Re: Air conditioner maintenance

Aug 12, 2003 5 Replies



> Seven years ago, I bought an air conditioner from Wickes (Model

KC-94)



It is the type that is designed to be mounted in a window frame. (Like
> what most private houses have in Florida!) For the past four years, I
> haven't used it, but this year, needless to say, I neeeded to use it.
> It still works fine, but I am pretty sure it is not blowing as cold as
> it used to. Do air conditioners such as these need any maintenance,
> such as fluid top-up, etc? The label says it uses R22 coolant.
>
> Thank you,
>
> Frank

The only home maintenance is to clean the filters. Regassing may be needed, but is not really a diy job in the uk. In America small top up cans of r22 are sold, but not here AFAIK.


I am afraid you need to call an aircon service place, best bet is to collar someone in an aircon van and offer cash for them to check the pressures and regas as needed.


MrCheerful


Thanks for the tip.!

Franl

If the systems are similar in concept to car air conditioning then I think your problem may that you haven't run it for four years.

I was once told that the air conditioning needed to be run regularly so that the lubricants were circulated and these prevented the seals (and even some of the rubber pipes) leaking.

I was told (again can't swear to the truth) that the major problems with car air conditioning were due to people not running them in the winter then fnding the gas had leaked away by next summer.

HTH Dave R

Shouldn't need a top up regularly. More likely to be the fan on the condenser (that's the the outside fan, not the one giving you the breeze) has seized up. Most cheap units use fan motors with sleeve bearings, so need a squirt of penetrating oil , short run, then a good oiling with SAE30.

Also, (I was told) the refrigerants that are used nowadays (to replace CFCs) are corrosive so the systems are guaranteed to fail! I've so far spent £1200 on the air-con on a VW Sharan (mostly labour). The place I first went to was doing a roaring trade in replacing corroded evaporators from this and similar vehicles. The latest fault was corroded pipework.

Andrew

Another problem is the molecular weight of the new refrigerants is lower than the old R12 refrigerant they used to use - so it tends to escape more easily anyway.

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