With the arrival of the hot season, the situation is frequent when the owners find that the air conditioner stopped effectively cool the room. What to do with the device? Carry out maintenance, add or change freon? Let's try to figure out.
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Replacing Freon (Coldone) is one of the favorite topics on many forums dedicated to household air conditioning systems. However, the problem is far from always coming down to the notorious leakage. We should not forget that air conditioning is complex, high-tech equipment, and its performance depends on the quality of installation and maintenance of maintenance.
With the right installation of refrigerant leaks at all should not be during the entire service life, just like in refrigerators. And all the annual refueling simply indicate that the technique is not in order and it needs to be repaired. Before commissioning, for example, crimping pipelines, which should be carried out at a pressure of 41.5 bar (the real working pressure of freon in the system, when working on cooling from 7 to 40 bar, for R-410A) and at a filling gas temperature ( nitrogen) 45 ° C.
If you regularly clean the mesh coarse filter, then, most likely, in half cases, the need to call a specialist will disappear by itself
If the air conditioner stopped working effectively, first of all, make sure that both split-system units are in purity. Do not forget: once in 2 weeks should clean the filters of the indoor unit, and once a season - wash the outer block radiator.
7 operations produced during the maintenance of the air conditioner
- Cleaning the filters of the indoor unit (mesh filter of coarse purification).
- Cleaning the impeller of the cooling fan of the indoor unit (if necessary).
- Cleaning / washing the heat exchanger of the outer block (if necessary).
- Flushing drainage tube.
- Checking the performance of electrical connections.
- Diagnostics of the working condition of the air conditioner equipment (measurement of parameters in order to determine the adequacy of freon).
- Refueling / refreshing freon (if necessary).
Freon air conditioning refueling is performed through the exterior valve, so it is desirable that this unit is easily accessible for service. Otherwise, any procedures will fly into a penny. Let's say, the complex maintenance of the split system in Moscow will now cost 2-2.5 thousand rubles, and for the services of industrial climbers will have to pay another 5-6 thousand rubles.
Manufacturers recommend to completely drain the mixing freons R407 or R410 and focus anew refrigerant to the normative mass. This avoids errors. Filling the mixing freons is needed in a liquid state, not in gaseous! Now they begin to supply air conditioners on New Freon R32 (Toshiba, for example, since 2017 is a BKVG series). It is one-component and in this regard is more convenient: it is not necessary to merge - you can only add a little and check the mass by weight.
Viktor Kovalev
Technical expert Toshiba.
Freons are a whole group of gaseous fluorine-containing hydrocarbons. In domestic air conditioners, different freons can be used. Most often, this is a mixture of R-410A (50% of the difluoromethane and 50% pentafluoroethane), there are also freons R-32 (difluoromethane), R-22 (chlorodifluoromethane). At the moment, the equipment operating on R-22 is not released, this chladon can occur only in old models. That is why it costs to pay attention to new models.
The most reliable way of refueling the air conditioner is a complete removal of freon and then refueling with accurate gas, because even a shortage or excess of only 20 g of freon will affect the performance of the device
For the procedure itself, special equipment is needed. In the simplest case, there must be accurate electronic scales and a gauge collector with hoses. Fill without weights, "on the eyes", prohibited. Also can not be mixed by different types of freon. For example, in systems designed to work with the R410A refrigerant, it is forbidden to use other refrigerants, and in systems designed to work with R22 refrigerant, etc., - apply reference R410A. When mixing the refrigerants of two brands in the refrigeration circuit, there is an unacceptable high pressure, which can cause a loop of the contour and an accident.
Stages of comprehensive air conditioning service
Check the filters of the indoor unit
Check the state of the outer block. If necessary, the outer block is washed with a high pressure washing.
Measurement of the temperature of the liquid refrigerant. Measuring the temperature in four points and gradually adding freon, the master is achieved by the desired amount of refrigerant in the system and optimal operation of the air conditioner
Many specialists recommend every year to refuel the air conditioner by Freon, referring to the fact that over time gas "disappears." But this is not so! If in the process of installing the air conditioner, the installers performed an operation "Check for tightness" (nitrogen check in pipelines and an internal unit under pressure of 41.5 bar), then the system is completely sealed, and no freon leakage should be during the entire service life. Thus, if a specialist after the diagnostic operations says that there is a need to remove the air conditioner by Freon, then he, to put it mildly, Lukuvit. If Freon's leakage really happened, then he must set the place of leakage, restore the tightness of the contour, and then completely rewrite air conditioning. If this is not done, you can assume that you bought a subscription to the annual refueling.
Rustam Zhamaletdinov
Engineer of the Department of Air Conditioning and Energy Efficient Solutions LG Electronics
