Our LG AC runs all day but the cooling is weak and there's no error code, what's actually causing it and is it really the gas?
Our LG split AC runs literally all day but the cooling is weak, the house never really gets cold in peak summer, and there's no error code on the display at all. Everyone immediately says 'it needs gas', but I've read low refrigerant is usually a leak, not something that just runs out. What actually causes an LG AC to run fine but cool poorly with no code, and how do I tell if it's genuinely a refrigerant problem versus airflow or something else? I don't want to pay for a gas top-up that leaks out again in a month.
2 answers
You're right to be sceptical of the automatic 'it needs gas', on an LG that runs but cools weakly with no code, gas is usually not the first cause. The usual culprits are airflow and heat pickup: a clogged filter or dirty indoor coil choking the air, a dirty or sun-baked outdoor unit that can't reject heat, and, very common on villa installs with a long pipe run, refrigerant lines whose insulation has degraded or was poor to begin with, so the cold is lost between the outdoor unit and the room. That last one is underrated, cracked or missing lagging on the copper lines both wastes cooling and makes the lines sweat and drip. Fresh, intact AC pipe insulation on the line set genuinely restores cooling on those long runs. Refrigerant only enters the picture if there's a measured leak, and then the fix is finding and repairing the leak, not just topping up, because a top-up on a leaking system is gone in weeks. So check airflow, coils and the line insulation first, and only test the gas properly if those are clean and it still underperforms. If a code does appear, match it against the LG CH code list.
We chased a 'needs gas' AC for a year with repeated top-ups before someone actually found the leak and re-insulated the outdoor pipe run. Cooling came back and stayed. If someone just wants to top up the gas without checking the lines or looking for a leak, get someone else, you're paying to refill a system that's leaking.
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