Our aircon
We haven’t serviced our aircon since we moved in. That’s roughly 6 years. (There was a leak of gas very early on, which the aircon installer Jex Aircon fixed. But not servicing.)
Since then, we didn’t really use the aircon much. We don’t turn on the aircon most days, except when there was a newborn baby who needed a cooler room.
Since having to learn aircon cleaning during COVID-19 circuit breaker, I have been DIYing - washing the filters, changing the filter papers taped to each filter, vacuuming the fins, taking out the blower, vacuuming the pipe, cleaning the casing, cleaning the internal drip tray (?), spraying Jackie spray on the fins to clean them.
These filter papers cost $0.79 per packet (2pcs in each) off Shopee. This is the actual Shopee item I bought.
These are pasted using the provided double sided tape.
Along the way, I bought a cheap “deflector” off Lazada, because we suspected the wind was blowing directly on us, so the kid could’ve been getting runny nose because of the direct cold air.
An example of a deflector. I bought it when Lazada suggested it.
After we hooked this, the aircon didn’t blow towards us and it did feel much more stuffy around the room.
We decided to engage someone to do aircon servicing
Usually these took me about 2 hours in total per unit. I was happy to save the $50 per aircon unit. To be fair, the aircon was still cold, which was great because it was 6 years old after all.
But we decided to get someone to check our aircon out for a few reasons.
- Our toddler kept falling sick or just has tons of mucus after a sleep with the aircon.
- Using a Xiaomi Air Purifier didn’t help either.
- After seeing some Tik Tok videos, I was concerned about mold inside the aircon and the room. We wanted some expert opinion on whether we had a mold issue.
And a couple of patches concerned me, near the ceiling and on the box-up exterior.
Several spots that weren’t black, but “transparent looking”, and this confused us
The corner was looking suspicious looking, gave me mold vibes.
Our Amyth Aircon servicing review
Amyth Aircon is quite active on Tik Tok. I like the guy’s no-nonsense videos. They give tips on how to avoid mold build-up for aircon units and show some horrible case studies of customers’ homes.
@amythaircon
#answer
to @Xiao Chris389
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♬ original sound - Amyth Aircon Singapore
Frankly, we did hear of such advice that Amyth gave previously, especially to make sure aircon fan speeds are at their max, but they were just easy to recall and contact directly from Tik Tok. And the Amyth owner’s just a very no-nonsense kind of character, not the glib salesperson you’d hate to trust.
Arranging an appointment was really fast, we Whatsapped their number on a Sunday afternoon, and the appointment was on Tuesday.
The servicing guy cautioned against adding an aircon deflector and filter paper
Very quickly, the Amyth servicing guy, Tommy said that it wasn’t a case of mold build-up inside. He cautioned, however, that the existing setup was not good.
The aircon “deflector” I placed on the aircon caused the cool air to be stuck at the top corner of the room. It’s not very clear if this was responsible for mold build-up, but according to him it was, so we took it at face value.
The filter paper I pasted also made it difficult for the aircon unit to pump out cool air, because it blocked the airflow going into the unit.
Chemical wash
I decided to go for a chemical wash, because we needed to determine if the aircon had allergens or dust that continuously caused allergic symptoms for us.
Off we went, he was much faster than me. It felt good to not have to do cleaning so slowly, and straining during the cleaning on an aching back.
Most importantly, he took out the entire aircon unit from the wall as was the case of chemical washes, which was something I could’t do.
It was dirty for the insides that I couldn’t clean, so a chemical wash for a 6-year-old aircon unit was definitely money well spent.
The bummer, though, was that a chemical wash would incur an additional fee for redoing the insulation for the pipes, which cost $70 on top of the chemical wash price.
Some “rust” on the evaporator coil is alright
One question I always had was whether the aircon unit evaporator coil is spoilt. There’s always this reddish build up that looks like heavy rust.
Turns out it’s fine. This is just red copper oxide and is harmless.
(Source)
Internal pipes installed were not of the proper size
Tommy raised his concern that the pipes were too small for an 18K BTU aircon unit. Jex Aircon installed a 3/8 inch (9mm) pipe, but it was inadequate for such a powerful aircon, which needed a 1/2 inch (12mm) one.
The consequence of installing such an undersized pipe was potential condensation and the risk of leaking, because the water couldn’t drain fast enough.
The only ways to remedy this were to:
- Change the entire piping, but that’d involve opening up the box up and patching it back (though it wouldn’t require hacking down the entire thing)
- Setting aircon fan speed to the max to minimise condensation
Cleaning was thorough and relatively fast
The start, with the blower taken out. This is usually where I stopped.
Taking out the unit.
The two metal pipes that were undersized.
The nut was added to connect the undersized pipe with the aircon.
The various parts laid out for washing.
The insulation replaced. To be fair, I thought the insulation was much better done, there’s more duct tape as well, even in the parts of the pipe near the wall/hole.
Reinstalling the aircon unit.
I ended up topping up “gas” (refrigerant)
One of the biggest controversy (some call it scams and upselling) in the industry is topping up of gas. Gas is refrigerant.
(Some insist there’s no need to unless there’s a leak, but anecdotally aircon servicemen always encourage it.)[https://forums.hardwarezone.com.sg/threads/air-con-gas-top-up-is-it-necessary.6802946/]
Tommy measured the amount of R-410A refrigerant in the compressor. He said it was borderline (110 psi) and still alright. He advised that I should top it up, given that it had been 6 years and some gas was lost naturally given expansion/contraction, but it was my call.
It was important that he said there was no leakage, so it was not necessary, but a good-to-have, and that if there was a leak, the important thing would have been to fix the leak instead of topping up gas. On clarification, he replied that it wasn’t a fixed price and depended on how much gas was being topped up.
I decided to do it because I already did the chemical wash. Originally, my thinking was to do it when the aircon was no longer cold and wait till the last minute. But I figured there was no point doing so when the amount needed for top up wasn’t fixed, so I might as well do it and bargain a little.
So we topped up from 110 psi to 150 psi.
I even did washing of the compressor
Tommy diagnosed my compressor unit to be really dirty, with dust build-up and oxidation (though I’m not sure if it’s really oxidation). He said it’d be good to give it a wash and would come with a discount since I already went for a chemical wash.
After mulling over it, I decided to do it. I wasn’t confident of doing it properly and didn’t want to damage the compressor by dousing some electrical circuits with water. So I wanted to see it done once and I’ll do it subsequently myself, if needed.
It involves using a hose to spray at a 45-degree angle, using a cleaning agent (that probably can be replaced by Jackie spray), and then wiping whatever is needed off.
The result
After cleaning the grills of the compressor casing looked cleaner. But it could also be placebo, and the results weren’t like a night/day kind of difference.
Total Cost - $517
The total cost was $517:
- Chemical wash: $297
- Gas top-up: $100
- Insulation replacement: $70
- 2nd unit, regular servicing: $50
(There was another unit, a 9K BTU one, which just went for a simple cleaning routine.)
Overall Review
Pros
- The cleaning was well done and thorough.
- I saved a lot of time. I’d have spent 2 hours minimally on the aircon unit.
- Turns out the aircon unit really was the issue, none of us are having allergic symptoms or runny nose in the mornings.
- Tommy was a knowledgeable guy. He was fast in what he had to do (much faster than me, for sure), and he did roughly the same things I did (which assured me he wasn’t do shortcuts).
- Tommy wasn’t pushy. His suggestions to do services are to be expected, as with the Sheng Siong cashier who is required to ask if you want to buy tissue paper or Abalone cans when you’re paying. Most importantly, however, he didn’t try to trap or confuse me to get the sale.
Cons
- I didn’t think the compressor cleaning was necessary, but I still got to see and try it once to figure out its true value. But at $100 (after a $20 discount) over 6 years, it’s not a huge deal.
- Compressor cleaning can only be done when it’s raining or after notifying all the flat owners below you. Coincidentally it rained, but if it didn’t, I wouldn’t have gone through so much trouble to notify everyone.