Get your Hervey Bay air con sorted before summer hits

A straightforward back-to-back split system is usually a same-day job. Most take three to five hours from arrival to handover. Multi-head systems and ducted installs take longer, generally one to three days depending on the run of the pipework and the roof access. We'll tell you which it is when we quote, not on the day.

The table above is a reasonable starting point, but floor area on its own gets it wrong often enough that we don't rely on it. Ceiling height, insulation, how much glass you have and which way it faces, how many people are usually in the room and Hervey Bay's humidity all change the answer.

Undersize it and it runs flat out and never quite gets there. Oversize it and it short-cycles, which cools the air without pulling the moisture out. That's the cold, clammy feeling. We do a proper heat-load calculation on site so you get the right one.

It depends on age, what's failed and what a fix costs against a new system. As a rough rule: if it's under about eight years old and the fault is a single component, repairing is usually the better call. Past ten years, needing gas every season, or looking at a compressor replacement, and you're generally better off putting the money into a new unit that costs less to run.

We'll give you both numbers and a straight recommendation. If a repair is the smarter option we'll say so.

It's a genuine consideration close to the water. Salt accelerates corrosion on the outdoor coil and casing, which shortens the life of the unit if it's ignored.

Two things help a lot: choosing a model with a corrosion-resistant coil treatment where the location warrants it, and siting the outdoor unit somewhere sheltered from the prevailing salt-laden wind. A periodic fresh-water rinse of the coil is worth doing too. We'll talk through what makes sense for your address when we're on site.

Yes. Air conditioning work sits across two licences: electrical work and refrigerant handling. Both are legal requirements, not optional extras. Our team holds them, we carry full insurance, and every install is done to the manufacturer's specification so the equipment warranty stays valid.

Both. We service and repair systems we didn't install as well as ones we did: diagnostics, gas leaks, faulty boards, drainage issues, filter and coil cleans, and preventative servicing.

A pre-summer service is the cheapest insurance there is. Most of the breakdowns we attend in January were visible in September.

Yes, and in this climate it's one of the better matches there is. Your cooling load peaks in the middle of the day, which is exactly when your panels are producing most. Running the house cool through the afternoon on your own generation costs far less than doing it on grid power at night.

We install solar and batteries as well as air conditioning, so we can look at both in the same visit rather than sending you to two different trades.

It varies more than most people expect. Capacity, brand, how far the indoor and outdoor units are apart, whether there's an existing unit to remove and dispose of, and how hard the access is all move the price.

Which is why we quote on site rather than over the phone, and why the quote is a fixed price in writing. No allowances that grow on install day.

Yes. Shops, offices, clubs and light industrial, alongside the electrical side: switchboards, lighting, data, testing and tagging. If you need one contractor covering the air conditioning and the electrical, that's the easiest way to run it.

All of Hervey Bay: Pialba, Point Vernon, Scarness, Torquay, Urangan, Urraween, Kawungan, Eli Waters, Dundowran, Wondunna, Nikenbah and Craignish. Plus Toogoom, Burrum Heads, River Heads, Booral, Susan River, Takura and down to Maryborough. If you're somewhere on the Fraser Coast that isn't listed, call us and we'll let you know.