Central Air Conditioner iced up - Repair or replace?
My 15 year old 3.5 tons air conditioner has ice on the suction pipe to the compressor outside the house. The outside ice only came up after about 6 hours of running the AC, that necessitates me to turn the AC off.
At first I thought that the cause is the air flow problem, and I have cleaned with a spray cleaner from Lowes to outside condenser coils and the top of the inside evaporator coils, and replaced my electrostatic air filter with a cheap air filter for air to go through easily. The only place that I did not clean is the bottom of the inside evaporator coils as I just learned how to open the panel to get to the bottom part. Today, the ice has come back on the outside suction pipe outside.
So, other than cleaning the bottom part of the evaporator coils to be sure that is not the cause, the ice up problem is likely caused by low freon refrigerant because of leaks in the AC system.
An AC company here has told me that it would cost me $80 for them to come to my house plus $30/lb of freon to charge up my AC.
I am not sure if spending a couple of hundred dollars to charge up my AC is the right solution, as I may need another charge up next year. The alternatives may be to find the leaks, or to replace the evaporator coils (a few hundred dollars), or to replace the whole AC unit (a few thousand dollars). I would assume that repairing the leaks or replacing the evaporator coils would extend the AC life for another 5 to 10 years?
Any suggestions? Thanks.
At first I thought that the cause is the air flow problem, and I have cleaned with a spray cleaner from Lowes to outside condenser coils and the top of the inside evaporator coils, and replaced my electrostatic air filter with a cheap air filter for air to go through easily. The only place that I did not clean is the bottom of the inside evaporator coils as I just learned how to open the panel to get to the bottom part. Today, the ice has come back on the outside suction pipe outside.
So, other than cleaning the bottom part of the evaporator coils to be sure that is not the cause, the ice up problem is likely caused by low freon refrigerant because of leaks in the AC system.
An AC company here has told me that it would cost me $80 for them to come to my house plus $30/lb of freon to charge up my AC.
I am not sure if spending a couple of hundred dollars to charge up my AC is the right solution, as I may need another charge up next year. The alternatives may be to find the leaks, or to replace the evaporator coils (a few hundred dollars), or to replace the whole AC unit (a few thousand dollars). I would assume that repairing the leaks or replacing the evaporator coils would extend the AC life for another 5 to 10 years?
Any suggestions? Thanks.