When I arrived home from work yesterday, I noticed that it was unusually hot inside.
I thought this was odd because my house was usually a cool and comfortable temperature, but I assumed that maybe I was having a hot flash or something. When I took a look at the thermostat however, I noticed that my thermostat was set to my usual temperature. The only difference was that the actual temperature of my house was a few degrees warmer. I waited for the air conditioning to power on so I could feel the cool air exit the air vents, but I was shocked when the air was lukewarm. From this, I could tell that the air conditioner was working, but it wasn’t cooling my house as it should have been. In my mind, I assumed that it needed refrigerant, so I called an HVAC technician to come check it out. When he arrived, he told me that my refrigerant probably didn’t need a refill unless there was a leak. A popular myth that people tend to believe is that air conditioners use refrigerant to cool the house when that isn’t the case. The refrigerant simply turns to gas as it removes the warm air from the house and then returns to liquid form. There should be no need for a refrigerant “top off” unless it’s leaking. Unfortunately, this was my issue. The good news however was that the HVAC technician was able to patch the small hole and then replace the refrigerant that was lost.