Aircon Repair in Gauteng: Start With the Symptom

Find the row that matches what you're seeing. The columns on the right tell you what you can look at and when to request a fault check. This is a guide to the usual suspects, not a diagnosis. Somebody has to see the unit for that.

Everything in the table is for things you can see from the floor or the ground, with dry hands. If you'd need a chair, a ladder or a lean over a wall, skip it and request a fault check.

Turning a unit off at the remote stops it running. It does not isolate it electrically, so it is not preparation for any physical check.

Everything on this page stops at the same four places.

• Refrigerant. Work on the refrigerant circuit needs an SAQCC Gas registered practitioner. Topping up, leak repair and anything that opens the pipes all sit on that circuit. Never handle refrigerant yourself. A bottle from a hardware shop is not a repair.

• Wiring, covers and the board. Do not remove covers, open the unit's electrical panel or open the distribution board.

• The outdoor unit. From the ground, you can look for an obstruction without touching the unit. Do not remove covers, tighten mountings, move or level the unit, or clean its coil. Do not climb a ladder, lean over a wall or stand on a bracket to reach it. Check your body corporate or estate rules too, because some limit who may work on the outside of a building.
• The coil. Leave it alone. The fins bend at a touch.

Most of this takes a few minutes and no tools. Put the remote on Cool, shown by the snowflake. For normal room cooling, select Cool mode. Dry mode is intended mainly for dehumidification, and Fan and Heat modes won't cool the room, so check it isn't on Heat. Set the temperature below the room temperature and put the fan on Auto or High. If the remote doesn't respond, try fresh batteries. ServiceLink SA's checklist has the same start.

Then look at the breaker marked for the aircon. You are looking at its position only. If it has tripped, the section on breakers below applies.

The filter is the one part some units let you clean. Do it only as the manual directs, from the floor, after the unit is safely switched off at its isolator. If you can't reach it from the floor, or the manual doesn't say the filter is user-removable, leave it for the technician. Let a washed filter dry fully before it goes back.

If the room is still warm, the next suspects are a blocked condenser, a frozen coil, a refrigerant leak or an undersized unit (Cape Air Conditioning, a South African installer). The last three are not owner jobs, and neither is the condenser.

An aircon pulls moisture out of the air, and that water is meant to leave through a drain pipe. In cooling mode, water normally leaves through the indoor unit's condensate drain. When it drips from the indoor unit instead, ServiceLink SA calls a blocked drain pipe the most common reason. Fine dust, algae and slime build up until the line can't carry the water away.

A blocked drain isn't the only way in. A dirty filter or low refrigerant can ice up the coil, and when the ice melts it can overflow the drain pan. A damaged drain pan, a loose drain connection, an incorrectly mounted indoor unit or a poorly routed drain can also cause leakage. Verda Vento, a Cape Town installer, says poor installation is very common in South Africa.

Keep away if water is near electrical equipment. Do not touch wet switches, plugs or the unit. Arrange a safe electrical assessment.

After a flood, or if the unit has been exposed to floodwater: do not switch on a flood-exposed aircon. Have the electrical supply and the aircon assessed before it is used again.

Outdoor-unit water is a different question. Outdoor-unit water can occur during heating and defrost. The operating mode and the source of the water matter, so unexplained water at the outdoor unit is worth a fault check rather than a shrug.

Where the guides disagree is flushing the drain line. One SA site walks owners through it, another says it's for experts. We'd hand that one over.

Request a fault check when water is coming through the ceiling rather than from the unit, when it carries on after the unit has been looked at, when the pan or pipe looks damaged, or when there's a foul smell or mould near the unit.

Frost on the copper pipes or the indoor coil means the coil has dropped below freezing. Cape Air Conditioning lists frost on the refrigerant tubing, weak cooling and extra water from the drain as the signs. ServiceLink SA names two usual reasons: restricted airflow from a dirty filter, and low refrigerant.

Leave the unit off and give the ice time to melt. This is about abnormal icing while the unit is cooling. Frost on the outdoor coil in heating mode is a different issue.

If the ice returns after the unit has fully thawed and the filter has been checked, leave it off and request diagnosis. ServiceLink SA puts "ice returns immediately after melting" on its list of reasons to call a technician. A low charge can result from a leak or an incorrect previous charge, so the cause needs diagnosis before refrigerant is added. That is covered on our aircon regas and leak repair page.

Sound is a useful clue, because the cheap causes and the expensive ones sound different.

A rattle or vibration is usually mechanical and loose: a front panel or filter that isn't seated, a screw that's worked free, or debris in the outdoor unit. Those are the technician's to put right. Do not tighten, open or reach into anything yourself.

Banging, grinding, buzzing without the fan turning, hissing: turn the unit off and request a fault check. ServiceLink SA's advice for grinding is not to run the unit.

Look at the breaker's position. If the aircon trips it, leave it off and request a fault check. Do not repeatedly reset it or open the distribution board.

A tripped protective device can indicate an overload, short circuit or earth-leakage fault, depending on the device. HVAC guides, mostly from the US and Australia, name a dirty outdoor coil, a weak starting capacitor and a struggling compressor as common culprits. ServiceLink SA lists capacitor and compressor faults among the causes of clicking and buzzing. All of these need testing with proper equipment.

Burning smell, a hot or scorched breaker or plug, a buzz with no fan turning: don't touch the breaker or the isolator. Keep everyone away from the unit and call a qualified electrician. Don't reset anything.

Error codes are less scary than they look. Some are just reminders. Samsung South Africa's support page says its indoor units show "CF" when the filter needs cleaning, and you reset the reminder afterwards. For any other code, write it down exactly, note the brand and model, and tell us when we call. The manual lists what each code means for that model.

There is no single number that settles it. Ask for a repair quote and a like-for-like replacement quote. Compare their full scope, the unit's condition, repeated faults and whether it is correctly sized.

Repeat failures matter, and so does a unit that was too small for the room from day one. Cape Air Conditioning lists an undersized unit as a cause of poor cooling, and a repair can't change a unit's size. A cheap repair on a sound unit is often worth doing. Several big ones in a row on an old unit often aren't.

Our aircon installation cost page shows what moves the price of a replacement, with each source and date beside its figures.

A fair price needs a look at the fault. Here is what one operator publishes for the first step, the call-out and diagnosis. Use it to know what to ask about, then compare quotes with the same scope.

One source is a sense of scale, not a tariff. Any price for your unit needs somebody to look at it.

• A low charge and leaks: aircon regas and leak repair
• Keeping it from breaking in the first place: aircon service and maintenance
• Past repairing: aircon installation and aircon installation cost
• Areas: Johannesburg · Pretoria · Centurion · Sandton · Randburg · Midrand
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