Air Conditioners with refrigerant leaks struggle to cool homes, and grind themselves into disrepair trying!
Whether freon, or any other type of coolant, refrigerant leaks can be a frustrating problem. Not the kind of refrigerant leak where a big whole is torn in your coils or your copper tubing … but that slow leak that seems to make you want to believe that you will get an extra month or two out of this charging, or the blind hope that somehow the leak will get clogged up and no longer be a problem. Unfortunately that is rarely the case. Small holes always become bigger holes and will eventually need repairs, recharging your coolant over and over is much like throwing your money out the window.
R-22 air conditioning refrigerant. Refrigerant leaks not only cause inefficient cooling, but, can also damage your equipment.
R-22 refrigerant is being phased out, and being replaced with with R-410A. Check out the differences between R-22 and R-410A here.
The quickest, easiest, and least expensive way to try to find a refrigerant leak is to do a soap test, wherein we apply watered down liquid soap to the visible, refrigerant conducting surfaces. If we see a bubble start to form we know we have found a leak. If we can’t find the leak this way we move on to the second method. We inject dye into the system to color the refrigerant. We give the system a day or two ( or overnight if the weather is unbearable) to hope fully reveal the location of the refrigerant leak (although slow bleeding pinhole leaks can take even longer in some cases.) If this doesn’t reveal the location of the refrigerant leak we tend to assume that the leak is either somewhere under the foundation of the home, or hidden behind the drywall. In these cases it is more practical to run a new line than to wast time and money stubbornly chasing down the leak.
injecting dye into an air conditioner to find a leak
Even more dye …
… and more dye still … the more dye there is the easier it is to spot.
Community Cooling and Heating has always been an advocate of addressing minor air conditioner issues before they can evolve into major problems. Monitoring refrigerant leaks and levels are a big part of this! There is nothing that a home owner, or a property manager, can do to get the most life, and the highest level of performance from their air conditioning equipment than to have it serviced regularly by a licensed air conditioning contractor.
Our well stocked trucks, and well trained air conditioning technicians are always on call when you need air conditioner serve, repairs, or maintenance.
Our Motto is…“We won’t send you a wolf in sheep’s clothing …
just an honest professional”
We guarantee all our repairs and offer a Free Second Opinion
Community Cooling and Heating President/CEO
Air conditioning service and repair Ft Myers
Kurt Hartmann, Owner of Community Cooling and Heating
Call Today For Air Conditioner Service, Repair, Maintenance, and Installation
239-267-2117