mdooher:

concordnz: Interested In this, as I received a similar letter (probably from same crowd) :)
Never had mine professionally cleaned in 4 years - but wondering if I should.

I've cleaned the interior filters twice a year.
(But not the fins/coils of the interior unit - apart from brushing with a soft brush to remove some dust)

I haven't touched/cleaned the exterior unit at all in the last 4 years.

Do you open up exterior unit 'casing' to clean exterior coils/fins?
Are electronics isolated or exposed? -
( e.g. do we need to pop circuit breaker before cracking open outside casing)

there is an isolator either next to the outside unit or inside. If you can't find it flick off the circuit breaker. The first cover you take off exposes the power terminals

neb: For people who have used these, do you just spray them into the top (air intake) part and all of it will safely exit via the runoff port without running through and dripping onto the electrical devices we've got down beneath the indoor unit? There's also quite a bit of variance in the instructions, use it with the unit turned off, use it with the unit running, etc, but my main concern is leakage onto what's sitting below the indoor unit.

so what I did was turn off the power at the outside isolator

open up the indoor unit to access the filters and take those out of the way so you can see the coil fins

spray cleaner all over the fins.. i was very liberal with this and used the cleaner undiluted

wait 5 mins

spray clean water from spray bottle on fins to rinse - you can see the crud coming off as you spray rinse

allow to drain and dry.. maybe 30 mins

filters back in, close door, power on and test.

cheers

edit:  sorry i didn't answer your main concern.. as long as your drain hose is clear, everything drips into an internal drain tray inside the unit, then down the hose.. so I suppose it also cleans the drain tray and hose on the way through

Thanks to all your comments I now have dusted filters! Moved into this place 4 mths ago and first time we have had a HP so pretty ignorant.

linw:

 

Thanks to all your comments I now have dusted filters! Moved into this place 4 mths ago and first time we have had a HP so pretty ignorant.

 

 

 

with the panel filters, you can also soak them in a bucket of warm water with detergent to clean them, rinse and then let them dry in the sun.

I've used this from Bunnings.

Use it to clean any mould and the filters from the inside unit, then spray it all over the fins. Run the unit in cooling mode so it creates condensation on the inside to flush all the dirt to the outside drain.

RunningMan:

I've used this from Bunnings.

 

Use it to clean any mould and the filters from the inside unit, then spray it all over the fins. Run the unit in cooling mode so it creates condensation on the inside to flush all the dirt to the outside drain.

https://www.supercell.co.nz/collections/hvac-cleaners

Had to give it 2 or 3 goes on the unit I used it on, but it was disgusting to start with. Not sure where you get made in China from, the bottle says made in NZ.

Ahh, I'm picking that imported in that sense is the Americanism for non-American...

neb: Thanks. Yeah, my Google-foo must have sucked, didn't see the NZ page, and the Amazon description (linked in my post) says "imported" which is usually code for "made in China", so not sure how it ended up listed on Amazon US. It also lists the ingredients, BZK, a fungicide, and NPE, a surfactant, so unless there's some extra magic in there they're not mentioning then at a pinch a general $5 cleaner from Countdown should work too.

Huh. I use simple green for everything. I reckon that would do the job.

CokemonZ:

Huh. I use simple green for everything. I reckon that would do the job.