Refrigerant Leak Repair · Bay Area

When a box quits, it’s usually a leak

A refrigerant leak is the number one reason a commercial cooler stops holding temp, and it’s also the one repair most handymen can’t legally or properly touch. We’re EPA-certified (EPA #1279674151528, Section 608) to recover the old charge, pin down where it’s escaping, repair the sealed system, and put the right charge back in.

The law requires EPA certification just to handle refrigerant. Recovering the charge, locating the leak, brazing copper, evacuating, and weighing in a new charge also needs gauges, a recovery machine, and a torch that a general repair guy doesn’t have on the truck. That’s why a leaking unit so often gets a shrug and a “time to replace it.” Sometimes that’s the honest answer. Plenty of times it isn’t, and we’ll tell you which.

How we run it

1. Diagnostic. $75 service call, full read of the system. Waived if you go ahead with the repair.
2. Leak test, scaled to the unit:

Test	What it covers	Ballpark
Basic	Nitrogen pressure, inspect the visible joints	from $150
Full	Coil sweep with infrared/ultrasonic detector, nitrogen, soap-bubble on connections	up to $400
UV dye	Added when the leak is hiding	+$200

3. Repair the sealed system. Braze the leak shut, swap failed parts like the filter-drier.
4. Evacuate and recharge to the correct refrigerant and exact weight. Recharge runs $200 to $400 depending on the refrigerant type and how much the system holds.

If we have to install a piercing valve to get into the system, that’s added labor plus the part. Everything gets quoted in writing before any torch comes out.

Reading it before we open it

A warm box isn’t always a leak, and guessing wrong burns the customer’s money. So we read the gauges first. A low charge, a blocked cap tube, and a real leak all look like “not cold” from the front, but they show up differently on the meter.

We shut the compressor down and let the high and low sides equalize. A healthy system settles in ten to fifteen minutes. If it crawls or never meets, that’s a restriction, not a leak. Then we read against spec: condenser around 90 to 110 degrees, low side roughly 0 to 10 psi, high side 90 to 110 psi. A low charge reads low on both sides with the evaporator only frosted at the inlet. An overcharge reads high on both sides. A full restriction barely frosts anything and pulls the low side into a vacuum. Compressor amps confirm it: 0.3 to 0.8 is normal, over 1.0 hints at moisture, under 0.3 points at a restriction starving the compressor. Ten minutes with the gauges is the difference between brazing the real leak and replacing a compressor that was fine.

Fix it or replace it

Sealed-system work is the priciest repair on a commercial box. On a True reach-in, a Turbo Air prep table, or a Perlick back-bar fridge, it usually pays off against the cost of new equipment. On a cheap residential fridge, it often doesn’t, and we’ll say so instead of selling you a job that won’t earn back. We also handle modern hydrocarbon (R290) units, so Atosa and newer self-contained boxes are no problem.

We service True, Turbo Air, Atosa, Perlick, Beverage-Air, Continental, and Traulsen, plus any Embraco or Tecumseh compressor system, as an independent shop. Dispatched from San Ramon, 7 days a week, 7AM to 7PM, with the same number for after-hours emergencies, because a warm box is a clock on your inventory.

Need a leak chased down? Call (925) 999-4095. If the trouble turns out to be HVAC instead of refrigeration, our sister shop Bay Area HVAC Service can pick it up.