Air conditioning repair in London

When the AC stops cooling

There are only so many reasons a system stops making cold air, and I work through them in order rather than guessing at the expensive one first.

• The outdoor unit is not running at all. Breaker, contactor, capacitor. A failed run capacitor is one of the most common faults there is and one of the cheapest to put right.
• It runs but barely cools. Usually airflow. A filter nobody has changed since last summer, a coil packed with dust, or a return that is undersized for the house.
• Ice on the pipework. That is either airflow or refrigerant charge. Turn it off and ring me, because running it iced up is how you kill a compressor.
• It cools, but the bill has jumped. Often a charge that has drifted, or a system short cycling because it is oversized for the house.

About refrigerant top ups

A sealed system does not use refrigerant. If it is low, it leaked, and the leak is the actual fault. I will find it and tell you what it takes to fix it. Topping a system up every summer and saying nothing is how some people make a living, and it is not how I want to.

Houses with no ductwork

Plenty of the older houses here, particularly the century homes in Old North and parts of Old South, were built for radiators and have no ducting to put cold air through. That does not mean you cannot have air conditioning. A ductless system puts a small head in the rooms that actually matter and leaves the plaster alone. I will tell you where the heads want to go and what the line runs would look like before you commit to anything.

Replacing rather than repairing

If your outdoor unit still runs on the old R22 refrigerant, that changes the maths. It is no longer produced, what is left is expensive, and a big leak on an R22 system is usually the end of the road. I will tell you plainly when you have reached that point instead of quietly charging you for gas that will be gone again by August.