Heating Air Conditioning Indian Trail NC: A Common Sense Approach to Recharging Central Air Conditioning Systems and Heat Pumps with Freon Refrigerant

A Common Sense Approach to
Recharging Central Air Conditioning Systems and Heat Pumps with Refrigerant

Refrigerant is hermetically sealed within an air conditioner or heat pump where it is “used” to move heat. It is not burned, digested, devoured, dissipated or consumed. As long as the HVAC lines remain sealed – refrigerant should stay there forever.

If your HVAC system is in need of recharging or refilling – there’s a leak! Simply recharging the unit with refrigerant is no different than adding air to an automobile tire that goes flat every two-hundred miles. The tire needs to be repaired.

Word must be getting around there’s money to be made in the refill business because ads appearing in penny shopper papers and online are growing exponentially. Out of sheer curiosity, I called one of these “refrigerant providers” for a sales pitch. What I got was an oral reading of the product insert in broken

English. The first hard question I asked ended the phone call and I couldn’t reconnect – caller id?

A Freon card issued by the Environmental Protection Agency is all that’s required to purchase product and start the business. Addressing the problem by stopping the leak would be counter-productive and eliminate a return customer so tools are not all that important and neither is skill – just twist the knob until the cool air starts flowing then twist it back the other way.

The going rate seems to be ninety-nine dollars for up to 3 pounds of Freon. Of course, you’ll need another refrigerant charge in a couple of months so be sure to keep the number programmed in your phone.

I’ve purposely attempted to make this sound silly so you can see just how silly it really is but the vast majority of these refill customers are elderly people on fixed incomes looking to save money and being fleeced in the process – that’s not so funny. Health concerns and environmental issues are also involved in this nonsense.

There is another important issue that should be addressed while we’re on this subject and that’s the recent emergence of refrigerant stop-leak products (fix-a-flat). Most of these products are sold online and cannot be purchased locally – maybe that’s because the seller is counting on you not driving across five states to punch him when his product destroys your air conditioner.

These products contain a moisture-activated formula that remains fluid until it is polymerized by moisture and solidifies to form a patch. Pressure, heat and the absence of significant moisture inside the air conditioner prevents the fluid from polymerizing until it leaks out of the system. In a perfect world, these chemicals leak

out and permanently seal leaks in the condenser, evaporator, accumulator, metal hoses and compressor when they mix with moisture in the air.

So, okay, these sealants are moisture activated. Now, factor in the AC system leak you had in the first place and the fact your system is either empty or partially empty – when refrigerant leaked out, outside moisture leaked in. There’s moisture inside that system and when you add a sealer, you have the perfect recipe for disaster. The moisture inside the system reacts with the sealer and clogs the entire system. At this point, you may no longer have a system that can be fixed with a one-dollar O-ring. It could take several hundred dollars or a new unit altogether to get you up and running.

Also, some of those sealants will destroy HVAC reclamation equipment and most heating and air conditioning technicians will not touch your system after they learn sealants and other chemicals have been added to the Freon.

There’s yet another important issue I should warn you about concerning these sealants – some are flammable and could explode when heated under pressure. Do some research - there’s both heat and pressure involved in an air conditioning compressor. If the label reads "flammable", you may be adding the proper ingredients to the recipe for mega-disaster.

I could’ve gone off on a tangent and attempted to impress you with my knowledge by talking about shrader valves, accumulators, capillary tubes, flare connections, filter dryers, line sets and the like – I chose not to! There’s already more than enough technical sites here on the Internet. It’s high time someone approached this matter with good old Union County common-sense and delivered a no-nonsense solution. So, here it is…

Stop fooling around and do yourself a BIG FAVOR. Just say no to fly-by-night refrigerant peddlers, stay away from chemical sealers and have your air conditioning system or heat pump repaired properly by a qualified heating and air conditioning technician who possesses the proper tools and skills to do the job right. A proper fix stings once but patch jobs and ongoing refrigerant refills sting repeatedly.

Freon is E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company’s trade name for its odorless, colorless, nonflammable, and non-corrosive chlorofluorocarbon and hydro-chlorofluorocarbon refrigerants, which are used in air conditioning and refrigeration systems.

Jeff Helms doing
Heating and Air Conditioning the
Helmsway
in Monroe, North Carolina
NC HVAC License # 28630
704-201-1790