Same-day service available across Gatineau, Hull, Aylmer and Ottawa. If your air conditioner quit in the middle of an Outaouais heat wave, call 613-301-0016 and speak to a real dispatcher — not a voicemail box.
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Air Conditioning Repair in Gatineau and the Outaouais
B&M Canada Appliances is a licensed HVAC contractor serving both sides of the Ottawa River. We repair central air conditioners, ductless mini-splits and air handlers in Gatineau, Hull, Aylmer, Buckingham and Masson-Angers — and across Ottawa, from Orléans to Kanata. Same crew, same trucks, same pricing on both sides of the bridge.
Outaouais summers are short and brutal. A July humidex in the low forties turns a dead compressor from an inconvenience into a health problem, especially in a third-floor Hull walk-up or a condo with west-facing glass. That is why we hold same-day slots open through cooling season instead of booking every hour solid a week out. Call before noon and there is a good chance we are at your door the same afternoon.
Prefer to be served in French? Our francophone team handles the same work — see réparation de climatisation à Gatineau for the French version of this page.
AC Faults We See Most in Gatineau Homes
The unit runs but the house never cools
The most common call we get. The thermostat says 22°C, the air handler is humming, and the house sits at 28°C. Nine times out of ten this is refrigerant charge, a failing compressor, or a coil so packed with dust and pollen that it cannot move heat. A technician will read superheat and subcooling, check the coil and the metering device, and tell you which of the three it is before touching a wrench.
The outdoor condenser is dead, humming, or tripping the breaker
A condenser that hums but will not spin is usually a failed run capacitor — a genuinely cheap part and often a same-visit fix. A condenser that trips the breaker every time it starts is a different animal: a seized compressor, a shorted fan motor, or a wiring fault. Do not keep resetting the breaker. Repeated hard starts on a shorted compressor turn a repairable unit into a replacement.
Ice on the refrigerant lines or the indoor coil
Ice means the coil is running below freezing, which means airflow or charge is wrong. Start with the obvious: a filter that has not been changed since spring, a closed supply register, or a blocked return. If the filter is clean and it still ices up, you are low on refrigerant, which means there is a leak somewhere — and topping it up without finding the leak just means paying twice. Shut the system off, let it thaw fully, and book a diagnostic.
Water pooling around the air handler
A blocked condensate drain is the usual culprit, and in older Hull and Aylmer homes the drain line is frequently the original one. Left alone, it overflows into the pan, then into whatever is under it — drywall, flooring, or a finished basement ceiling. This is the fault most likely to turn a $200 repair into a $2,000 water-damage claim, so treat standing water at the air handler as urgent.
Ductless mini-split faults
Mini-splits are everywhere in Gatineau retrofits and additions, and they fail differently from central systems: blinking status LEDs and error codes, a head that will not respond to the remote, a filthy blower wheel throwing a musty smell into the room, or a communication fault between head and outdoor unit. We service all common brands and read the manufacturer error codes rather than guessing.
The system short-cycles
Starts, runs two minutes, stops, starts again. Short cycling burns out compressors faster than almost anything else. Causes range from an oversized system to a low-pressure fault to a thermostat mounted somewhere it never should have been — above a heat register, in direct afternoon sun, or on an exterior wall.
Transparent Pricing — No Surprises
- Residential service call: $89 + tax — full on-site diagnostic and a written, fixed-price quote before any work begins.
- Commercial equipment: $129 + tax.
- Gas-appliance diagnostic: $129 + tax — gas-fired equipment requires TSSA-certified handling and is not billed at the residential rate.
- After-hours appointments (9 PM–7 AM): $100 flat emergency fee on top of regular rates.
- Travel: jobs more than 30 km from downtown Ottawa may include extra km/travel fees — quoted before we dispatch, never added afterward.
- 3-month warranty on parts and labour for every repair we perform.
You get the number before we start. If you decide not to proceed, you pay the diagnostic and nothing else — no pressure, no invented add-ons.
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Repair, Maintenance, or Replace?
We will tell you honestly which one you are looking at. A ten-year-old unit with a failed capacitor is worth fixing that afternoon. A twenty-year-old R-22 system with a leaking evaporator coil usually is not — R-22 has been phased out, and what remains is expensive enough that a recharge can cost more than a down payment on a new system. We will give you the repair number and the replacement number side by side and let you decide.
Maintenance is the cheapest HVAC money you will ever spend. A spring tune-up — coil clean, condensate flush, charge check, electrical inspection, blower service — catches the capacitor that is drifting out of spec before it strands you in a heat wave. Book it in April or May, not in the third week of July when every HVAC company in the Outaouais has a five-day wait.
Heating and Cooling, Both Sides of the River
Cooling is half the year. For the other half, see réparation de fournaise à Gatineau and furnace repair in Ottawa. If you run a heat pump — increasingly common in new Gatineau builds — we handle those too: see réparation de thermopompe Gatineau and heat pump repair Ottawa for icing, aux-heat lockouts and cold-climate mini-split faults.
We cover every Gatineau sector directly: Hull, Aylmer, Buckingham and Masson-Angers — plus the full réparation d’électroménagers à Gatineau service.
We also serve every Ottawa neighbourhood: Downtown Ottawa, Kanata, Orléans, Barrhaven, Gloucester and Vanier.
Gatineau AC Repair — FAQ
How fast can you get here in a heat wave?
Same-day is realistic if you call in the morning. During a multi-day heat warning we prioritize households with seniors, infants, or anyone with a medical need for cooling — tell the dispatcher and we will move you up. After-hours calls between 9 PM and 7 AM are available with a $100 flat emergency fee added to regular rates.
What does AC repair cost in Gatineau?
The diagnostic is $89 + tax residential ($129 + tax commercial), and you get a written fixed-price quote before any work starts. Common repairs like a run capacitor or a contactor land at the low end. Compressor and evaporator coil work sits at the high end, and that is exactly when we will walk you through repair-versus-replace rather than just quoting the repair.
Do you service both Gatineau and Ottawa?
Yes — same technicians, same rates. Our dispatch covers the whole National Capital Region. See appliance repair in Gatineau and appliance repair in Ottawa. Jobs more than 30 km from downtown Ottawa may carry a travel fee, quoted up front.
My AC is frozen solid. What should I do right now?
Turn the cooling off at the thermostat but leave the fan on — that thaws the coil without melting ice into the electrical. Check and replace the filter. Once it is fully thawed, if it ices up again within a day, stop running it and book a diagnostic; running a system on a low charge damages the compressor.
Do you repair ductless mini-splits?
Yes, all common brands — single-head and multi-head systems, including cold-climate units. We read the manufacturer error codes rather than guessing, and we service the indoor blower wheel and drain, which is where most mini-split smell and drip complaints actually originate.
Is there a warranty on the repair?
Every repair carries a 3-month warranty on parts and labour. If the same fault returns inside that window, we come back at no charge.
Book Your Gatineau AC Repair
Do not wait out a heat wave hoping the unit recovers on its own. Call 613-301-0016, book online, or request a callback and we will get a technician to you.
📞 Call 613-301-0016
📅 Book a Technician
⚡ Emergency Appointment
More B&M Heating, Cooling & Appliance Service
- Appliance Repair Ottawa
- Appliance Repair Gatineau
- HVAC Repair Ottawa — furnaces, air conditioners and heat pumps
- Book an Appointment
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