If your car’s air conditioning has stopped working, your instinct is probably to bring the vehicle in for service. That’s not a bad thing, necessarily, as repairing an air conditioning unit can be complex. Still, in many cases, your air conditioning system may just need to be recharged. This is something you may be able to do on your own, at home.

First, you need to find out if your car uses R134 refrigerant, rather than the older R12 refrigerant. Your owner’s manual should tell you what kind of refrigerant your car uses. If you have R134, you can recharge your air conditioning.

To do so, you’ll need to buy pressurized freon and a pressure gauge to know how much freon you have in your air conditioning system. You can buy expensive professional equipment to do this, but it’s not especially economical. You can instead buy an air conditioner recharge kit, which is relatively inexpensive and easy to understand.

Generally, the kit will consist fo a can of refrigerant with a pressure gauge and hose built in. Follow the manufacturer’s instructions to refill your air conditioning. If that solves the problem, wonderful. If not, consider bringing your vehicle in for service.