Portable Air Con Gave Up Its Liquid - Repairable? (12,000btu Alaskan)

[Mad Ad]

My Alaskan 12,000 btu PAC decided it wasnt cooling any more, the blowers all work just no chilling.

Moving it I noticed an uncharacteristic puddle which smelled like machine oil, so I did a covers off inspection and found a good amount of oily liquid in the bottom, with the foam surrounding part of the compressor drenched in it.

Im guessing this machine oily stuff is all my refrigerant and somewhere along the piping its burst and repairing it myself is outside the scope of my abilities.

It doesnt help that its in the middle of a heatwave, Alaskan seems to have disappeared and comparable PACs are >£500 min now even if I do find somewhere in the country in stock.

These PAC are supposed to be sealed units, unlike car or domestic instals, the leak is not anywhere near the filling crimp point, is this even repairable? Who would do it? Who do I look to call? Your average HVAC engineer isnt going to be familiar with PACs surely?

Im in Hertfordshire if anyone knows anyone directly, otherwise Ill have to start blind calling random local HVAC people (who clearly are into split unit instals, not PAC repairs) so any help would be grateful at this point.

Thanks in advance!

 

[flameport]

Your average HVAC engineer isnt going to be familiar with PACs surely?

No reason why not - the basic operation is the same. Whether they want to get involved with such a device is another matter - probably not designed for any maintenance or repairs.
Finding the leak is one thing - fixing it is another, and then there is the question of how much and what type of refrigerant it requires.

However - the oily liquid is oil, the refrigerant is a gas and will have dispersed into the atmosphere.
If all of the oil has leaked out, it will be a fairly catastrophic failure, not just a minor leak.
Repair seems unlikely.