Air conditioning

Hi all,

I met an old friend tonight and to cut a long story short it transpires he is a refrigeration engineer who would be willing to come over to Spain with me at Easter to fit the air con in my two bed appartment.

The thing is, does anyone know where to purchase branded wholesale units at trade prices in the greater Murcia region, I assume ( or should I know better ) that as at home there are distributers/ wholesalers on industrial estates that supply to the trade. Also, as he would require the use of a vacumn pump are there hire centres where this item can be rented for the week.

Any Information would be greatly appreciated

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A lot of the suppliers are trade only & will not sell to you unless you are a registered business. Around here even the wholesale electrical dealers are trade only. I think you will struggle to find someone who can/will supply for rental , a vacuum pump as it's specialist equipment. A lot of the supermarkets supply a/c split units & having fitted a few , inc. my own , I've never had a problem with any & most come with a 2/3 year gtee. I have a make called Tadiair, which came from Leroy-Merlin & the gtee. on these units is covered by Carrier. If Carrier are willingt to cover the gtee. work then I would assume they are of good quality & this one still never had a problem & that's 7 yrs. now. The First-Line units that Carrefour sell are excellent & cheap & never had a problem with any. You can also get some excellent deals in small electrical shops between 2-300 e's.

Hi Gus,

To be honest I need a 3 zone split and I wouldn't think you would pick these up in a supermarket. But even so without the ability to hire a vacumn pump there is not a lot of sense in planning this undertaking.  I wil contact my friend later to see if he can think of  a solution, otherwise I suppose It will be a case of using a local company to supply and fit. (Wonder if his professional ID would open the appropriate doors.)

Its unfortunate that such restrictions exist, it used to be the same in the uk in the 70s and 80s but nowadays even the largest wholesalers are 'open to the public', though not sure if this hasn't gone too far the other way.

Thanks for your reply

Hi,

Could you not hire a vacuum pump in the UK and bring it over with you? If you are driving down it's no problem; if you are flying, from what I recall, the unit is small enough and light enough to fit in a suitcase...

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I saw 2 zone splits in Makro in Murcia, ( you can buy in there with a UK Makro Card.) last year for 599+iva. Where exactly are you ? Another thing to remember is ,how much incoming power supply do you have ? The reason I ask is that to run a 3 zone split would require @least 5+Kw & ,where I am @ least , 5,5 KW is the max. that Iberdrola will supply. So to run it you would not be able to run anything else in the house. I saw a Spanish firm do this ,& try as they might they couldn't get iberdrola to uprate the incoming from 5,5 to 8,5 & they could barely get it to start with everything in the house turned off. They had to change it for singles.Definitely worth checking unit consumption  v Incoming supply.

Hi Raff,

I've lived in the Torrevieja  area for 8yrs now installing Aircon.

Yes it's hard for someone like yourself to purchase a good brand A/C at trade prices.

I can supply branded machines but the warranty would be with the manufacturer not with the supplier ie Panasonic, Samsung, Daitsu.

Regarding vac pumps, I dont know any companies that rent them out as it is a specialised industry.

I hope this information is off help to you.

Buddah.

Its a new apartment on Condado, Murcia with preinstall fitted, so pipework and electric supply should not be a problem- I HOPE!

I will ask John (engineer) if its possible to carry his pump in a suitcase, but the whole cost saving idea is useless if the units cannot be sourced locally and at a price to make the exercise worthwhile.

I just finished furnishing the apartment late last year so I want to enjoy the weeks break with golf, good food and a nice Spanish red, or two.  I don't want to complicate things so maybe it would be more convenient to get a local supplier to do the job.

One reason  for even considering this option was seeing some of the untidy, if not shoddy work on the roof when there last. Cables where joined by twisting wires together and wrapped in electrical tape, pipeork to the compressor was rough with insulation missing and some units appeared to be placed on the wrong concrete plinths..

I try over the next few days to identify suppliers and obtain firm prices, if unsuccessful then I'm not going to waste any more time but will revert to a local supplier who can do the job when I'm out.

Hi Raff.

Sounds like the previous boys wern't good.

I still can't see how your mate John is going to bring a vac pump in his suitcase as it is filled with an oil.

Not trying to cause any problems

Regards Jon..

Hi Jon

Yes, Just off the phone to him and he said the same thing, I thought it was a standard compressor type device but he explained about the oil and ruled out its transportation via a suitcase.