First off, you might be wondering what R-22 is. It’s refrigerant—the substance needed for your central air conditioner or heat pump to function at all. Perhaps you have a basic understanding of how refrigerant works, and you might have even had someone tell you that refrigerant needs to be refilled (called recharged in the HVAC industry) every once in a while.
First off, that’s not true—if your system is losing refrigerant, it means there is a leak in the line that has to be repaired before it can be recharged. In the ideal scenario, your AC system has enough refrigerant upon installation to last throughout its entire lifespan.
That brings us back to R-22. If your system is a decade old or older, chances are that it uses this type of refrigerant. And unfortunately, R-22 is being phased out. The reason is due to the harmful effects it has on the environment, so it’s for a good cause! But you may be in for an unpleasant surprise should your older AC need refrigerant.
“Wait, isn’t ice development a normal part of air conditioning? After all, it is a cooling system right?”
The reason we talk about repair needs and malfunctions so much this time of the year is because this is the time of year they’re most likely to occur! And AC repair is one of those services you need to schedule ASAP and not wait on. We see a lot of systems, unfortunately, that are near failure simply because homeowners waited too long to call for repairs.
Not all air conditioning repair needs are catastrophic. In fact, not all air conditioning repair needs are actually air conditioning repair needs. For instance, you might have a miscalibrated thermostat, or a thermostat that was accidentally set to heating mode. Or you could have damaged ductwork.
Wouldn’t it be nice if we had air conditioners that could self-diagnose malfunctions and report them back to the homeowner, in detail? We’re sure that will exist someday, but in the meantime, we have to rely on other methods for an air conditioner to send warnings that something is wrong. Perhaps it’s a drop in cooling power, an unexplained spike in energy bills, or frequently tripping circuit breakers.
If you’ve lived in the area for even a year, chances are that you—hopefully—have had maintenance done on your air conditioner at least at one point. Perhaps a professional performed it, and your air conditioner showed signs of improvement in operation afterward.
When you see water puddling anywhere in or around your home where it shouldn’t be, with no explanation, it’s probably your natural instinct to call a plumber. This isn’t exactly the wrong move to make, but the fact is, you may be dealing with a leak coming from your air conditioner—in which case you’d want to give our HVAC pros a call.
Ductless heating and cooling systems have been growing in popularity in recent years, and for good reason. They’re very versatile and energy efficient, and offer a number of benefits to homeowners.