Don't Rush to Add Refrigerant When Your AC's Cooling Weakens - Old Repairman Says It Won't Help Anyway

That day my husband said our air conditioner didn't seem to be cooling effectively anymore - it was set to 19 degrees, so why was it still so hot? I felt it carefully myself, and indeed it was different from how it used to feel - now it just felt somewhat hot no matter what. I usually read some articles about home matters too, so I had an idea in mind. I told my husband, just add refrigerant and it'll be fine - this must be because there's not enough refrigerant! After hearing what I said, my husband added refrigerant to the air conditioner, but there was still no improvement. Helpless, we could only go find a repairman. The repairman took one look and told us directly: "In your situation, adding refrigerant won't help either!"

We were speechless instantly - why wouldn't adding refrigerant help? So we were doing useless work all along - we spent the money and the result was still bad! The old repairman explained: in your case, it's not that the refrigerant ran out - it's that your pipes are broken and have been leaking refrigerant all along! No matter how much you add, it's useless, because it's been leaking the whole time!

What, why would our pipes leak refrigerant? This was really one blow after another. The old repairman said your air conditioner's pipes are aluminum pipes. This kind of pipe is quite troublesome to install - if it's not installed well, the connection points break very easily. That's how refrigerant leaks happen.

But the price of aluminum pipes is relatively cheap. The repairman explained that this is why so many people replace the original copper pipes with aluminum pipes - although this lowers the cost, it also brings a lot of trouble down the road. If your air conditioner shows abnormal cooling, the first thing to check is whether the pipes are intact, not to go add refrigerant yourself!