Central Air refrigerant

[GJohnson]

What's the ballpark price for adding refrigerant to a central air system? I have a Heil system (maybe 3 Tons) and the coils on the evap unit had some ice build up last yesterday. Turned off the system to let it melt.

 

The Filter was not clogged and the airflow was not restricted so I'm assuming I'm low on refrigerant.

 

Live in the Long Branch area. I'd hate to get ripped off by one of the big companies - just to top off the refrigerant

 

Anyone local someone could recommend.

 

Edit: Unit is roughly 10 yrs old - so I'm assuming its the older refrigerant (r22)

[woowoo2]

The best thing to do is have someone find the leak and fix it.

[Kicking Bass]

My girlfriends HV/AC company charges $32 per pound for R22 + service call of $150

 

They are located on LI...

[crabbypatty]

The going rate is $40 a lb around here for R22. I would find the leak, which also will set you back some cash. Ya gotta understand the unseen costs to put a technician on the road. Unlesss you can find a good tech who will do it on the side, be prepared to pay somewhere between $80- $100 an hour.

[EricW]

I have no experience with HVAC and I basically have no idea what I am talking about, BUT, we have one of those big AC units in our server room. we were getting icing on the coils. Turned out to be an airflow problem and some other flow problem. If I remember right, too much cold air getting trapped in it. For a temp fix we opened it up and opened up some ceiling tiles above it. Ice then melted on its own. I don't know what the ultimate fix was. I guess the only way to properly diagnose would be to have a tech come in and check things out for you. May save you $$ in the long run having problem diagnosed the first time. Good luck.

[starr]

What's the ballpark price for adding refrigerant to a central air system? I have a Heil system (maybe 3 Tons) and the coils on the evap unit had some ice build up last yesterday. Turned off the system to let it melt.

 

The Filter was not clogged and the airflow was not restricted so I'm assuming I'm low on refrigerant.

 

Live in the Long Branch area. I'd hate to get ripped off by one of the big companies - just to top off the refrigerant

 

Anyone local someone could recommend.

 

Edit: Unit is roughly 10 yrs old - so I'm assuming its the older refrigerant (r22)

 

 

 

Even though you may feel air from your supply outlets, don't count out that the evaporator could be partially blocked. There could be years of debris built up on the bottom side of the evaporator.

[Snaps]

Yep coils may need a good cleaning also, last year service call $ 240.00 also cleaned the condensate drain line and installed a flush port so I can clean it from time to time.

[GJohnson]

Luckily it was just refrigerant. Service plan had a guy out pretty quick. Luckily the compresser checked out ok and the evaporator coils clean.

 

The unit has not been serviced in years (my fault for not being up on it). The tech believed that it probably lost a small amount of refrigerant over the years. Ran nicely over the hot humid weekend - let's hope it runs nice for awhile.

[Charleston]

You should be good to go. I had that problem and the additional gas did the trick. The next year the compressor went. I use MidState.

[makindue]

The best thing to do is have someone find the leak and fix it.

 

Yeah right and I did the same thing and I find it easy to fix it.