Air conditioning: what to do yourself, and when to call someone
Rinsing the filter is not a service, and not everyone needs a yearly one. Here is how to tell which applies to you.
Advice about air conditioning falls into two extremes. One says rinsing the filter once a year is plenty; the other says an expensive annual service is mandatory. The truth sits between them, and depends on how much you run the unit and where it is.
What you can do yourself in ten minutes
The filters in the indoor unit come out and can be rinsed in lukewarm water. Monthly in season, or at minimum at the start and end of it. This is not maintenance in the engineer’s sense, but it is the one thing that shows up on the electricity bill immediately: behind a clogged filter, the unit works harder for the same temperature.
Keep the area around the outdoor unit clear as well. No cleaning needed — just do not let plants grow into it or leaves pile against it.
What needs an engineer
- Refrigerant level. If it cools worse than last summer, this is the first suspect.
- Chemical cleaning of the coil. The filter does not catch everything; what passes settles on the fins.
- The condensate drain. This is what blocks, and then leaks down the wall.
- Smells and mould. A musty smell on start-up is not a filter question.
How often
In an average home used seasonally, a professional service every eighteen months to two years is realistic. If you also heat with it, or run it all day, or it sits in a dusty environment, make it yearly. In a rental, yearly as well — nobody there is rinsing the filter.
The manufacturer’s warranty may also be a factor, as several tie it to regular maintenance. Worth checking once in the installation paperwork, because finding out later is expensive.
The one line to write down after a service
Date, company, what they did, and whether refrigerant was added. That last one matters most: if gas was topped up at two consecutive services, the system has a leak, and the answer is not another top-up but finding the leak. That pattern is only visible if it was recorded.
In Housefolio the AC goes in as an appliance, the reminder schedules itself, and every service attaches to that appliance — so in two years you see on one screen how often it was touched.