Evaporator Coils and Leaking Refrigerant
What's an Evap Coil...
... and what are Micro Leaks?
The Evaporator Coil is what the air in your systems blows through so that it comes out cold. The Evap Coil is made out of metal tubing that holds refrigerant. Cold refrigerant is what cools your home.
You have probably heard of "charging your system with refrigerant." It sounds similar to charging a battery, but that is not correct. Your system doesn't run on refrigerant. In fact, if your system needs to be charged with refrigerant, that is bad, very bad. It means there is a leak in your refrigerant line.
Refrigerant is not good for our environment and is bad for our atmosphere. It can also be very expensive.
Years ago, laws came down from the powers that be that manufactures had to move away from the old style R-22 refrigerant and instead switch to the new R-410a refrigerant. That was supposed to be a good thing. R-410a is supposed to be better for the environment, it also has other properties that got some of us refrigeration nerds pretty excited. However, what no one saw coming, was that R-410a would cause the tried and true Copper Evap Coils to leak. Within about 5 years, almost every copper coil that is holding R-410a begins to have micro leaks. This means your system will blow air, but that air will not be very cold.
You cannot fix micro leaks. There are some products out their that claim they can be safely be added into the refrigerant lines and they will seal those leaks. It's a short-cut that we believe causes the compressor to fail prematurely. The only way to fix the problem is to replace the coil. But if you replace the coil with another copper coil you can expect to have the same problem over again in 5 years.
Most manufacturers have shifted to manufacturing aluminium coils. These don't have the micro leak problems found in copper coils. In order to fix the problem for good, we have been changing out 5 year old copper coils with new aluminium coils.
Unfortunately, this solution only works for customers that have a Split-System. If you have a Package Unit, there is not much that can be done. Only an OEM Evap Coil can go back into the package unit and that means another copper evap coil.
If you have questions about this complicated time in our industry, give us a call, we'd be happy to help.