Trick question—you don’t! When functioning properly, your air conditioner is not ever going to have a low refrigerant level. Why? Because refrigerant is not a fuel, and at no point in the cooling process is it consumed. It exists in a closed loop system, and is intended to be recycled over and over again.
If you have low refrigerant in your air conditioner, something is wrong. Perhaps your technician—though certainly not one of ours—improperly charged the system to begin with. Otherwise, you have a refrigerant leak. Either way, running your air conditioner with insufficient refrigerant is a recipe for trouble.
Why You Need the Right Amount of Refrigerant
Refrigerant is the heat transfer fluid that your air conditioning system uses to facilitate the entire heat transfer process. If your air conditioner does not have enough refrigerant, then there is no way that you can hope for your system to function as effectively or reliably as possible. It simply won’t be able to remove a sufficient amount of heat from the air.
Refrigerant evaporates in your evaporator coil, which is the indoor coil. When it does, it draws heat out of the air. That cooled air is then redistributed throughout your home, and the refrigerant is condensed in the outdoor condenser coil, shedding its heat in the process.
If you don’t have the right amount of refrigerant in your system, it won’t draw out enough heat. When that happens, the coil can get too cold, and condensation can freeze on it. Your system will cost more to operate, as it has to work harder to cool your home, and you risk overheating the compressor with the extra strain. We can help you to avoid such problems with your system.
Schedule your AC services in Capitol Hill with Polar Bear Air Conditioning & Heating Inc.