Every air conditioner out there uses refrigerant as a cooling means. Air conditioners do not actually remove heat, they just move it—from where it isn’t wanted to somewhere else. Similarly, refrigerators, freezers, and anything else that needs to get rid of unwanted heat use a refrigerant cycle and refrigerant to do this.
There are over 100 different chemicals used as refrigerants, mostly depending upon the type of equipment that’s using it. You may have heard the trade name Freon—that’s a specific refrigerant produced by Chemours, formerly DuPont. Every refrigerant has an R- number, so we can tell them apart, and there are different groups of refrigerants depending upon their makeup.
If your home’s central air is more than 10 years old, it likely has R-22 in it. This refrigerant was used for about 50 years, but because it contains chlorine—which contributes to the damage of the ozone layer—installation of R-22 in new units was banned in 2010. Over the last 10 years, its production has been slowly phased out, and now producing and importing R-22 is banned.
These days, it’s not uncommon for some contractors and “sales techs” to tell homeowners that the use of R-22 is banned, or that if their air conditioner is low on refrigerant, it cannot be refilled and must be replaced. Both of these tactics to get you to replace your unit are totally wrong.
There is a stockpile of R-22 in the industry, and contractors turn in the used R-22 that we take out when we replace equipment or remove it from a unit to work on it. This R-22 is then purified to AHRI standards and can be resold. This supply will last a number of years. There are also well over a dozen alternative refrigerants that work like R-22 that can also be used. One popular gas was invented by an Indianapolis company who recently sold to Chemours. So if you are leery of what you are being told, call us—we’ll always give you the truth!
Current central air conditioners use R-410a, which is a good gas. It does, however, have a high GWP (global warming potential), so sometime in the future, it will be phased out of use as well. It hasn’t been decided exactly when, and the equipment manufacturers haven’t agreed on what will replace it, so the situation could get interesting. At Appel, we always stay up-to-date and informed on the latest industry news and regulations, so you can trust us to steer you the right way.