During the air conditioner work, it has dust accumulated within, which one shall periodically remove. Someone does cleaning on their own while someone calls specialists. You should pre-schedule technical maintenance of your HVAC system so as not to alter the schedule of your regular technical prophylaxis and not interfere with the correct work of the equipment.
An average cost of air conditioner cleaning
Cleaning the main nodes of a climate control system is one of the main articles in the budget of regular service maintenance. An approximate ac cleaning cost widely varies; the final cost is affected by multiple factors:
- the make and brand of your model (a split system, inverter, ceiling or duct systems, and so on)
- the level of contamination: if your air conditioner works in the condition of high dustiness, then you shall plan bigger expenses for cleaning remedies and, thus, costlier maintenance
- technologies of cleaning and used equipment for that: applying special tools increases the ac cleaning service cost
- positioning of an outer block: if an outer block of a split system is as high as several stories, then one shall need to use special machinery to clean it.
The cost of cleaning air conditioner coils
The ac cleaning cost is also affected by the volume of service: if you only clean the coils, the cost would be $100–$400. In any case, you make a large favor to your device: clogs deteriorate the efficiency of heat exchange and that’s why the productivity of HVAC lowers up to 30%, your energy bills increase because it takes more energy to move the air masses. You should add up with the repair costs, which you need sooner or later because of an increased workload of your equipment — and you’ll see that cleaning the coils is much cheaper than expenses caused by deposits and clogs.
The cost of cleaning an air conditioner fan
A job of a fan is to redirect the flows of cooled air inside the premises. When the fan works, dust is deposited onto its blades. Dust deposits make it harder for airflows to move; as a consequence, the workload on the fan increases, up to the moment of full failure of an engine. Cleaning the fan costs around $125–$250 but many users can clean it on their own: they put warm soapy water on the blades and turn it on at the max speed for 15 minutes, after which, they remove the rest of the dirt with a toothbrush.
The cost of cleaning an air conditioner and other HVAC pieces’ evaporator coil
The heart of an air conditioner is a heat exchanger, which is also called the evaporator or radiator. It is positioned in the camera of air preparation in the inner block of a split system. Harder access to its parts and high demands for manipulation accuracy increase the cost of cleaning the coil: technicians ask around $100-$400 to clear it on-site. Heat exchange can be affected by clogging the radiator and leads to icing of a coil; when the frost and ice melt, they make leaks and further deposition of condensate. So if you feel dampness inside your premises or you notice the drops of moisture on the hull, you shall immediately clean the heat exchanger.
Cleaning on-site vs. taking the evaporator coil off
If the heat exchanger coil is very dirty, you need to make its cleaning with your hands after the device is uninstalled, which is costlier than on-site cleaning: you shall be ready to spend from $400 to $700. In addition to dry cleaning with your vacuum and aerosols & wet cleaning of the radiator, hard-to-reach places of the coil are processed with a soft brush. Brush manipulations require great skill from the master — careless movements can bend the evaporator fins and destroy an expensive item.
Cost of cleaning an air conditioner condenser coil
Cleaning the condenser coil costs from $75 to $200 — quite cheap, though, if you consider the heavy consequences of clogs. Freon leakage and smoke from wires are not the scariest parts; compressor failure is the worst thing that can happen since compressors aren’t repaired — then, it is cheaper to buy a new air conditioner. To prevent large failures from happening, the scheduled cleaning of a compressor-condenser block is fairly often combined with testing of the main nodes and prompt elimination of disrepairs.
Cost of cleaning a central air conditioner
When a central air conditioner is cleaned, usually only blocks are cleaned but sometimes, it is necessary to pay attention to air ducts. Cleaning the air ducts is made once every 5-7 years and costs from $300 to $700. The final cost depends on the footage of the house, the general length of ducts, and the level of their pollution.
How much does it cost to clean the central block of an air conditioner?
Hygienic processing of the blocks of a centralized air conditioning system not only boils down to condenser and evaporator — other elements are no less important. When a system is prepared to launch, complex cleaningof an internal block is made, which is composed of consequential steps:
- Unplug your system from the electric grid. Any air conditioner cleaning work is only made after it is unplugged from the electric grid!
- Wipe the outer surfaces of the hull.
- Change or clean the filters with the vacuum.
- Disassemble the block: take off the frontal panel first, then the condenser tray, and then the drainpipe.
- Take off the fan; clean the shaft and blades from the dirt and grease.
- Take off the control module and protect electronic elements from the contact with moisture: put the polyethylene bag on them and fixate it with a sticky tape.
- Clean the inner block and radiator with a vacuum cleaner; then put on the cleaning mixture with solvent and antiseptic on the main nodes and walls of the hull, wait for 10-15 minutes, and wash the coil and the inner block with warm water.
To prevent freon leakage, do not completely turn off the block from the connection with its outer part — it would be only necessary to free it from the wall mounts and fix it with a rope. You should clean the outer block based on the same principle: unplug the system from the electric grid, then take off the grill and fan before you get to the inner cleaning, protecting its engine from the moisture.
The final central ac cleaning cost is individual, depending on the volume and complexity of work, positioning of the outer block, and the cost of expendables. Some operations are made within the general scheduled technical maintenance or combined with other procedures. You could also deduct some simplest operations from the list by doing them on your own.
Find out how much your project would cost
The Best Heating Cleaning & Air Company offers you personalized service of air conditioner maintenance in Denver, Colorado. We make an individual work plan for every customer. In order to find out the exact cost to clean ac unit, leave your order on our website. When we will be consulting you, we will ask you about what procedures you need, what condition of your equipment is, how it functions, agree upon with you the cleaning service time, and calculate the ac unit cleaning cost according to an agreed plan.
Combining the cleaning of a heat exchanger of an air conditioner with other services
In order to cheapen the technical maintenance, cleaning separate nodes of an air conditioner is advisable to be done together with other manipulations. For instance, a heat exchanger is cleaned from deposits during the air ducts cleaning while the radiator is cleaned during the scheduled yearly technical maintenance.
DIY vs. hiring a professional
The ac cleaning service cost can become much smaller if you make at least the simplest procedures on your own, leaving only complex tasks to professionals. Clogged filters are very often changed by users on their own. There is nothing hard to wipe out the dust deposits on the fan blades or clean the drainage ducts. Cleaning and washing the coils are also frequently done by owners on their own; however, in this case, you shall spend some money to buy cleaning remedies, expendables, and antiseptics, which would cost you around $15-$30.
A specialist should intervene if there is a need to uninstall the coils, clean the air ducts and wash the condenser for air conditioners installed in many-story houses if an outer block is positioned at a high altitude. Remember that warranty does not cover the removal of breakages, which are caused by inept actions of unprofessional users, so, please, decide on what you can really do and refrain from those pieces of work, for which you don’t think you’re competent enough.
How often do you need to clean the evaporator coils?
Clean the coil no lesser than once a year. It would be a good thing if you manage to do it before the season starts. Revision and cleaning of the coils are usually made as a part of the scheduled technical maintenance before the system is launched. If the air is highly contaminated, for instance, during the plant blossoming period, unscheduled cleaning might be required. In order to prevent clogs from the occurrence, wipe the hull of the outer block once a week and thoroughly clean the back part of the drainage tray.
How to clean the evaporator coil?
Medium contamination is removed on-site. First, dry cleaning is done and then a coil is washed from a hose or using a pump sprayer. During the dry cleaning, the front part of the evaporator is cleaned by a vacuum or spray gun. To clean the back part, crevice nozzles are used.
Before you wash the coil, make sure to protect your furniture, walls, and floor from splashes and dirt. To do this, a service bag with a drain tube is fixed under the unit. As a last resort, you can make an analog of the service bag from PVC film and sticky tape and use a bucket to collect dirty water:
- Cut off a piece of film wider than the inner block to have spare — no less than 3 feet on each side; adopt the width based on the distance to the drain tank.
- Fix the upper part of the film with a sticky tape on the wall behind the air conditioner, put the lower part to the drain tank, and fix it on the sides so as to make a funnel.
- When you supply water, do not use high pressure and point the jet perpendicularly to the radiator so as to avoid the water pressure harming the fins.
How much time does cleaning of condenser coils take?
On average, heat exchanger and condenser cleaning takes from 1 to 2 hours, depending on the level of dirtiness, their sizes, and the technical features of the system. An unprofessional person might take more time. If you need to put your air conditioner in order as soon as possible at a reasonable cost, contact the BHCAir Company: your air conditioner will shine like new after our cleaning!
