You may recall that early in the summer I posted about my AC units.

Alas, shortly after that, they’ve been giving me nothing but trouble.

They were working, but not as efficiently as they should be. In particular, when I had the upstairs units running, the downstairs unit often refused to keep the living room as cool as I wanted.

So I called AirMaster, which I’ve been using for the past few years since I moved into this house.

And wouldn’t you know it, when the AirMaster guy came, everything was working perfectly! He turned on all three units to maximum cooling and he measured their output, and he claimed they were doing what they ought to be doing.

I asked him if he would check on the refrigerant anyway, just to be sure. He said there was no need. I asked again, but he insisted that there was no need. I reminded him that four years ago there had been a need to refill the refrigerant, so just perhaps there might be a need, but he tried to reassure me that no, there wasn’t any point.

Anyway, AirMaster charged me for the visit.

And they then offered a special whereby I could pay them another $500 to be put on their list of special customers to receive a 20% discount on any future visits for up to a year.

I didn’t think that was worth it. I mean, how many visits did they expect to make during the year? I usually only call them once a year either to check the AC at the start of the season or when there’s a problem. So twice, tops. So 500 bucks to get a 20% discount on future visits for a year didn’t seem like a bargain.

The very next day after AirMaster had been here, the AC acted up again, but I was reluctant to call them back.

And to make a long story short, the AC continued to work intermittently for the rest of the summer, sometimes seemingly fine, other times not so well. Finally, a couple weeks ago it seemed that it was mostly not so fine, and as we were still having a warmer fall than usual, I called, not AirMaster, as I was annoyed with them, but a different contractor, Gen3.

A fellow arrived and I explained the situation to him and he checked the units, and it was clear they weren’t outputting very cool air. So without me prompting him, other than mentioning that four years earlier there had bee a need to refill the refrigerant, he checked the refrigerant level.

According to him it was three whereas it out to be eight. I forget the units. Pounds per inch perhaps? 

He suggested just refilling it, but I decided I wanted the leak found.

Big mistake!

I should have taken his advice. Had I thought about it, it was four years since the last need for refrigerant, so if there was a leak, it must be a very slow leak.

In the event, he spent hours trying in vain to find a leak. And the charge was $900. I should have taken his advice!

Anyway, the AC is working great again.

Just in time for the end of the cooling season.

But I don’t plan to be calling AirMaster anytime soon.