Is vapor coming out of my apartment AC a refrigerant leak?
Vapor coming from an air conditioner can indicate a serious system issue, but technicians often cannot confirm a leak without evacuating and recharging the entire system first. This guesswork leaves tenants facing thousands of dollars in diagnostic and repair costs before the actual problem is even found.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Turning off the AC unit
- 2Adding freon repeatedly to temporarily restore cooling
- 3Considering a complete system recharge to measure refrigerant loss
- 4Planning to remove sheetrock to access and inspect hidden line junction points
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“Hello, I live in an apartment and have been having issues with AC. Is this a refrigerant leak? I’ve turned off the AC but it still has vapor coming out.”source ↗
“If it’s a leak, is it possible to run the fan to get circulation going in my apartment or would that be a health issue?”source ↗
“Last night I noticed it was not keeping up again, so I called them back to see about doing leak testing.”source ↗
“They proposed that we "draw out all of the freon and recharge from scratch, 20 lbs, total, that way we can see what we are dealing with" becuase he doesn't know for sure how much freon is currently in there.”source ↗
“So I would be at $2500 total cost and would not have even found a leak yet.”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 3Is water dripping from the car AC normal?
- 8Is my outside unit leaking oil or condensation?
- 3Cool air leaking from gap around AC copper pipe in attic
- 7Is the black stuff in my air conditioner mold or dust?
- 2Is smoke coming out of this engine part normal?
- 3How to tell if a coolant leak is a water pump failure