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You don’t usually need to recharge your AC with refrigerant unless you end up with leaks in your refrigerant piping or the valve-work. In the rare cases you do, use this guide to make your AC recharge journey less painful.
You will often need to hire maintenance services to check your home AC for leaks thoroughly and run tests after recharging your system. These tests help ensure that you don’t end up with another leak within a couple of weeks.
Before recharging your home AC system, you need to keep these in mind– when you need to recharge your AC and how you should recharge it.
In most cases, you should avoid using DIY AC Recharge kits and instead rely on HVAC maintenance service teams to refill your system with refrigerant.
Our guide will walk you through what you need to know regarding AC refills and when you should refill.
When Should Your Recharge Your Home AC?
There are multiple signs that your AC system requires a refrigerant refill. The most prominent and diagnosable sign is insufficient cooling. Usually, inadequate cooling stems from problems in your air duct or condenser.
However, if you manage to pinpoint refrigerant leaks within your system through hissing noises near the pipework, you should hire HVAC maintenances services to check your system thoroughly.
Once they’ve identified a leak, you have confirmation that your cooling problems result from a lack of refrigerant due to a leak.
Guide to Recharging Home AC
Here’s our guide to recharging your home AC. Be sure to follow through on all steps to avoid ending up with additional costs when repairing your home AC and refilling its refrigerant.
Prepare your HVAC System
It’s challenging to diagnose and recharge a dirty HVAC system. Therefore, before recharging your HVAC system, thoroughly clean the system and remove all dust, dirt, and debris. You should pay particular attention to the coils, filters, blowers, condenser, and evaporator.
Further, to ensure proper testing and evaluation, ensure that the blower can move air properly through your home – this confirms that your home has adequate airflow and will not affect tests after repairing your AC and refilling it.
And so, clean out your filters and remove any obstructions to proper airflow within your ductwork.
The HVAC technicians, who offer air conditioning repair service should also offer you to repair your AC as part of the refrigerant refill process. This dedication is often a good indicator that you’re getting a good service from the company you hire.
Common Causes for HVAC Leaks
It’s improbable for your AC’s refrigerant and cooling system to spring a leak. Therefore, it’s challenging to predict and avoid an AC refrigerant leak.
Regardless, here are the most common causes –
- Some AC refrigerant leaks come from manufacturing defects. In this case, you can get a replacement or repair for your HVAC system under warranty.
- Errors during installation are another common cause of refrigerant leak problems. Therefore, it’s essential to test your system after an AC installation to ensure everything works properly.
- An AC is a pressurized system. And so, over time, if installed incorrectly, the joints in your piping will become weak and rupture.
As you can see, these are quite rare and unpredictable; therefore, it’s relatively uncommon for your HVAC system to end up with a leak and won’t usually require a refrigerant refill.
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Hire HVAC Professionals – Avoid DIY Solutions
You’ll find DIY HVAC recharge kits that you can buy to recharge your home AC system. Try and avoid using these kits – you might end up damaging your course or fail to refill your system at all.
Moreover, your HVAC system can end up with leaks in hard-to-reach places – these require professional attention before you can start repairing leaks and refilling your system with refrigerant. And so, you’ll have to rely on HVAC repair services.
Recharging Your Central Air Conditioner without Repairing Your Leak
After running an initial investigation, your HVAC maintenance company might recommend recharging your AC without fixing the leak if it’s not cost-effective to repair it first.
Therefore, if you plan on replacing your AC unit before next summer and the leak isn’t all that terrible, go ahead and refill your AC system without fixing the leak.
Fix the Leak and Repair
Here, your HVAC technicians will find the leak in your HVAC system and fix it. Before fixing it, though, they’ll name a price. Be wary of HVAC companies that try to pull one under you and go ahead with repairs before informing you of the costs involved.
Recharge Your Central Air Conditioner after Repairing Your Leak
Once the HVAC maintenance team patches up any leaks in your system, you should proceed with recharging your HVAC system.
At this point of the repair process, you should determine the kind of refrigerant your AC system uses. If it’s a newer HVAC, it likely uses Freon or R-410A as a refrigerant.
Run Tests after Repairing Leaks and Refilling Refrigerant
The HVAC maintenance team you hire should run a series of tests on your HVAC system after repairing your system. Here, they will determine whether their repair and recharge job adequately addresses your cooling issue or not.
Conclusion
With our guide to recharging your home AC, you now know what to look out for and the steps you need to take when you end up with a refrigerant leak and need to recharge your home AC.
Hire the best HVAC maintenance repair company to fix leaks and restore home AC refrigerant. Additionally, remember to avoid using DIY kits as they might end up damaging your condenser, ductwork, or valves.
Finally, if repairing the leak and refilling your AC system proves to be very expensive, you can instead opt-in for an AC replacement.
