[Richard and Rhonda]

Les,

Refilling the gas, refrigerant, in the refrigerator is NOT as simple as adding gas to an automobile AC. First, the fridge comes with a sealed system from the factory. There is no fitting to attach the gauges to. A fitting has to be soldered into the low pressure side of the system. Second, once the fitting is installed, the system must be attached to a vacuum pump and left under vacuum for at least an hour. Any water or moisture in the system is a disaster. And finally the gas must be weighed into the system. Guessing at it just using the pressures is not the best way to do it. Finally, although the fridge uses 134a and car AC units use 134a, the two systems operate at very different pressures. For example, the low side for a car system will typically be between 20 and 35 psi, the low side for a refrigerator will usually be between 4 and 6 psi. I pulled those numbers from memory, but they are close. If you overfill a fridge with gas it will not get cold enough. If you underfill a car system it will freeze. The fittings on a car system are not compatible with the fittings on house AC or refrigerators on purpose to prevent someone from using car equipement to work on household systems.

This is not a do it yourself job if you do not have some experience with refrigeration systems. I learned to work on the systems because I was curious. It helped that the theory I learned in Chem Eng classes was very useful when I took the test for the refrigeration license.