Air Conditioning Regas in Cairns

A sealed system does not use gas

This is the part worth understanding before you book anything. Refrigerant is not a consumable. It is not fuel and it does not burn off. It circulates around a closed loop and, in a system with no fault, the same charge is still in there fifteen years after the unit was commissioned. So if a technician measures your system as low on gas, that gas went somewhere. It leaked.

Which means a regas on its own is not a repair. It is a temporary top up of a system that will lose the charge again, sometimes in weeks, sometimes over a season, and you will be paying for the same gas twice. Anyone offering a cheap gas top up without looking for the leak is selling you the same job again next summer.

Finding the leak

Common leak points on units in this region are predictable enough to look for directly. Flare joints at the indoor head and at the outdoor unit, where vibration and a marginal flare from the original install eventually let go. Braze joints. The outdoor coil itself, where salt corrosion in coastal suburbs can perforate a tube. Service valve cores and caps. On older systems, the indoor coil, which is the expensive one.

The search is done with electronic detection, soap solution on suspect joints, and where necessary a nitrogen pressure test that holds the system under pressure long enough to prove whether it is tight. Ultraviolet dye has its place on slow leaks that will not show any other way. Once the leak is found we can tell you whether it is a joint worth repairing or a coil that ends the conversation about repair altogether.

Doing the recharge properly

Once the circuit is sealed, the correct sequence matters more than the gas itself. The system is pressure tested, then evacuated under vacuum to pull out air and moisture, because moisture left in a refrigeration circuit turns acidic and destroys the compressor from the inside. Then the charge is weighed in to the manufacturer’s stated quantity for that model and pipe run, not added until the gauges look about right. An overcharged system runs high head pressure, cools poorly and shortens compressor life, which is why guessing is not a neutral choice.

Venting refrigerant to atmosphere is illegal in Australia and the gases involved have serious global warming potential, so old charge is recovered rather than released. Handling refrigerant at all requires the relevant refrigerant handling licence, which is worth checking before anyone opens your system.

When we would not regas it

If the unit runs R22 we will usually tell you to stop. That refrigerant is no longer imported into Australia, so what exists is reclaimed stock, expensive and limited, and spending it on an old system with a leak rarely makes sense. R410A is in phase-down now as well and heading the same direction on price.

If the leak is in the indoor coil, or the compressor has already been run low on charge long enough to damage it, the sensible money goes toward a replacement instead of a recharge. We will say that plainly. To have a leak found properly, call 0489 266 523.