Knowing when your portable air conditioner will need to be recharged and which components are affected, and how to go about refilling Freon or refrigerant levels safely.
Do you own a portable air conditioner that has somehow not been working in the way it should be and has been working since you bought it?
There could be the possibility that the unit may need to be recharged, as it is possibly running low on Freon or there could be a possible refrigerant leak.
Recharging a portable air conditioner means that you will have to add some Freon and address the refrigerant leak in the air conditioner to get it to work at its best again, but some advise against doing this yourself.
It is therefore important to know that you can refill your portable air conditioner with Freon, but you would need to know what Freon is and how you would be able to tell if you are running low.
What is Freon and how do you know if you are running low and need to refill?
So, typically when your air conditioner is running low on Freon, this will cause the portable unit to start malfunctioning by not cooling as well as it used to or not cooling at all.
There are other factors that can contribute to this but running low on Freon is definitely one of them, meaning that you need to recharge or refill your Freon. Freon is basically the refrigerant gas that plays the role of dispersing cool air by the air conditioner.
So, this is why your air conditioner might not be cooling properly, indicating that the unit might be running low on Freon refrigerant.
A leakage in Freon could be the result of low levels of Freon in an air conditioner, as it does not usually get finished by use but will instead leak and run out.
There are ways for you to pick up on the fact that you might be running low on Freon and these include, your portable air conditioner struggling to cool the room as efficiently as it used to or not at all. If you observe that your electricity bill is much higher than it used to be, this could also be a sign.
There are also some sounds your portable unit will make if it is running low on refrigerant, and these include bubbling or hissing coming from the cooling line of the unit. If ice has formed on the refrigerant line, your Freon levels are low.
Recharging Freon in a portable air conditioner
The quickest fix to a portable air conditioner running low on Freon is to have it refilled. Most people would advise against this being a do-it-yourself task and would rather have people call in a refrigerant specialist to do it for you. This is because a certified technician is more equipped to do the job.
The best approach would be to determine if there is a refrigerant leak and to get a technician to come and recharge the unit’s Freon, as a professional technician will know just the right amount of Freon that will be needed to recharge the unit.
Doing it yourself can either result in you filling up the Freon with more than the amount that is required or not filling it up enough to get it properly recharged.
Filling it up over the required amount or too little can further result in more complications and malfunctioning of the portable air conditioner.
Now, because refrigerant or Freon is meant to last for as long as it can, decreasing levels will be a definite sign of a leakage, which should not be happening and will need to be attended to.
In order to find a remedy to the problem, the leakage will need to be identified and confirmed and once it has been confirmed, it will need to be fixed first. Repairing the unit where the refrigerant is leaking is the first step before attempting to refill or recharge the refrigerant.
When it is time to recharge the refrigerant, you will need to make sure that the unit is recharged by the same type of Freon already in the system.
Using a different one will likely cause issues. So, using the same Freon that is stated by the manufacturer of the portable air conditioner will safely remedy the problem.
Is it best to recharge the unit yourself?
It might be best to call in a technician qualified to do the job rather than doing it yourself. It is possible to, but would not be recommended.
So, there are ways to recharge your portable air conditioner to work efficiently again.