Select to search all Patches What to Do When Your Air Conditioner is Low on Freon When homeowners A/C doesn't seam to cool off the house the most common thought is "my air conditioner is low on Freon." Is that really the problem? Summer time is almost here. It is getting warmer outside and you will soon be using your a/c. The most common question by homeowners is "does my a/c need freon?". First thing is "Freon" is a trademark name byDupont. Freon is actually regrigerant of many types. Most common residential a/c systems use R-22. Saying freon is like saying Xerox instead of copy machine. I am going to call it Freon for now. People think because the air coming from there registers feels to warm, or there house isn't cooling off fast enough it must need freon.Freon should not leak from your a/c. Air conditioning systems are sealed and should never leak. This isn't like putting gas in your car. If freon has leaked there is a problem. You need to have a qualified HVAC technician repair the leak or else this will keep happening.

When an A/C gets low on freon it is very normal for the indoor coil to freeze to a block of ice. Then when that ice melts you will get water leaking in the furnace and on the floor. Water will damage the furnace and just make your problems worse. Majority of service calls for "my a/c is low on freon" turns out to be just a plugged air filter. It is important that you change your furnace filter every month if you use a standard 1" thick filter.Signs A/C is low on Refrigerant You feel low airflow coming from registers Air starts to feel warmer from registers Water on floor by your furnace Ice building up on copper lines from a/c to indoor coil House takes longer than normal to cool off Now above are typical signs, but remember the majority of problems are something else beside low on refrigerant. Having your a/c cleaned and tested annually by a HVAC company can save you a lot of money over the years. One new fact to keep in mind is R22 refrigerant is in the process of being discontinued. 

2010 all manufactures had to stop using R22 in there new equipment. As this happens the cost of R22 will keep going up. So if you have an a/c leaking this is just another reason you want to get it fixed so it doesn't happen again. New a/c units will typically cost 30% less to run and will use the new enviromentally friendly refrigerant called R410a.  Now in 2012 the EPA has reduced R22 production more than expected and this has caused the price to drastically rise. This post is contributed by a community member. The views expressed in this post are the author's. Registered users are welcome to post on Patch. More from St. Michael Patch Daily Newsletter - The latest St. Michael news delivered to your inbox every morning Breaking News Alerts - Real-time updates on breaking stories in St. Michael By clicking "Subscribe", you agree to have read our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Watkins Heating & Cooling Blog The Cause of Freon Leaks What causes a/c evaporator coils to leak?

We have found this to be the most common problem plaguing air conditioners. To explain this, we first need to bust a common air conditioner myth.haier air conditioner window unit troubleshooting A Common A/C Myth12000 btu air conditioner split unit Many homeowners believe that, over time, an air conditioner uses freon. air conditioning units for hire dublinMaybe a long, hot summer leaves a perfectly good air conditioner "winded" and low on freon. We just need to tune-up the a/c and top-up the freon, right? In reality, an air conditioner or heat pump has a sealed refrigerant system that should never "use up" or run out of freon. The freon or refrigerant is only the medium used to transfer heat from the inside of the home to the outside.

The only resource that is expended is electricity. If the freon is not consumed in the process of cooling your home, then it must be lost only by a leak in the copper tubing. For many years, the air conditioning industry has used copper tubing to harness the pressure of refrigerant and bring comfort to the masses. Copper is soft and abundant, and easy to seal in the field with solder or brazing alloy. If copper is such a good material, why do we see so many freon leaks? Is this due to poor field connections, poor manufacturing, or is there a third possibility? Trane Looks for the Root Cause A number of years ago, Trane began a study to determine the true cause of this constant threat to our comfort. As service technicians, we have noticed that leaks from field or factory connections cause problems in the first year and are fairly rare. The problem leaks that develop in a 4 - 7 year old air conditioner occur in the copper tubing wall not the connection points or braze joints.

The source of these pre-teen leaks is what the Trane engineers set out to find in their study. Our technicians have noticed that certain brands of air conditioners develop leaks faster than others and that the newer, more efficient air conditioners are more prone to leaking than the old energy hogs. The reason for this seems fairly obvious to HVAC contractors. A/C manufacturers can raise the efficiency of their equipment by using thinner copper in their evaporator coils. Heat transfers faster through the thinner copper, but this efficient tubing also leaks sooner. One could argue that the legislation that raised the minimum efficiency of air conditioners and heat pumps to 13 SEER resulted in thinner tubing walls, more evaporator coils leaks, and, as a result, more ozone-damaging freon released into the atmosphere. The Real Cause of Freon Leaks So we know that thinner tubing develops leaks sooner, but what is causing the freon leak in the first place? The leaky a/c coils that the Trane engineers studied had microscopic pin holes seemingly drilled throughout the coil tubing.

Trane's in-home studies revealed that the culprit was formic acid. Formic acid was corroding the copper and drilling these tiny pin holes. The acid penetrates the thinner, high-efficiency tubing faster and is making some air conditioner brands look very bad. But where is the formic acid coming from? Isn't that what gives fire ants their sting? What is formic acid doing in our homes and on our air conditioner coils? Is Formaldehyde the Culprit? Formaldehyde in the home can convert into Formic acid on the a/c coil. It is extremely mild, but over a period of 5 years, it will produce pinholes in copper tubing. We call this process formicary corrosion, and it is the main reason that we still buy R-22 by the skid. If you have researched indoor air quality, you'll know that formaldehyde is a major pollutant in our homes. An infamous case of severe formaldehyde in the living space was the FEMA trailer provided to Katrina victims. While less severe than a FEMA trailer, most homes have a measurable amount of formaldehyde in the indoor air, and this will always cause formicary corrosion and freon leaks.