English Air conditioning
Installation, servicing and repair of air conditioning and heating across the Costa Blanca, the Murcia coast and the Almería Levante. F-Gas certified, which in Spain is what legally allows anyone to handle refrigerant — and we explain everything in English.
«It was re-gassed last summer and it is not cooling again»
This is the single most common thing we are told on this coast, and it comes from a misunderstanding that costs people a lot of money.
A refrigeration circuit is sealed. Refrigerant is not fuel. It is not consumed, it does not burn off and it does not evaporate with use. If your system is low on gas, it is leaking. Topping it up without finding the leak means paying twice — once for the gas, and again in a few months.
The correct sequence is: find the leak, repair it, pull a vacuum on the circuit, and charge the exact quantity the manufacturer states on the plate. Anything else is a temporary and expensive patch.
Not cooling: what to rule out, in order
- Dirty filters or a blocked indoor coil. The most common cause and the cheapest to fix. You can do the filters yourself.
- Low refrigerant — from a leak. See above.
- Outdoor unit badly sited, boxed in or recirculating its own hot air. Very common on terraces and in ventilation shafts.
- Sensor or control board.
- Compressor. Last on the list, and the only failure that sometimes makes repair not worth it.
Going in that order is what stops people replacing an entire system because of a set of filters.
The coastal problem nobody warns you about: salt
If your outdoor unit is within a couple of kilometres of the sea, the sea breeze deposits salt on the condenser coil all year round. That does two things: it drops the efficiency —so the unit runs longer for the same cooling— and over a few years it eats the coil and the casing.
The fix is unglamorous and it works: rinse the outdoor coil with fresh water — not a pressure washer — as part of the annual service. On a coastal property that single job adds years to the equipment.
What you can do yourself
- Filters. Open the indoor unit, slide them out, wash in warm water with mild soap, dry them completely before refitting. A damp filter grows mould. Monthly in heavy use, every couple of months otherwise.
- Keep the outdoor unit clear of leaves, plastic and anything blocking airflow.
- Check the condensate drain. If the indoor unit drips inside the room, this is almost always why: the drain is blocked or has fallen the wrong way.
What legally requires a technician
- Anything involving refrigerant. Handling fluorinated gases requires F-Gas certification. It is not bureaucracy: without it the installation cannot be legally documented, and that matters when you sell, insure or rent the property.
- Leak detection on the refrigeration circuit.
- Chemical cleaning of the indoor coil when filters are no longer enough.
- Electrical checks and pressure readings.
What we install
- Split and multi-split systems for homes and apartments.
- Ducted systems with grilles, for whole-property cooling and heating.
- Heat pumps and aerothermal systems — heating, cooling and hot water from one unit. On this coast it is usually the sensible replacement for an old boiler or electric heating.
- Commercial and industrial — shops, restaurants, warehouses and refrigeration.
Service it in spring, not in August
Almost every air conditioning emergency in July could have been avoided in May. In spring there is availability; in August every breakdown of the year arrives in the same fortnight and nobody can promise same-day service.
If you also rent the property out, the pre-season service is what separates a quiet summer from a bad review.
How we work
- A fixed written price before anything starts.
- We explain before we do — in English, without an interpreter.
- Invoice with IVA broken out, and the installer certificate where the installation requires one.
- Monday to Friday 8:00–18:00, Saturday 9:00–14:00. Urgent jobs inside those hours, same day. We are not a 24/7 service and we would rather say so.
Serving Benidorm, Altea, Calpe, La Nucía, Alfaz del Pi, Torrevieja, Orihuela Costa, the Mar Menor, Cartagena, Mazarrón, Águilas, Mojácar and Vera. Back to the English homepage.
Call +34 657 068 444 or send a WhatsApp. Photographs of the unit and its model plate help a lot.
Not cooling, or due a service before the summer? Tell us the make, roughly how old it is and what it is doing, and we will tell you whether it needs a technician.