A Holey Air Conditioner: What The Problems Are, The Trouble They Cause, And How To Fix It All

An air conditioner with holes in the system is never a good thing. If you call an HVAC technician to do repairs, and the technician tells you that your system is full of holes, you may need a little more information to understand why this is such a big problem (or, more to the point, problems). It may help to understand how these holey problems cause trouble for your unit and for your home and how to fix them all. 

Holes in the Evaporator

Holes in the evaporator mean that the refrigerant is likely to leak out and that the evaporator cannot evaporate the refrigerant to turn it from a semi-liquid state to a gaseous state. When there is no gas, the gas cannot cool the hot air extracted from your house.

No condensed cooled gas means that there is no way to cool hot air and return the cooled air back into your home. If there are holes in the evaporator, it is possible to replace just the evaporator if that is the only place you have holes in the system. However, if there are holes in the evaporator, there are probably holes elsewhere. 

Holes in the Condenser

Holes in the condenser means that the refrigerant, which is supposed to be under pressure in this component, is not under the correct amount of pressure. Pressure is lost, and the refrigerant does not condense enough to enter the evaporator.

Usually, if the evaporator has holes, so does the condenser because the evaporator has to work harder to pull condensed refrigerant from a condenser that lacks pressure. Replacing both of these components (i.e., the condenser and the evaporator) is not cheap, but if your air conditioner is not that old yet, it may be worth it when compared to replacing your air conditioner entirely. 

Frequent Loss of Refrigerant

When an air conditioner is constantly losing refrigerant, it is not just bad for the functioning of your unit but also very bad for the environment. In fact, there are many states that fine homeowners for allowing their air conditioners to contribute to damage to the environment, and some federal regulations may also back those fines. You will want your HVAC technician to fix this issue as soon as possible to avoid being fined.

Holes in the system and in all components where the refrigerant flows have to be replaced, or you will need to replace the whole system if it is too old to replace just these parts. For more information, contact an AC repair service.

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