The short answer
A split AC dripping water indoors is almost always a blocked drain pipe — dust and monsoon algae clog the outlet so the condensation backs up and overflows the tray. Before calling anyone, find the drain outlet outside and clear it; that check is free. If it still leaks, check for a choked filter freezing the coil or an indoor unit hung slightly off-level.
Here is the honest version first, because it is the one nobody selling you a repair will lead with.
When a split AC leaks water indoors, the overwhelmingly commonest reason is a blocked drain pipe. Your AC does not make water on purpose, but it does make a lot of it: warm room air hits the cold indoor coil, moisture condenses out of it, collects in a tray, and is meant to run out through a thin pipe to the outside. Block that pipe — and in Delhi it blocks with dust, algae and grime with grim reliability — and the water has nowhere to go. It overflows the tray and drips into your room. Clearing the drain outlet is often a ten-minute job that needs no technician and costs nothing.
So: check the drain first. If the drip stops, close this page and enjoy the cool. If the drain is clear and it still leaks, the rest of this guide walks the other causes in order of likelihood — a dirty filter icing the coil, an indoor unit that was hung slightly off-level, or a frozen coil from genuinely low gas — and tells you which you can check yourself and which are a technician's job.
A note on money, because there is a trap here. XpertWorker is a marketplace, not a repair company. We do not set any professional's price and we never charge you a paisa. This is a diagnose guide, so it names no figure at all — when you want to know what a fix typically costs across Delhi NCR, our AC service cost guide for Delhi NCR carries the indicative ranges. The technician you choose sets their own price, quotes you free before starting, and is paid by you directly. They are independent professionals whose identity we verify with PAN and Aadhaar, not our employees.
In this guide
Before you call anyone: the drain, the filter, the level
Three checks, all free, all doable in about fifteen minutes between them. They account for the large majority of "my AC is leaking" calls in Delhi. Do them before you let anybody open the unit.
- 1. Find the drain outlet outside and clear it. Follow the thin pipe that runs out of the indoor unit's underside — it usually leads outdoors, sometimes to a balcony floor or down a wall near the outdoor unit. Look at where it ends. Is it clogged with dust, leaves, insect nests or a plug of grey slime? Poke it gently clear, or blow through it. On many units you can also, with the power off, ease the small rubber drain cap under the indoor unit and let the backed-up water run out. If a dribble of dirty water gushes out when you clear it, that was your leak.
- 2. Pull the filters and look. Open the indoor unit's front flap, slide the mesh filters out, hold them to the light. If you cannot see through them, they are choking the airflow — and choked airflow freezes the coil, which then thaws and drips far more water than the tray can handle. Rinse them under a tap, dry them fully, refit them.
- 3. Check the unit is sitting level. Look along the top of the indoor unit against the ceiling line, or set a spirit level (your phone has one) on it. It should sit dead flat, or tilted very slightly toward the drain side. If it visibly leans the wrong way — toward the room — the tray drains toward the room too, and it will drip from that corner no matter how clear the pipe is. That one is an installation fix, not a service.
If the drain is clear, the filters are clean, the unit is level, and it still leaks, then it is time to call someone — and now you can do it with information instead of panic. If the symptom is that it is not cooling as well as leaking, work through the cooling checks too, because the two faults often share a cause: a choked, frozen coil.
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Get free quotesSymptom, cause, and what you actually need
Match what you are seeing to a row. The third column is the one that saves you money — it is the difference between the job you need and the job you might be sold.
| What you are seeing | Most likely cause | What you actually need |
|---|---|---|
| Steady drip or trickle from the indoor unit, worst on humid days | Blocked or slime-clogged drain pipe — condensation backing up | Clear the drain outlet. Usually free. This is the commonest cause in Delhi by a wide margin |
| Drips more after the AC has run a while, ice or frost seen on the coil or copper pipe | Frozen coil from a choked filter, then thawing all at once | Wash the filter and let the coil thaw. A service, not gas |
| Water always drips from one particular corner of the indoor unit | Indoor unit hung off-level, tray tilts toward the room | An installation correction — the bracket needs re-levelling |
| Coil frosts up repeatedly and the room is also not getting cold | Genuinely low refrigerant, which means a leak somewhere | A leak test, not a blind refill. See the note below |
| Water leaking from the outdoor unit, not the indoor one | Often normal in cooling mode; can be defrost water | Usually nothing. Only worry if it is heavy and constant |
| Leak appeared right after a fresh installation or a service | Drain pipe not sloped down, or a loose pipe joint left behind | Call the installer back — this is a fitting error, not wear |
| Dripping plus a musty smell | Algae and mould in the tray and drain — classic Delhi monsoon growth | A deep clean of the tray and drain line |
Notice how many rows resolve to "a service" or "clear the drain" rather than anything expensive. That is the real shape of this fault: cheap causes dressed up, sometimes, as costly ones.
Why Delhi ACs leak: dust, humidity and a pipe that silts up
This is the part the manufacturer help pages will never write, because it is about this city specifically.
A drain pipe is a thin tube carrying slightly dirty condensation, downhill, slowly. Two things about Delhi conspire against it. First, the dust: the same fine grey grit that settles on every surface here gets pulled through the AC and ends up as sludge in the tray and the pipe. Second, the monsoon humidity: warm, wet July and August air makes the AC condense far more water than it does in dry May, and that damp, dark, dust-lined pipe becomes a perfect nursery for algae. A green-black plug of algae is one of the most common things a technician clears from a Delhi drain line. The unit was fine; the plumbing silted up.
There is a related trap worth naming: a choked filter causes a leak, not just weak cooling. When the filter is caked, airflow across the coil drops, the coil gets too cold and frosts over. Then the compressor cycles off, the ice melts all at once, and a sheet of water sluices off the coil far faster than the tray can drain it — so it spills into the room. People assume a flood like that must be something serious. Usually it is a filter that has not been washed in two summers.
Both problems are prevented by the same cheap habit: a regular service. Getting the tray, coil and drain line cleaned before the season — our note on how often to service an AC in Delhi works through the timing — stops most leaks before they start, and it is far cheaper than an emergency call-out in the third week of May.
When it is genuinely a technician's job
Drain clear, filters clean, unit level, and it is still dripping. Now it is reasonable to call someone. Here is what it usually turns out to be, and how each announces itself.
| What you observe | Likely fault | DIY or technician? |
|---|---|---|
| Drain outlet is clear when you blow through it, but water still backs up inside | Blockage deep in the drain line, or a drain pump (on some units) that has failed | Technician. Flushing a buried line or testing a pump is their tool kit, not yours |
| Coil keeps freezing even with a spotless filter, and the room will not get cold | Genuinely low refrigerant — which means a leak in the sealed system somewhere | Technician, but insist on a leak test. A refill without finding the leak just buys the same problem again |
| Water pools where the copper pipes leave the wall | Failed or missing insulation on the pipes, so they sweat and drip | Technician. Re-lagging the pipe is quick and cheap for someone with the material |
| Cracked or split drain tray you can see | A physically damaged tray — sometimes brittle with age or a botched clean | Technician. The tray is a replaceable part |
On the refrigerant row, hold the line the same way you would for a cooling fault: refrigerant is not consumed, so if the system is low, it has a leak. Ask where the leak is before you agree to a gas refill — a good technician will have pressure-tested it and can point to the joint or the corroded section. A technician who cannot answer is guessing, and refilling a leaking system is paying for gas that will be gone again by next summer.
How not to overpay on a leaking AC
- Make them show you the cause. "What is leaking, and why?" A competent technician will point at the clogged outlet, the frozen coil or the off-level bracket. A verdict with nothing to point at is a verdict to distrust.
- Never accept "it needs gas" for a water leak alone. A drip is a drainage problem. Refrigerant does not leak into your room as water. If cooling is fine and only water is the issue, gas is almost certainly not the answer.
- Ask what is labour and what is a part. Clearing a drain is labour only. If a part is being charged — a tray, a pump, insulation — it should be a separate line you can see.
- Get the drain and tray cleaned as part of any service. It is a normal, inexpensive part of the job, and it is the single best insurance against this fault returning.
- Do not pre-pay or buy a package. Pay the technician directly, after the work, once you have watched the unit run without dripping.
- Book the service early. A tray-and-drain clean in February, when technicians are unhurried, is the cheapest way to never have a leak in July. Our AC service cost guide sets out the indicative ranges so you can judge a quote before you accept it.
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Get free quotes →Frequently asked questions
Why is my split AC leaking water inside the room?
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Does a leaking AC mean it is low on gas?
My AC only leaks on humid or rainy days. Is that normal?
How much does it cost to fix an AC that is leaking water in Delhi?
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How we put this guide together
This guide is compiled from common Delhi NCR service patterns and reviewed by the XpertWorker team. XpertWorker connects you with independent, ID-verified professionals — we never charge you a paisa, and each professional sets their own price and quotes you free.