Does My Air Conditioner Need More Refrigerant?

Your AC’s freon or refrigerant is essential to its cooling power and operation. Since refrigerant in cars occasionally needs to be refilled, people sometimes think they should refill their home’s AC refrigerant too. However, you shouldn’t ever need to refill your AC’s refrigerant unless your AC has a leak or didn’t receive enough refrigerant when it was first installed.

Why Your AC Shouldn’t Need More Refrigerant

Since AC refrigerant operates in a closed-loop system, it should never deplete during the life of your unit. Instead, the refrigerant will evaporate and condense, continuously changing between a liquid and gaseous form. 

In your AC’s closed-loop system, the refrigerant will evaporate and absorb your home’s heat inside the AC’s interior coil. Once the refrigerant reaches your unit’s exterior coils, it will condense and release the previously absorbed heat outdoors. When your AC is working properly, the refrigerant will stay in this cycle without needing to be refilled.

3 Signs You Have Low AC Refrigerant

Your AC needs an exact amount of refrigerant to work correctly, and even a small dip in its refrigerant levels can impact how much cool air your system can generate. While refrigerant shouldn’t need to be refilled if everything is working properly, leaks or improper installation can lead to low refrigerant levels. If you want to always receive the best performance out of your AC, review some of the main signs of low AC freon or refrigerant below:

• A warmer than normal home: Low AC refrigerant directly impacts your AC’s cooling power, leading to a warmer home. When your AC doesn’t have enough refrigerant, it will struggle to transfer heat from inside your home to the outdoors. This issue will worsen as temperatures rise over the summer and your house has more heat for your AC to remove.
• A constantly running system: Since low refrigerant levels make it harder for your system to transfer heat away from your house, your system will have to run longer to cool your home. If your AC never seems to shut off, there’s a good chance you have a refrigerant issue.
• Increased energy bills: As your system runs longer to cool your home due to low refrigerant, your HVAC unit will consume more energy. This increased energy usage will cause your energy bills to rise with it. 

What To Do If You Think You Have Low AC Refrigerant 

When you notice the main signs of low refrigerant, it’s time to reach out to a professional to inspect your HVAC system. Since your AC requires an exact amount of refrigerant and could need a complicated leak repair, it’s best to leave a low AC refrigerant issue to the professionals. 

Once you contact an HVAC technician for air conditioning service, they’ll inspect your unit to see if there’s a leak. If they find any cracks, holes, corrosion, or other causes of leaks, they’ll likely repair the leak and refill your unit with the right amount of refrigerant. However, they may also recommend a full replacement of your AC if the unit is past its recommended lifespan or the damage is extensive.

While a leak is the most common cause of low AC refrigerant, depleted refrigerant could also be due to an installation issue. Sometimes, when AC units are installed in the winter, the environmental conditions can cause an installation technician to receive inaccurate AC readings. These readings will lead them to think your AC needs less refrigerant than it actually does. Fortunately, the solution to this issue is easy, as a technician will simply need to retest your unit and refill the refrigerant at the right levels.

Choose Bonney for Air Conditioning Service in Sacramento

If you’re looking for AC leak repair and refrigerant refilling services in Sacramento, choose Bonney. Our team of expert professionals is well equipped to handle AC leak repairs and refrigerant refills. When your AC is beyond repair, we can also replace it with a new, high-efficiency unit perfect for your home. Besides offering repair and replacement services, you can turn to us for annual AC tune-ups, where we’ll inspect your unit and perform any necessary maintenance to ensure you don’t have to deal with low-refrigerant in the first place.

Learn more about our air conditioning repair services today. If you have any questions or want to schedule an appointment, please contact us.