensed technician picks up the things you can't see, and anything to do with refrigerant, wiring, the compressor or the sealed side of the system isn't a home job at all. Cleaning filters, wiping the face and clearing the outdoor unit is the part that's genuinely yours.
Shop related products
I'll be straight with you, we're a hardware shop and we don't sell air conditioners or their parts, so nobody should be driving in here for a filter. What we do have is the unglamorous gear that makes the job less annoying.
- Plastic Bucket with Lid, 5L. For rinsing filters without carting them to the laundry.
- Heavy Duty Blue Plastic Drop Sheet. Goes under the indoor unit and catches the dust.
- Chip Brush, Unpainted Handle, 50mm. Soft enough for the coil fins.
- Uni-Pro Aluminium Extension Pole 0.6m to 1.2m. For a high wall unit, so the ladder stays in the shed.
Did you know we also carry microfibre cloths, a 1L spray bottle, P2 masks and leaf rakes for the outdoor unit, none of which are on the website. Give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what's on the shelf.
Keep reading
- 3 maintenance checks every new homeowner should do first
- The skills worth learning when you first own a home
Still the person who remembers the filters on the first genuinely hot day, which is about a week too late.
Cheers,
Candeece
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