Who to hire for an air conditioner that leaks water

Short answer

A heating and cooling technician. Water running down a wall from an indoor unit is almost always a blocked or badly fallen condensate drain — the unit is doing exactly what it should and the water has nowhere to go. Turn the unit off in the meantime, because it keeps producing water the whole time it runs.

Soon, not tonightIt will not usually get cheaper by waiting, and it is rarely worth an after-hours rate.

When it is someone else

Calling the wrong trade costs an attendance fee to be told so. These are the cases where this problem belongs to someone other than a heating and cooling business.

  • a plasterer and painter

    the wall or ceiling below has been wet for a while. The stain generally does not come back with paint alone.

What to do before anyone arrives

  1. Turn the unit off. It will keep making water until you do.
  2. Put a towel and a container under it and move anything below out of the way.
  3. Find where the condensate drain exits outside and check whether anything is coming out. A dry outlet on a running unit is the confirmation.
  4. Check the filters while you are there — a dirty filter makes the coil ice, and melting ice overwhelms the drain.

What to ask when you book

  • Will you clear and flush the drain, or replace the line? A line that has fallen the wrong way will block again.
  • Is the drain discharging somewhere legal, or is it just running onto the ground under a window?
  • Is the unit level? An indoor head that has been knocked out of level drains to the wrong end.

What changes the price

No dollar figures here: this directory holds no price data and an invented range is worse than none. What follows is what makes one of these jobs cost more than the same job next door, which is the part you can actually use when comparing quotes.

  • Whether the drain can be cleared or has to be re-run.
  • Where the line runs — through a wall cavity is harder than down an external wall.
  • Whether a condensate pump is involved and has failed.

What you can do yourself

Is this licensed work?

Air conditioning installation and service is licensed work, with refrigerant handling licensed under the national scheme. Condensate discharge is also subject to plumbing requirements about where it may be discharged to.

There is no national register. Search the licence number with the regulator for the state the work is happening in.

Licensing thresholds and certificate requirements differ by state and change with amending regulation, so this page describes the mechanism rather than quoting a figure. The regulator’s own page is the current answer.

Common questions

Who should I hire for an air conditioner that leaks water
A heating and cooling technician. Water running down a wall from an indoor unit is almost always a blocked or badly fallen condensate drain — the unit is doing exactly what it should and the water has nowhere to go. Turn the unit off in the meantime, because it keeps producing water the whole time it runs.
Why does my air conditioner drip inside but not outside?
Because the condensate produced at the indoor coil is meant to run out through a drain line, and if that line is blocked, kinked, frozen or has fallen backwards, the water overflows the pan and finds the wall instead. The absence of water at the outdoor end is the diagnostic.

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Who to hire for

General information about who does what, not advice about your specific job. Licensing, consumer law and council rules differ by state and change; the regulator for your state is the current source. More guides to hiring a tradesperson.