If you ever hear a so-called “HVAC technician” tell you that it’s time to give your air conditioner a refrigerant refill, run the other direction as fast as you can! This technician either has no idea what they’re talking about or they’re trying to pull a fast one on you.
Unfortunately, people are often confused about how refrigerant in an air conditioning system works. They often assume that refrigerant is a type of fuel and the AC will eventually run low on it. Like an automobile, it needs to have more fuel put in to keep it going.
This isn’t how refrigerant works at all. An AC may at some point require more refrigerant, but this is a repair, not a regular task. We’ll explain below to help you understand when you may need more refrigerant, and why most of the time you won’t.