Is it worth having the air con system serviced? I clean the filters myself regularly and it's working fine, cold and hot. We only use it in July and August. Even then only occasionally. Quoted €150 for a service.

Hi when I lived in Saudi we didn't bother with servicing just cleaned filters. We ran ours constantly for 3 years & they weren't new when we got them, they were the "through the wall type". They were starting to develop a bit of a louder hum towards the end. I would look at the cost of new ones & divide by €150 to see where the break even comes. Presumably like refridgerators they get a little more economical to run with each new generation. As a matter of interest which part of the Algarve are you in, roughly? Regards

The problem with aircon we have found notabley in the rental market is that guests do not know how to use it. In the past on numerous occaisions we found the system working at full blast turned down to the lowest temp BUT ALL the door ans windows open. They would then complain that it was not working despite us telling them that you cannot aircon Portugal.
We only have it in bedrooms and switch it on when needed for 20-30 mins before going to bed. We also set have a night setting where is switches off when it gets cool enough coming back one the temp rises.
We do have ours serviced it is not that expensive.

You don't say if that's 150 for the whole property or 150 per machine and you don't mention whether that includes the cost of checking and replenishing refrigerant gas to the correct levels or not.

For a filter clean, a spray of WD40 on Fan bearings, a quick dust out of the inner casing with an old paintbrush and then finding and pressing the 'service' reset button 150 would be expensive.

The service was for all of the units in the house. Quoted by penguin air con based in Almancil. Reading the check sheet of what they do I think I'll leave it and do it myself.