Air Conditioning - Punctured A Frame Coil - Repairable?

I was installing humidifier in my furnace system. I knew I was working with the cooling coils and that it was A style. I was up about 5" above the base when I started cutting. I used jigsaw as my snips were dull. Naturally I punctured the aluminum coil. Freon escaped.

Would a service technician be interested in fixing this tiny puncture or are they going to be adamant about replacing the entire unit? Seems like an easy fix to me.

Thanks for your thoughts.

if it is aluminum it will have to come out and be tig welded, most would say no to repair. if it is copper coils they may be able to silver solder it. I would be very leary of trying to repair something like that because if it failed while running it could ruin your compressor and that would be much more money to repair.

Murphy was an optimist

Its likely easier and better success using an epoxy based repair. My younger brother use to repair many many water coolers that always failed in the same spot on a particular unit. He said the tubing was paper thin and next to impossible to do. Most guys I know say the cost of repair is more than a new A coil. Lucky for you copper prices have come way down here lately. If you do decide to repair it you still have an old coil with a weak point in the chain and risk loosing a compressor.... Those are not cheap! Hint...if you get the new coil, have the mechanic cut in an inspection plate/access panel for you while you have the old coil out.:rolleyes:

you might of clipped the copper line just on the coil if you can soft solder you can fix it.........but for now you better get out to that condenser,and isolate the 2 lines going into the condenser from the side that is atmospheric.the refrigerant that is in the oil will keep the compressor positive and dry for now.you will need a new dryer on the liquid line when the repair is made and a good tight re-vac.if you can get in there and define the area damage that will save you $$$$ on the repair to set up the pipe for the repair,and all the other stuff is for a servcie guy to do.word of mouth thru a neighbor might get you a tech on the side!

It may be an easy repair but a new coil does not cost that much. If you cut the tubing outside of the steel plates on each side I would say go ahead and fix it. If you cut a tube within the coil where the tubing is joined to the aluminum fins a repair will mess up the coil. You would have to rip off the fins to get to the tube that is damaged.

In my experience if the tube that is punctured is aluminum it would not be practical to repair.
Aluminum is difficult to weld and if a short cut is taken it might not last. The time it would take to weld aluminum properly would make a new coil much cheaper.

If it is copper and the spot is easy to get at a braze with silfoss would just take a few minutes.

Just so yous know, in areas where CFC regulations are enforced epoxy and soft solder are not permitted to be used on refrigeration lines.
Silver solder and silfoss must be used.

stay away from epoxy it is useless. The lines are most likely copper with aluminum fin covers. Remove the aluminum cover to expose the copper enough so that it can be cleaned and brazed. Any technician worth a dime can have the nitrogen flowing and the hole brazed in less than a hour. I hope that you ventilated the area well when the refrigerant escaped. There have been reports of massive tumors resulting from refrigerant exposure.

Bull Hockey on the tumor thing, that report was based upon rats and they had a chronic exposure 100 times more than any tech would be exposed to working full time in the field for years. They said that their little testicles swelled up with bad tumors though ouchola. I guess if someone were real sensitive to refrigerant it might do that to them hmmmm perhaps it would be safer to leave the area if there is a refrigerant leak lol.

The only thing I remember was when manufacturers of R134a first came out with this new gas, someone tried to put out a memo for their techs not to come in contact with or breathe even small amounts of the gas without warning the general public. They had a high incidence of heart attacks with it. That memo got out. I don't recall what ever became of it, but alot of people were ripping mad because they tried to slip one by. Silverbrite solder and epoxy are used by the OEM's unless something changed recently, although the epoxy thing I spoke of was pre JULY 1992 R-12, or the Montreal protocol.