Short podcast segment (single speaker) giving HVAC advice about refrigerant: explains that refrigerant is not consumed during normal operation, needing annual refills indicates a leak, and recommends finding and repairing leaks rather than repeatedly recharging the system. Uses a body/blood analogy to illustrate the point.
Chapters
It is not normal for your unit to take refrigerant every single year. The unit is not using up refrigerant. It uses refrigerant. Kind of reference this as your body. If your body starts spewing blood out of your arm, okay, we shouldn't be spewing blood. I shouldn't need more blood, and unless I'm losing blood, right? So I shouldn't need more refrigerant unless I'm losing refrigerant. If you're leaking refrigerant and you need refrigerant in your system, it's because you're having a leak and you need to fix a leak. So you stop spending the money every single year on one or two pounds of R22 or R410 a, whatever the refrigerant is. That way you have a sealed system. It should not be leaking out again. You don't need to recharge that unit every single year. It uses refrigerant, but it doesn't use up the refrigerant and need more. Obviously, if it's running low in a refrigerant, kind of like your body running low on blood, you're going to have a problem, right? So if you don't have enough blood, you'll have a problem. If your system doesn't have enough refrigerant, you, you will also have problems. So get the leak fixed. See what the cause is. Instead of putting bandaids on it, which is adding more refrigerant, actually go to the cause and stop it.
