Marine Air Conditioning Costs in Australia
Marine air conditioning installation costs depend on the system, boat layout, seawater plumbing, ducting and electrical work. The estimates below separate equipment, parts and labour so you can compare like-for-like quotes. They are provisional planning figures, not verified market averages or fixed installer prices.
How Much Does Marine Air Conditioning Cost?
For the most common job in the country — one self-contained unit on a 35–45 ft monohull, professionally installed — budget the middle of this range and treat anything below it as a quote worth reading twice.
$7.7k–$13.8k
A 14–16k unit under the saloon settee, ducted fore and aft.
One unit, 35–45 ft, 14–16k BTU
$12.2k–$22.1k
Compressor in the lazarette or engine room, an air handler in each cabin.
One compressor, two zones, 38–48 ft, 16–24k BTU
$26.6k–$49.3k
A chiller feeding fan coils, each cabin on its own thermostat.
One chiller, three or four zones, 48 ft+, 24–36k BTU
Supplied and installed, including the seawater side and the electrical work, ex GST, at 2026 prices. These are ranges, not quotes: the same boat can land at either end depending on access, how far the ducting runs and what the yard charges.
Installation Cost by Boat Size and System Type
Seven jobs covering almost everything an Australian owner asks about. Equipment is what the gear costs supplied; parts are the seawater side, ducting and electrical materials; labour is yard hours at $110–140 an hour.
The striking thing is how little the split moves. From the cheapest job in the country to one seven times the price, equipment stays around half, parts a fifth and labour a quarter — which is why a quote where the labour is a tenth of the total is usually a quote that has left something out. Bars are the midpoint of each range; the table below gives both ends.
| The job | Cooling | Equipment | Parts | Labour | Installed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| One unit, boat under 35 ft Self-contained · A single 10–12k unit under a settee, ducted to one or two grilles. | 10–12k | $3,200–$4,800 | $1,300–$3,200 | $1,300–$2,500 12–18 h |
$5.8k–$10.6k |
| One unit, 35–45 ft Self-contained · A 14–16k unit under the saloon settee, ducted fore and aft. | 14–16k | $4,500–$6,500 | $1,500–$3,800 | $1,700–$3,500 15–25 h |
$7.7k–$13.8k |
| Two units, 40–50 ft Self-contained · Saloon and aft cabin on a shared seawater pump. | 2 × 12–16k | $8k–$12k | $2,100–$5,200 | $2,600–$5,300 24–38 h |
$12.7k–$22.5k |
| One DC unit, 28–40 ft Self-contained (12 V DC) · Variable-speed 12 V unit running straight off a lithium bank. | 12k | $6,000–$8,500 | $1,400–$3,400 | $1,500–$3,100 14–22 h |
$8.9k–$15k |
| One compressor, two zones, 38–48 ft Split · Compressor in the lazarette or engine room, an air handler in each cabin. | 16–24k | $7k–$10.5k | $2,100–$5,300 | $3,100–$6,300 28–45 h |
$12.2k–$22.1k |
| One chiller, three or four zones, 48 ft+ Chilled water · A chiller feeding fan coils, each cabin on its own thermostat. | 24–36k | $16k–$24k | $4,000–$9,900 | $6.6k–$15.4k 60–110 h |
$26.6k–$49.3k |
| Two staged chillers, 55 ft+ Chilled water · Two chillers staging with the load so one runs quietly overnight. | 2 × 18k | $26k–$40k | $4.9k–$12.2k | $9.9k–$22.4k 90–160 h |
$40.8k–$74.6k |
The ranges are wide because this is a first edition built from published inputs rather than from a pile of real invoices. Narrowing them is the job of the next six months — see the bottom of this page.
Marine Air Conditioning Cost Model and Assumptions
Nobody should take a price range on trust, least of all one nobody else publishes. Here is every input and where it came from.
Labour — $110 to $140 an hour Derived
Award-level wages run about $39 an hour for a refrigeration and air-conditioning mechanic and $28–30 for a marine electrician. A trade business bills at roughly two-and-a-half to three times wage once premises, insurance, non-billable time and vehicles are covered, which puts licensed marine work around $100–140. Owners reporting boatyard electrical rates put Sydney near $99 an hour some years back, so we use the upper half of that band for 2026. A busy refit centre — Coomera, Gold Coast City Marina — sits at the top.
Equipment Provisional
Australian supply prices for the typical model in each class. This is the softest input on the page: Australian retailers publish few prices, and the ones they do publish move. We have cross-checked against US retail — a 16,000 BTU self-contained unit sells there for around USD $3,100–3,350 — but an Australian price is not a converted American one, so treat these as the figure most in need of correction.
Parts Provisional
Through-hull and seacock, strainer, seawater pump, ducting and grilles, condensate drain, and the electrical materials. Costed individually and then scaled by how much of the list a given job needs — a second unit sharing a pump and a through-hull does not double the bill.
| Part | Supplied | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Through-hull and seacock | $300–$600 | Dedicated, bronze or composite, below the heeled waterline. |
| Strainer | $200–$300 | Clear bowl, mounted where you can actually reach it. |
| Seawater pump | $400–$900 | Centrifugal, below the waterline, sized for every unit it feeds. |
| Ducting, grilles, insulation | $300–$900 | Return air larger than supply. Skimping here undoes the whole job. |
| Condensate drain and sump | $100–$400 | To a sump or shower drain. Never the bilge. |
| Electrical — breaker, RCD, cable | $300–$800 | Dedicated 240 V circuit. Licensed work. |
| Soft start (optional) | $400–$700 | Only if you plan to run on an inverter or a small generator. |
The cross-check
Built bottom-up, the model puts a single-unit install on a boat under 35 ft at $5.8k–$10.6k and a 35–45 ft job at $7.7k–$13.8k. The most detailed American figures we found give USD $4,000–8,000 and $8,000–18,000 for the same two jobs. Converted roughly, and allowing that American labour rates are not Australian ones, the two agree well enough that neither looks wrong. Where they disagree — the top of the mid-size band — the American figure covers multi-unit installs that our two-unit row prices separately.
The installed prices we published before today were too low. The comparison table has been carrying figures like "$5k–6.5k installed" for a 16,000 BTU self-contained unit. Working the job up from its parts, that figure is roughly what the equipment and materials alone come to, before a single hour of labour.
Those numbers came across from the original design of this site and were never checked against a real install. They have been left in place on the comparison table for now, labelled as equipment-only, and will be corrected there in the next revision. We would rather flag it here than quietly change it — see our editorial policy on corrections.
What Affects a Marine Air Conditioning Installation Quote?
If the unit goes somewhere a person cannot easily reach, or joinery has to come out and go back, hours climb fast. This is the single biggest swing factor and the hardest to see in a quote.
A grille two metres from the unit is cheap. Ducting forward to a v-berth through three bulkheads is not, and it costs capacity as well as money.
A boat with no suitable through-hull, no spare breaker and no condensate route needs all three before the unit goes in. Replacing an existing system is materially cheaper.
If the headliner is already down for other work, a large part of the labour is already being paid for. The cheapest time to fit air conditioning is during something else.
Related Installation Cost Guides
Check a quote you already have — enter the figure and see where it sits.
What a quote should include — the line items, and the three that get left off.
What it costs to run — cents an hour on shore power, on a generator, and off the bank.
What you can legally do yourself — and where ARCtick and AS/NZS 3004.2 stop you.
Whether to do it at all — the cheaper things that fix the same problem.
Submit an Actual Marine Air Conditioning Installation Cost
These ranges are built from published inputs. Real invoices are what will tighten them, and there is no other source — no manufacturer or installer is going to publish this.
Send the boat, the system, the year and the figure. We will publish the aggregate, never your name or your boat, and you will have made the only honest price guide in the country more accurate for the next person reading it.