Cleaning the AC

We have been turning our air con down by a couple of notches regularly for about 2 months now and just can't seem to get the cooling power we know it is capable of. Certainly when you come inside from the heat and humidity you can notice that it is working, but not as well as it could. I did all the usual maintenance things, cleaned the filters, dusted the unit, but it was still not pumping out the air.

Last night as I was trying to get cool, I remembered that just over two years ago, we thought the AC needed gas as it didn't seem to be working. Called out the ac guys - gas was fine , it was the little rotating fan drum unit inside the ac that pumps out the air was clogged and dirty. Some two hours and a couple of hundred dollars later it was working again.
My brain started ticking over I wonder if it was the same issue.

1. Turned it off at the mains.
2. Up on a kitchen chair and armed with a screwdriver I set to work. Off came the cover and into the bath for a scrub.
3. Wiped the condenser down gently with a microfibre cloth - Ew!
4. Then to maneuver something in to clean out the little fan. I'm sure the ac guy used a banister brush... but I couldn't see how I could do that without taking it further apart. First I tried our swiffer - it came out filthy but didn't seem to be moving the dirt. Next I tried a chopstick. Not really effective. Then I tried an old toothbrush, suddenly chunks of black fluff started to come out - like tiny evil dust bunnies coated in black oil. I managed to get most of the dust off the outside but still it looked filthy inside. So next I tried a plastic knife. At last it was really shifting the gunk. I painstakingly tried to scrape every little blade in that drum. I scraped and prodded for two hours. I'd get all excited when there didn't seem to be any more stuff coming out and think I was done when all of a sudden I'd be literally showering in the stuff. I decided eventually to give it up for the day and see how it went.



EW - look at the colour of the swiffer and the dirty fluff stuff. We were breathing THAT!

5. Cover back on and screwed up, filters back in and on at the mains.
6. More garbage floated out as we turned it on, but sucess at last. It's working efficiently again.

Our beautiful clean COOL a/c

My bill will  be in the mail.

Post Script: My husband suggested next time a try a small bottle brush, so I'll give it another go in a months time. For now we are pleasantly frezzing and have been able to put the temperature back up a few degrees