Because it means you need a new air conditioner.

Wait, let me rewind for a minute. I forgot that a good plumber seduces their client with technical know-it-all-ness before dropping the new install bomb like that. So let’s start at the beginning.

R-22 is the short form name for chlorodifluoromethane (I don’t know why they shortened it.). A gas used regularly as a refrigerant. Introduced in the 50’s, this became the gold standard until its phase out in 2010. Basically, R-22 was found to be a major detriment to our ozone layer and numerous countries around the world began developing legislature against it as early as the 1980’s.

Every year since 2010 manufactures have been limited in how much R-22 they’ve been allowed to produce. This in turn has been raising the costs of the remaining gas in the market. Projected time lines (don’t quote me on this) suggest that by 2020, 95% of R-22 freon production that use to exist will be gone. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean bye bye R-22 as there are ways to recycle “dirty” gas and re-use it. But with such short summers and the material and labour it takes to “clean” R-22, I highly doubt you will see many companies in Regina putting forth such effort.

But Brenden, what does this mean to me as a homeowner? It means you need a new air conditioner. (Now it all makes sense!) Investing large sums of money into an R-22 system can become very self defeating as R-22 becomes increasingly more expensive and less available as years go by. While we all want to imagine our heating and cooling systems can make another season, when it comes time, sometimes it’s better to cut your losses and invest in new equipment. $500 to fix up a leaking R-22 air conditioner could potentially be a 25% down payment on a new R410-A system with full warranty.

If you’re curious where your air conditioner fits into all this freon mumbo jumbo I recommend calling us out for an air conditioner maintenance (Normally $120+tax but if you tell us you read about it on here we’ll offer it for $99+tax, WHAT A DEAL!). It allows us the chance to go over your system head to toe. From there we can sit down with you and let you know how your air conditioner is currently operating and what the likely timeline is until you need an air conditioner replacement.

Feel free to reach out to us at 306-519-3722.

Thanks,

Brenden