What AC Leak Repair Covers
When we talk about AC leak repair, we mean tracking down where refrigerant is escaping from your system and sealing it up. Your AC pushes refrigerant through copper and aluminum lines, coils, and fittings under pressure. Years of vibration, heat, and corrosion can work small gaps open at joints or coil surfaces. Once the refrigerant starts slipping out, cooling drops and the compressor picks up the slack until something gives.
Finding the leak is the first step. Not all leaks are obvious. Some produce a visible oil stain around a coil joint. Others are microscopic and only show up under electronic detection or with a nitrogen pressure test. The method depends on where the suspected leak is and how fast the system is losing charge.
- System pressure check. We connect gauges and measure your current refrigerant levels against manufacturer specs. This confirms the system is low and gives us a starting point.
- Leak detection. We use electronic sniffers, UV dye, or nitrogen to track down exactly where the refrigerant is escaping. Coils, service valves, and brazed joints are where we find most of them.
- Repair at the source. If the leak is at a joint we can reach, we braze it right there. Coil damage is trickier. Sometimes a patch holds, sometimes the coil needs to come out. We tell you which before we start.
- Evacuation and recharge. We vacuum the lines to pull out any moisture or air that got in while the system was open. Then the correct refrigerant goes back in. Skip this part and the compressor pays for it later.
- Post-repair pressure verification. We monitor the system to confirm it holds the new charge and the pressures stay within spec.
Cutting corners on any of those steps means the repair does not hold. We have seen plenty of systems that were patched without a proper vacuum or charged with the wrong amount. They always come back. We run the full sequence every time because shortcuts are what bring people back with the same problem.
