Air-con maintenance Fuerteventura

The unit pulls your room air through the filter all day. When it clogs, the fan works against resistance: cooling drops and power use rises. Behind it sits the evaporator, cold and damp, exactly where mould and bacteria grow once dust settles. That is the musty smell when you switch on. We clean filter, evaporator, fan wheel and drain pan, flush the drain and disinfect. A blocked condensate drain is the most common reason an indoor unit drips.

In the refrigerant circuit, the refrigerant travels between the indoor and outdoor unit. We connect our gauges, measure pressures and temperatures and work out superheat and subcooling. That shows whether there is enough refrigerant and the compressor runs in its range. Short of refrigerant, the compressor runs hot and wears out; replacing it often costs nearly as much as a new unit. We check joints and flares for leaks and write the values into the record, so next year we can compare.

The outdoor unit hands the heat from your house to the outside air, through the fine fins of the condenser. Calima dust clogs them, salt from the sea air attacks aluminium and copper. Pressure in the circuit rises, the unit draws more power and on hot days may shut down. We clean the fins gently, check the fan, electrical connections and mounting, and watch for corrosion, on the coast more often than inland.