HVAC Team Repairs a Refrigerant Leak in Orange County

Coastal Custom Wine Cellars recently received a service call from a client in Irvine, Orange County with complaints about a leaking wine cellar cooling unit. The equipment was leaking of Freon. Although the system was still cooling the room properly, it would not continue to do so if the leak wasn’t promptly repaired. A team of HVAC experts were sent to the client’s residence to assess the extent of the problem and fix it accordingly.

Residential Wine Cellar Cooling System with Refrigerant Leaking

A home wine cellar owner in Irvine, California recently called Coastal Custom Wine Cellars to ask for help regarding their wine storage refrigeration system. When the maintenance and repair professionals went to inspect the problem, they found that refrigerant was leaking from the unit. Although the system was still functioning properly, it wouldn’t continue to do so if the damage was not promptly repaired soon.

Locating the Refrigerant Leak in the Cooling System

A cooling unit is an integral part of any wine cellar. It’s advisable to have it checked regularly for repairs and maintenance.

The Coastal Custom Wine Cellars HVAC experts injected an Ultraviolet light detectable dye into the cooling system and allowed it to course through the system for a month. When the dye had completely run through the system, the team came back to locate where it was exiting, and thus identify where the leak was precisely located.

The leak was found inside the wine refrigeration unit. The entire cooling system had to be taken apart for the repair to begin.

Refrigerant Leak Inside the Unit Sealed Using a Stop Leak

The leak in this Orange County wine cooling system was different from the usual type of leak you’d find in pipes and drainages. It was a porous type of leak, which is common in wine refrigeration units because of the high level of humidity that these equipment function in.

The system’s refrigerant was seeping through the porous leak found in various locations around the copper of the evaporator coil. To solve the problem, the possible solution is either to replace the entire evaporator coil or to add a stop leak. For this case in Irvine the HVAC team added a stop leak.

Stop leaks are made of substances that work to seal porous types of leaks. They’re sold in cans and you can find them in most local hardware stores in California. It is important that the stop leak you purchase is set up for the right tonnage, because if it is disproportionate to the capacity of the cooling unit, it can clog up the entire system.

The team of HVAC professionals made sure that the can of stop leak used was appropriate for the Irvine wine cellar cooling system. They first added Freon to the condensing unit, and then the stop leak was added afterwards. The refrigeration unit was then restored back online and operated properly.

Is a Stop Leak 100% Effective in Repairing Porous Refrigerant Leaks?

To repair a porous leak, there are only two options to choose from: use a stop leak or replace the unit’s evaporator coil. The latter can be very costly, which is why HVAC professionals usually opt to use stop leaks as an initial measure to solve refrigerant leak problems.

A stop leak has a 50% success rate in repairing a porous leak. They generally wait for about a month to evaluate the effectiveness of the stop leak. If the stop leak has not solved the problem, only then should the client decide to have the cooling system’s evaporator replaced.

If a stop leak has effectively repaired a leak, the refrigeration unit can have an extended life of up to 5 to 10 years.

This ducted cooling unit has minimal visibility in the wine cellar.

Coastal Custom Wine Cellars Offers Wine Cooling Equipment Maintenance and Repair Services

Coastal Custom Wine Cellars is one of the top wine storage refrigeration equipment contractors in California. We offer maintenance and repair services for various kinds of wine cellar cooling systems in Orange County and Los Angeles. We fit and repair residential and commercial wine cellar cooling units with the help of our partners in the cooling industry, so Contact us today for more information about our products and services.