A Quick Homeowner's Guide To AC Refrigerant Leaks
A refrigerant leak in your air conditioning system can be a surprisingly technical problem. Unlike an oil or coolant leak in your car, the results of an air conditioning refrigerant leak can be counterintuitive, unexpected, and hard to notice. Sometimes, you may not notice anything wrong until your system's pressure drops substantially.
Unfortunately, ignoring a refrigerant leak isn't an option. Low refrigerant pressure will impact your system's performance and efficiency. Even worse, it can cause significant damage to your compressor. This guide will help you understand why refrigerant leaks happen, how to spot them, and what to do if you think your AC is leaking refrigerant.
What Makes Refrigerant So Special?
Refrigerant isn't a single chemical but a class of substances with properties that make them useful for acting as a heat transport medium. In your air conditioning system, the refrigerant absorbs heat in your home and moves that heat outside. This process does not use up or wear out the refrigerant. Instead, an ideal air conditioning system could use the same refrigerant for its entire lifespan.
However, unlike the fluids in your car, measuring refrigerant can be complex since the system pressure is highly dependent on temperature. As a result, you can't easily check your refrigerant levels. You should also never attempt to add more refrigerant to your system since high refrigerant pressure can cause catastrophic damage to your compressor or other expensive components.
Why Do Air Conditioning Systems Lose Refrigerant?
You would never need to consider your system's refrigerant in a perfect world. Under real-world circumstances, the line set that carries refrigerant through your system can fail in numerous ways. Contamination, design flaws, poor installation, or even air pollution can cause the lines to corrode, which may result in refrigerant leaks.
Refrigerant leaks can occur in the exposed plumbing (the line set) or inside the condenser or evaporator coils. Wherever the leak occurs, you usually won't notice any immediate or drastic symptoms unless the leak is very large. Small refrigerant leaks will cause a gradual drop in system pressure, reducing system performance and eventually leading to a frozen evaporator coil and short cycling.
Can You Fix Refrigerant Leaks?
Running your system with an active refrigerant leak is not an option. Since you can't easily "top up" your refrigerant, the cost of maintaining the correct pressure will quickly become very high. Additionally, low refrigerant pressure will cause compressor short cycling and may result in liquid refrigerant returning to the compressor. Both situations can cause premature compressor wear and severe damage.
Fortunately, refrigerant leaks are generally a repairable problem. It will take an experienced technician to locate the leak, but repairing leaks in the line set is usually not a major issue. On the other hand, leaks in the evaporator or condenser coils can be more challenging and may require replacing the affected coil to get your system's refrigerant loop sealed again.
For help with AC repair, contact an HVAC contractor in your area.