When an air conditioner stops cooling in Haymarket, the cause is usually one of about eight things. The thing that sets this precinct apart is duty. Systems here run long hours, under full occupancy, year round, and equipment that would last a decade in a suburban house gets used up a lot faster.

Density, duty and why equipment wears out faster here

Haymarket packs apartments, student accommodation, hotels, markets, food courts, arcades and theatres into a handful of blocks. A food court system runs from early morning to late evening seven days. A student tower has every unit occupied every night through summer. A theatre goes from empty to full in twenty minutes and has to hold temperature with a thousand people in the room.

That changes what good maintenance looks like. Annual servicing is a minimum here, not a target, and on commercial plant we usually recommend two visits a year. It also changes selection. We specify equipment rated for the duty rather than the floor area, because the cheapest unit on a quote is rarely the cheapest unit over five years in a building that never switches off.

Apartments and student accommodation

A lot of the residential stock here is compact: studios and one bedroom apartments in high rise towers, many of them with no balcony and no external wall available for an outdoor unit. Most run fan coil units off a central system, or a small split with the condenser in a service riser or on a designated plant deck.

Two things come up constantly. The first is filters, which in a rented studio often have never been washed, and which quietly cost you a third of your cooling. The second is condensate, where a blocked tray or a failed pump turns into water in the ceiling of the apartment below and a strata dispute nobody wanted. Both are cheap to prevent and expensive to ignore.

Any work in these buildings needs written strata approval before penetrating common property, the installer's licence and certificate of currency, and a condenser position the building nominates. We handle that and work to approved access hours. For Class 2 buildings we also do rectification work where the base build system was never commissioned properly.

What we check when an air conditioner stops cooling

Our air con technicians run the same sequence every time. Measured airflow across the indoor coil, refrigerant pressures and superheat, electrical draw on the compressor and fan motors, condensate drainage, and the control signal between head unit and outdoor unit. About an hour on a split, longer on ducted or a fan coil.

What we do not do is top up gas and leave. Refrigerant does not get used up. If a reverse cycle air conditioner is low on charge there is a leak, and topping it up without finding that leak is money you spend again next summer.

Faults we see most often in this part of Sydney

• Grease loaded filters and coils on anything serving or sitting near a food court, which is the single most common cause of poor cooling here.
• Blocked condensate trays and failed pumps in apartment fan coil units, discovered as water in the unit below.
• Condensers crowded into service areas and light wells with no clearance, recirculating their own hot discharge and tripping on high pressure.
• Coils packed with dust and lint from constant foot traffic and market activity.
• Kitchen exhaust and make up air out of balance, so a tenancy goes negative and pulls air and smell in from the arcade.
• Failed capacitors and contactors on units running extended hours, which reach eight years of wear in far less than eight years.
• Supplementary units installed into a tenancy with no agreed condenser position, which the building then asks to be removed.

We carry common parts on the van, so most air conditioning repairs in Haymarket are finished on the first visit. Where a part has to be ordered, you get the price and the lead time before we leave.

Repair, or replace the air conditioning unit

The honest answer depends on three numbers.

Age. Most air conditioning units run 10 to 15 years in Sydney conditions, but a unit running extended commercial hours in this precinct should be assessed on run hours rather than on its install date.

Repair cost against replacement. Once a quote passes roughly half the cost of a new air conditioning system, replacement usually wins on a five year view, because an inverter unit uses noticeably less power than a fixed speed unit from 2012. In a building that runs sixteen hours a day, that difference is larger than most owners expect.

Refrigerant type. Systems running R22 cannot be legally recharged with that gas any more, so an R22 unit with a leak is a replacement whichever way you look at it.

We give you all three and let you decide. Nobody here works on commission, which is why our quotes sometimes say repair it when a replacement would have paid us better.

Air conditioning for Haymarket food courts, restaurants and retail

Food is the defining load in this suburb and it is unforgiving on equipment. Grease carries into the return air, coats the coil and the filters, and strangles airflow. Kitchen canopies pull large volumes out, and if the same volume is not supplied back as make up air the tenancy goes negative, the doors become hard to open and odours move between tenancies through the arcade.

We do commercial air conditioning installation, commercial repairs and planned maintenance across the precinct, including kitchen exhaust, make up air and ventilation to code. For fitouts and refurbishments our in house mechanical engineers handle the design work, which is what a centre management team will ask for before approving anything.

Installation and major works happen outside trading hours. Nobody closes a Haymarket tenancy at lunchtime.

Offices, theatres and function spaces

The other half of the load here is occupancy. A function room or a theatre has a tiny base load and an enormous peak, and a system sized on the average will never hold temperature on a full house. These spaces need capacity matched to peak occupancy, outside air to match it, and controls that can bring the room down before the doors open rather than after.

Smaller offices in older buildings along the Sussex and George Street frontages usually have no meaningful base building plant, so a tenancy system and proper outside air provision is the whole job. We size it off the occupancy and the equipment in the room, not the lease plan.

Service and maintenance that stops the call out happening

Most emergency air con repairs we attend were avoidable. In a precinct this dense and this greasy, a service schedule is the single best investment an owner or a tenant can make.

A proper air conditioning service means cleaning filters, chemically cleaning coils where needed, clearing and treating the condensate drain, checking refrigerant charge against design, testing electrical connections and current draw, and verifying the system holds setpoint under load. Food tenancies get coil cleaning more often and a written condition report for each air conditioning unit, which is what you need at budget time and what a landlord will ask for at lease renewal.

If you want to service your air conditioner less often, wash the indoor filters every couple of months through summer, and monthly if you are anywhere near a kitchen. Five minutes, and it is the difference between a system that limps and one that performs.

Why Haymarket customers keep calling us back

• We turn up when we say we will. A time window and a call before arrival, not a vague morning booking that eats your day.
• Fixed quotes, no hidden fees. The price we quote is the price you pay, with flexible payment options on larger installations.
• Licensed, insured and accredited. ARC authorised, accredited with FPA Australia and Engineers Australia.
• Lifetime workmanship guarantee. We stand behind the install, not just the warranty on the box.
• 24/7 availability. Air conditioners fail on long weekends and in heatwaves. We answer the phone then too.

It is why a lot of our work here comes from centre managers, tenants and strata committees rather than advertising. See the standard of it in our projects.

Systems and brands we work with

• Split systems. One indoor head, one outdoor unit. Best value for a studio, a small shop or a comms cupboard.
• Multi split systems. Up to five indoor heads on one condenser, independent control in each room.
• Ducted air conditioning. Concealed in the ceiling, zoned, only grilles visible.
• Cassette units. Ceiling mounted, four way discharge, the usual answer in a retail or food tenancy.
• VRV and VRF. For mixed use buildings needing simultaneous heating and cooling across many tenancies.
• Ventilation and exhaust. Kitchen exhaust, make up air, carpark and bathroom ventilation to code.

We supply and service Daikin air conditioners along with Mitsubishi Electric, Fujitsu, Samsung, ActronAir and Panasonic, and repair all makes and models including units we did not install. For high duty applications here we lean towards equipment with accessible coils and serviceable filters, because anything awkward to clean does not get cleaned.

Questions we get asked in Haymarket

My shop never gets cold at lunchtime. Is the unit too small?
Sometimes, but more often it is airflow. A coil coated in grease and a set of loaded filters can cost a third of your capacity without anything looking wrong. We measure the airflow before recommending a bigger unit.

My studio apartment has no balcony. Can I get air conditioning?
Usually, but the outdoor unit position is the building's decision, not yours. Some buildings have a designated plant deck or riser position available. We find out what is permitted before quoting anything.

How often should a food tenancy be serviced?
Twice a year as a minimum, and quarterly coil cleaning if you are running a wok line or a deep fryer. Grease is cumulative and it is far cheaper to remove than to replace a coil.

Can you work after trading hours?
Yes. Installation, core drilling and anything noisy is scheduled for evenings or early mornings, with dock and lift bookings arranged beforehand.

Book an air conditioning technician in Haymarket

Call Epic Air Group on 02 9898 9779 or request a quote online. Tell us the building, the make and model and what the unit is doing, so we send the right technician with the right parts first time.

Fitting out a food tenancy or refurbishing a floor? Send the plans and we will size the system and the exhaust properly, and tell you what centre management will need to approve it. Talk to us about your air conditioning needs and you will get a straight answer, including when the answer is that the existing air conditioner is fine.

We cover Haymarket and the surrounding city, including Chinatown, Ultimo and Central. See every suburb on our areas we serve page.