Split System Installation in Coffs Harbour

Should a coastal install include rust treatment?

On a property near the beach, yes, and most quotes won't mention it.

Salt does two things to an outdoor unit. It packs into the condenser fins, which chokes the airflow the system needs to shed heat. And it attacks the metal: the cabinet, the mounting hardware, the electrical contacts and eventually the control board inside.

None of that is theoretical. On a Sapphire Beach job this year, the base of an outdoor cabinet had been eaten away almost entirely and the condenser was packed with salt. The system needed a new compressor. The unit wasn't a cheap one and the brand wasn't the problem. Nothing had ever been done about the salt: no treatment when it went in, and no maintenance since. At that point it wasn't worth starting a maintenance schedule on. The advice was to hose the condenser down regularly and get what was left out of it.

Treating the unit at installation is cheap. Retrofitting it onto a unit that's already corroding costs more and works less well. Past a certain point it isn't worth doing at all.

We offer it as an optional extra, not as standard. It takes additional labour and materials, so it carries an additional cost, and not every property needs it. A house 5 kilometres inland doesn't. A house two streets back from the sand does. We'll tell you which one you are rather than adding it to every quote.

Does Where The Outdoor Unit Sits Matter As Much As How Close You Are?

Yes, and it is the part most people never think about. Distance from the water drives salt corrosion. Position and drainage drive a second kind of corrosion that has nothing to do with salt at all.

We replaced a unit on West High Street recently, a few kilometres inland and well outside the band where salt is the main concern. The base had rusted through completely. When the unit was lifted the whole condenser flexed, because there was no base left supporting it.

The cause was where it sat. The unit was mounted low, tucked into a corner, and water pooled around the base with nowhere to drain and no airflow to evaporate it. Over 15 to 20 years that is enough to take the base out entirely, regardless of how far from the beach the house is.

Position is usually the customer's call rather than ours. People want the unit out of sight, off the main outlook, or away from a bedroom window, and those are reasonable things to want. What we can do is tell you when a preferred spot is going to hold water, and what that costs in years off the system.

If your outdoor unit already sits low in a corner, it is worth looking at the base next time you are out there. Surface rust along the bottom edge is the early version of what took out the West High Street unit.