Aircon not cold, dripping water, tripping the breaker or smelling musty? This hub routes you from the symptom to the right fix — with honest Klang Valley pricing and no fake gas top-ups.
People use “aircon repair” to mean two different things, and separating them saves money. Servicing is routine cleaning — washing filters, and the deeper chemical wash that flushes the coil, blower and drainage — while repair means fixing something that has actually failed: a dead capacitor, a burnt fan motor, a faulty control board, a refrigerant leak, or a tired compressor. Many “repairs” a home needs are really an overdue clean, which is why an honest technician checks the cheap, common causes before condemning an expensive part. This page is the map: tell it what your unit is doing wrong, and it points you at the right guide and a fair price. For the full menu of what a Klang Valley aircon crew does, see our aircon services page.
Almost every aircon complaint falls into one of six buckets. Find yours in the table, then jump to the section below it — the fault, the likely cause and roughly what it costs to put right:
| What your aircon is doing | Most likely cause | Where to go |
|---|---|---|
| Running but the room stays warm | Dirty coil, low gas from a leak, or a tired compressor | Not cooling |
| Dripping water inside the room | Blocked drainage tray or pipe | Drainage & chemical wash |
| Won’t switch on, or trips the breaker | Power, capacitor or electrical fault | Power & tripping |
| Loud, rattling or vibrating | Fan bearing, loose part or outdoor compressor | Noises |
| Musty or sour smell when it starts | Mould in the coil and blower | Chemical wash |
| Wet patch on the ceiling near the unit | Could be aircon drainage or a building leak | Aircon leak vs pipe leak |
If several things are wrong at once, work top-down: cooling and drainage first, then noise, then the electrical side. A unit that is warm and dripping is almost always just badly clogged and due a proper clean, not a new machine.
The single most common call. A unit that runs but will not cool is usually choking on a dirty evaporator coil, short of refrigerant because of a slow leak, or — less often — suffering a weak compressor or capacitor. The trap here is the “gas top-up” upsell: a sealed system does not consume refrigerant, so if the gas is genuinely low there is a leak to find, not a top-up to repeat every few months. Our full diagnostic walkthrough, including the tell-tale difference between “needs a clean” and “needs gas,” is in the aircon not cooling guide. If the unit is merely dirty rather than faulty, a chemical wash often restores full cooling on its own.
Water dripping from the indoor unit onto the wall, floor or bed is nearly always a blocked drainage tray or pipe — mould and dust clog the channel, the condensation cannot drain, and it overflows into the room. Clearing and flushing the drainage, part of a proper chemical wash, usually stops it; that is exactly what our chemical service and its 6-month no-drainage-block warranty address. Two look-alikes catch people out: condensation sweating off the copper refrigerant pipe can mimic a leak, and a wet ceiling patch may be a building leak that has nothing to do with the aircon at all — our aircon leak vs pipe leak guide shows how to tell them apart before anyone hacks a ceiling. If it is your upstairs neighbour’s unit wetting your wall, the neighbour dripping guide covers who is responsible.
When a unit is completely dead, or it trips the switchboard the moment it kicks in, the fault is electrical rather than about cooling. The mild causes are a flat remote battery, a tripped isolator, or a capacitor that has aged and can no longer start the motor. The ones to take seriously are a breaker that trips every time the compressor starts, or a burning smell — both point to a wiring, earth-leakage or compressor-start fault that a competent person must inspect, because repeatedly resetting a tripping breaker is a genuine fire risk, not a nuisance. If your aircon shares a circuit that struggles, or the whole home’s wiring is dated, the electrical side is covered in our house rewiring guide and through our electrical services. Never keep flipping a breaker back on to force a tripping aircon to run.
A healthy aircon is a soft hum. New noises are the unit telling you what is loosening: a rattling indoor unit is often a loose cover or a fan barrel clogged unevenly with dirt; a grinding or squealing points at a failing fan-motor bearing; a buzzing outdoor unit can be a worn compressor mount or a struggling capacitor; and a periodic hiss or bubbling can indicate refrigerant moving through a low or leaking system. Catching a bearing noise early and replacing the part is cheap; ignoring it until the motor seizes and takes the board with it is not. A quick service also cures the commonest “noise” of all — a dirt-imbalanced blower fan that clatters until it is cleaned.
That damp, sock-like smell when the aircon starts (“aircond berbau”) is mould and bacteria growing on the permanently cold, wet coil and inside the blower — a Malaysian-humidity classic. A wipe-down “normal service” only pushes it around; the fix is a chemical wash that flushes the coil, fan and drainage so the source of the smell is actually removed. Left alone it does more than offend the nose: those spores blow straight into the room, which is why bedrooms used by children or anyone with allergies are worth cleaning more often. If the smell is sharp and electrical rather than musty, stop the unit — that is a wiring or motor warning, not a cleaning one.
The repair itself is similar across brands, but each make has its own quirks, common faults and parts availability, and its own way of signalling a fault. We have dedicated guides for the two most common in Klang Valley homes — Daikin aircon repair and Panasonic aircon repair — covering how each shows an error, the faults they typically develop, and realistic repair costs. We also service and repair the other popular brands here, including Mitsubishi Electric, Samsung, Midea, York and Acson; if yours is one of those, message us the brand and model and we will tell you what the likely fault and parts situation is before we come out.
Repair pricing tracks the part that has failed, not the brand on the front. These are indicative Klang Valley ranges so you can sense-check any quote before agreeing to it (market estimate 2026):
| Repair | Indicative price | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Diagnostic visit / call-out | RM60 – RM120 | Often waived or credited if you proceed with the repair |
| Capacitor replacement | RM120 – RM280 | Common cause of “won’t start” or weak compressor |
| Fan motor replacement | RM250 – RM600 | Indoor blower or outdoor fan; part-dependent |
| Refrigerant leak find & repair | RM300 – RM800 | Find the leak, fix it, then re-gas — not a bare top-up |
| Control board (PCB) repair or swap | RM300 – RM900 | Wide band; quoted after inspection |
| Compressor repair / replacement | Quoted after inspection | Big-ticket — repair-vs-replace territory (see below) |
| Chemical wash (our flat offer) | RM130/unit | RM100/unit from your 3rd unit, 1.0–1.5HP wall units |
A bare “gas top-up” is often pitched at RM80–RM200, but paying for gas without finding the leak just buys you the same fault again — which is why we price leak repair, not repeat top-ups. For routine servicing rather than repair figures, see the aircon servicing cost guide.
Not every ailing unit is worth fixing. As a rough rule, if a single, well-priced part restores a unit under about eight years old, repair it. Once the compressor fails on an older machine — the most expensive component — the sums often favour a new inverter unit that will use far less electricity, especially for a hard-working bedroom aircon. Age, how many faults it has had lately, whether it is an obsolete non-inverter model with scarce parts, and your power bill all feed the decision. An inverter versus non-inverter comparison and the running-cost maths behind that choice are worth reading before you spend on a big repair. We give the honest read at the quote: sometimes the right advice is to repair for another few years, and sometimes it is not to throw good money after a dying compressor.
The most common way people overpay on aircon is the mid-service “your gas is low, we’ll top it up” add-on. Here is the physics: an air conditioner is a sealed system — it does not burn or use up refrigerant the way a car uses petrol. If the gas is genuinely low, refrigerant is escaping through a leak, and topping it up without finding that leak simply means you pay again in a few months. Protect yourself: ask to see the pressure-gauge reading before agreeing to any charge, be wary of RM30–RM40 “too cheap” service ads that make their margin on surprise add-ons, and choose a contractor who quotes a flat, all-in price up front. This anti-scam stance runs through everything we do — the same honesty is spelled out in the chemical service guide and the diagnostic not-cooling guide.
A few free checks fix a surprising share of “faults” and, at the least, help you describe the problem clearly. Confirm the remote is set to cool (not fan or dry) and the temperature is genuinely low; change the remote batteries; check the isolator switch and the breaker have not tripped; and slide out and rinse the filters, because a clogged filter alone can strangle both airflow and cooling. Look for the obvious — ice on the pipes, water pooling, a tripped switch — and note any error light or code the unit is showing. What you should not do is keep resetting a tripping breaker, top up gas yourself, or pour anything into the drainage. If the basics do not bring it back, send us a photo and a description on WhatsApp and we will tell you what it likely needs before we roll a van.
ClickBina repairs and services air conditioners across Kuala Lumpur and Selangor — every brand, every common fault — and leads with honest diagnosis and flat pricing. We tell you what has actually failed, quote the fix plainly, and would rather clear a blocked drain or clean a coil than sell you gas your sealed system never used. From a one-unit repair to a whole-home chemical wash, it is one team and one WhatsApp thread, and you can plan the wider budget with our free cost tools. Send us a photo of the unit and tell us what it is doing — we reply within the hour with the right scope, not the most expensive one.
Tell us what you need — we reply within the hour.