Buyers at a viewing look at the layout, the light and the kitchen. Some then walk to the bedroom, switch the aircon on and stand under it for a minute. That minute is unforgiving: a sour smell in the first breath of air, a drip on the floor, or a unit that hums and never quite gets cold gives the buyer something concrete to mention when the price is being discussed.
If you are about to list, the useful question is not "should I service the aircons?" but "which of the three jobs, if any, fits each unit?" This is how to decide, with the published prices next to each option so you can work out the cost before you pick.
What a buyer can actually see, smell and hear
You do not need a technician to know what a viewer will notice. Run each unit for ten minutes, the way a buyer would, and check:
- The first minute after switching on. A sour, musty or wet-cloth smell is the coil, and it will be obvious to someone who has just walked in from outside.
- Cooling. Does the room noticeably cool within ten minutes? A unit that runs but only makes the air slightly less warm looks like a problem even if the cause is only dirt.
- Water. Look under each indoor unit and along the wall for drips, stains or bubbled paint.
- Noise. Rattles, ticking or a whine from the indoor unit, or a rough sound from the outdoor unit.
- The front cover. Flip it up and look at the filter and the fins behind it. A buyer who opens it should not find a felted mat of dust.
Write down which rooms fail which test. That list, not the age of the flat, decides what to book.
The three jobs and what each one fixes
These are the published prices. The price you see is the price you pay.
- General servicing: $45 for 1 unit, $70 for 2, $95 for 3, $115 for 4, and $25 per unit from 5 units. It covers filter clean, coil wipe, drainage flush and a gas check, and every booking includes the 9-point pre-check.
- Chemical wash: $135 for 1 unit, $245 for 2, $345 for 3, $425 for 4, and $100 per unit from 5 units. This is the deep coil clean that removes mould and biofilm.
- Chemical overhaul: $200 for 1 unit, $370 for 2, $515 for 3, $640 for 4, and $150 per unit from 5 units. Full disassembly, for units that are badly fouled.
- Chemical clean while we are already on site for another job: $100 to $150 per unit, published as a range, so ask for the exact figure for your unit when you book.
Match them to what you found. A unit that cools well, has no smell and shows no water is a general service at most. A unit with a smell on start-up is a wash candidate, because a smell that appears in the first minute is coming from the coil and a filter rinse does not reach it. A unit that has been washed before and smelled again within weeks, or that has visible black build-up, may need the overhaul; our guide to what a chemical wash cannot fix explains how to tell.
Worked example: a three-unit flat with one bad room
Say the living room and the study are fine, and the master bedroom, which runs every night, smells when it starts.
- General service on all three: $95.
- General service on all three, plus a chemical clean on the master bedroom unit while we are on site: $95 plus $100 to $150, so $195 to $245.
- Chemical wash on all three in one visit: $345.
For a flat where only one room fails the test, the middle option targets the problem for less than washing everything. If two or three rooms fail, one visit for all of them is the cheaper way to buy the same result, because the per-unit price falls as units are added and splitting the job across visits loses that. The full reasoning is in chemical wash every aircon or just one.
Timing: book before the first viewing, not the day before
The reason is not the cleaning itself. It is that the visit may turn something up: a unit that leaks, a drain that keeps choking, cooling that does not come back after cleaning. Every booking starts with the 9-point pre-check, and anything beyond the service is quoted after diagnosis, before any work starts. If that quote lands the day before your first viewing you have no room to decide calmly. Leave a few days, and if your outdoor units sit on a high-floor ledge, remember that the ledge-access fee is confirmed for your block before work starts; the reasoning is in why high-floor servicing costs more.
If a unit turns out to have a real fault
Cleaning fixes dirt only. If the pre-check finds a leak, a failing compressor or a unit at the end of its life, you have a decision that a wash will not settle: repair it, replace it, or sell the flat with the fault declared. Do not clean around a fault and hope. A buyer who switches the unit on in week two is the same buyer who looked at your flat, and the quiet fix is the one that comes back as a dispute. Our published installation prices start from $1,200 for a single split, and overhaul or replace sets out how to weigh that against fixing an old unit.
Are the aircons included in the sale?
That is a term for you and the buyer to settle, not something the units decide for you. Agree it in writing, through your property agent or lawyer, and list the units with the room, the approximate age and the date of the last service or wash. Check the exact process with them, because we can advise on the aircons, not on the paperwork. What helps on the aircon side is a paper trail: keep the invoice or receipt for any service, wash or repair, because a dated record showing which work was done on which units answers the question a careful buyer asks first. The buyer's side of the same checklist is in checking the aircon before you buy a resale flat.
What not to do
- Do not just rinse the filters and call it done. It removes the visible dust from the front, and does nothing about a coil that smells.
- Do not mask a smell. A scented spray or an air freshener near the unit gives a buyer a second thing to notice.
- Do not pay for a job the unit does not need. A healthy unit does not need a wash for the sake of it. The pre-check is there to tell you which job each unit needs before you commit to one.
Get the units checked before you list
Tell us how many units the flat has, which rooms smell or drip, and when they were last done. We will tell you which job each unit is likely to need before anyone comes out, and the pre-check on the day settles the rest. The published prices are on the pricing page, and the wash comparison is on the chemical wash cost page.
WhatsApp us on 9107 2601 with the number of units and what each one is doing.