What the buggery? , I've been walking around HK (all areas) after getting back from Macau, and the air conditioners EVERYWHERE appear to be leaking , since I am usually here about a month or two later than now is this normal? ,

Leaky aircon in the UK causes something called Legionnaires disease and I dunno drippy water is unpleasant and is far too reminiscent of Beijing where people would hackspit and you'd be paranoid it'd land on you.

Are the Air Con's leaking, or is it that the Air Con units are condensing moisture from the air (same way a cold beer glass condenses small beads of water on the outside of the glass), which collects and then forms into drips?

Maybe it's a bit of both?

With regards to HK, I think that it actually is the air conditioning leaking and its quite common. If I remember correctly, people can be fined for this, but getting fined doesn't seem to happen alot because it's still quite rampant!

I doubt all the aircons units themselves are actually "leaking"...
There's no liquid in an aircon unit to leak, except for the refrigerant. And if I recall correctly, the refrigerants are gasses.

It's all just condensation from the humidity in the air when the air is cooled.
Most of the water comes from the compressor and goes to a drain pan, and then a drain pipe.  Sometimes the drain pipe is leaking.
But the condensation also occurs UNDER the drain pan, since the drain pan is cold from the water that came from the compressor.
This is usually where the dripping water comes from.

Or at least, that's how aircon compressors "drip" in the Philippines....

The dripping is the condensation that is formed when moisture is pullled out of the room. All air cons are supposed to be installed with either a drain pan or direct line to drain pipe. What happens in HK is eventually the drain pan's outlet or the drain line gets clogged with a buildup of dust and pollution and the condensation backups and overflows and drips onto your head.  When this overflow occurs, tht is usually when you find out how good your installer/contractor was in installing the system, ie is the air cons' lines easy to clean?  Most places dont even bother cleaning their drain lines bec it is such a major hassle and everyone waits until the cooler, drier weather comes early.

You can see this outdoors and especially indoors, with all that dripping that occurs in restaurants.  I sit near my window air con and with all that dripping that I hear coming from the units above, I would think it was raining outside until I looked outside.

yeah most unpleasant. All the legionnaires outbreaks I've read of are not from condensation but from buildings with large cooling towers, lot's of recirculating water that needs proper cleaning / disinfecting. The air surrounding the building has high risk of exposure, and inside can be affected too depending on where the fresh air intakes are located.

this problem is mainly in some old building in tst, mongkok... cos 10-20 years ago, there didn't have regulations about the air con, so everyone set air con without a draining pipe. the owners can be fined but it's impossible to check every air con of every flat.

Yuck , its just that it always drops onto something I'm eating and its gross enough to have me feel a need to toss whatever I am eating away immediately.

Ha ha !! When walking around the older parts of Central, you always get drops of water on your head.  I always think that it's a bird that just shit on me !!

be glad that it's not acid dripping on you!
be careful when in Mongkok!

That acid thing is really scary.

I cannot understand why those acid idiots haven't been arrested and made serious examples of .... they have to be crazy?

yeah when in MK, not only do you have to bring your "raincoat", you should bring your umbrella as well...

It's amazing how they can catch WG killers using with hardly any clues but they can't catch a dude that likes to throw acid o the street ... it's not like he's a one time offednder now is he !!