How Often Does My AC Need Refrigerant

If everything is working properly within your AC system, you should never need to add more refrigerant.

Here’s why: Refrigerant flows through your AC system in a closed loop of copper coils. Which means, unlike gas in a car, refrigerant never gets used up.

But there is one situation where you’ll need a refrigerant recharge: if you have a refrigerant leak.

We’ll explain:

The only time you would need a refrigerant recharge is if you had a leak somewhere in your refrigerant lines.

Refrigerant travels from your inside unit to your outdoor unit and back again—all the while transferring heat from inside your home to the outdoor air. And it travels via a closed loop of copper coils, meaning it’s never diminished.

But wear and tear on those refrigerant lines (copper coils) can often result in leaks, allowing refrigerant to escape that closed system.

Signs you have a refrigerant leak include:

• Your AC has trouble cooling your home
• Ice or frost on refrigerant lines or evaporator coil
• Hissing/boiling noise coming from refrigerant lines
• Higher-than-normal energy bills

To learn more about these signs, just check out our blog, “4 Signs Your AC May Need a Refrigerant Charge”.

See the signs of a refrigerant leak? What you’ll want to do next is call a professional to recharge your system. But keep in mind that you’ll want to only call a professional you can trust for this job.

Why? Well, it’s easy for a professional to scam you out of hundreds of dollars if you have a refrigerant leak.

Here’s why: All a professional has to do to keep you coming back for service is recharge your system without first fixing the leak.

A refrigerant leak in your AC system should be treated like a flat bicycle tire. You first need to find the leak and fix it and only then should you add more air. If you don’t fix the leak before refilling the tire with air, you’ll find yourself right back where you started in no time.

The same goes for your AC. Make sure that the professional recharges the system only after they find the leak and repair it. Otherwise, you’ll continually need them to recharge your system (costing you hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars).

Contact us if you think your AC needs a refrigerant recharge.

We’ll send over a trusted technician to determine if you really have a refrigerant leak. If so, we’ll fix the leak and then recharge the system for a fair price.