home A/C and R-22 - cost per lb

[HeyBub]

Guess it depends on what the job is.

[krw]

Not really, they're the same; the one I accepted. ;-)

[ssergair]

[ssergair]

[ssergair]

[Ralph Mowery]

The thread is old, but someone is ripping off the people. On ebay you can get a 30 pound jug for around $ 400 to $ 500 . That is around $ 15 per pound.

[Stormin Mormon]

The thread is old, but someone is ripping off the people. On ebay you can get a 30 pound jug for around $ 400 to $ 500 . That is around $ 15 per pound.

[tdfeige9865]

As of April 26, 2013, R22 has drastically increased in price for the indust ry, if you you're lucky, you can work with your A/C tech and he'll sell it to you wholesale if there's labor work involved in the sale. It's still goi ng to run you $80/lb and even a small system is gonna set you back $500. Ho pe this is a helpful message and I don't know who is regulating the costs o f R22, but it's more than DOUBLED in the past year or so.

[Stormin Mormon]

[trader4]

stry, if you you're lucky, you can work with your A/C tech and he'll sell i t to you wholesale if there's labor work involved in the sale. It's still g oing to run you $80/lb

$80 a pound wholesale? R22 is on Ebay from multiple sources for $16 lb. A whole 30 lb cylinder shipped is $480

and even a small system is gonna set you back $500. Hope this is a helpful message

Not so much

and I don't know who is regulating the costs of R22, but it's more than DOUBLED in the past year or so.

No one is regulating the costs. But the EPA has restricted it's use, banned it for new ACs, it's being phased out. But if you know about R22 and AC costs, I would think you'd know that.

[Jon Edwards]

back $500. Hope this is a helpful message and I don't know who is regulating the costs of R22, but it's more than DOUBLED in the past year or so.

Continuing to operate an old R-22 air conditioner is fiscally foolish when you realize that the new 18 SEER units use half the energy.

[trader4]

you back $500. Hope this is a helpful message and I don't know who is regu lating the costs of R22, but it's more than DOUBLED in the past year or so.

While I agree that if it comes to any significant repair, it's time to scrap it, I don't think that translates into it being foolish to continue to operate an R22 system. It depends on the cost of electricity and how much you use it. If you're in a climate and/or situation where it's not used that much, say for a vacation house that you only use occasionally, I don't think it's foolish to keep operating it. Also to justify the much higher cost of an

18 SEER compared to say a 14 SEER unit, you'd have to have high energy costs and/or a lot of usage. It can cost $1500 more for one of those 18 SEER.

[Stormin Mormon]

While I agree that if it comes to any significant repair, it's time to scrap it, I don't think that translates into it being foolish to continue to operate an R22 system. It depends on the cost of electricity and how much you use it. If you're in a climate and/or situation where it's not used that much, say for a vacation house that you only use occasionally, I don't think it's foolish to keep operating it. Also to justify the much higher cost of an

18 SEER compared to say a 14 SEER unit, you'd have to have high energy costs and/or a lot of usage. It can cost $1500 more for one of those 18 SEER.

[HVAC Guy]

About the price increase, see here:

=================== February 15th, 2013 R-22 refrigerant (freon) price Increases in 2013

The price of R-22 refrigerant has skyrocketed in the last 6 months. Due to government regulations to ?phase out? the production of ?ozone depleting? chemicals like Freon, production has continued to decrease and has costs to skyrocket. R-22 refrigerant is 4 times more expensive than it was just 6 months ago and is expected to continue to climb.

Due to this, contractors have bought it at an alarming rate and supplies are greatly reduced. ?Panic Buying? have forced some vendors across the country to limit the amount of R-22 contractors can purchase in a month.

As the cost of R-22 rises, the cost of the new replacement Freon, R410a continues to drop. It is a simple case of supply and demand.

Federal regulations call for a 90% reduction of production of R-22 by

2015 and to be completely obsolete by 2020. What this means to consumers is outrages Freon related repair costs and eventually no choice but to replace their HVAC equipment.

Most air conditioners manufactured before 2010 us the old R-22 refrigerant.

While a R-410a unit can just as easily devel> Continuing to operate an old R-22 air conditioner is fiscally

I thought that R-22 was more efficient than R134 or R410 (less of a load on the compressor to achieve the same heat-transfer effect).

In any case, it's looking more and more that home owners are going the DIY route by recharging their leaking home R22 units with propane (and I know that you so-called pro's in alt.hvac will just love it when that happens).

And I don't see why not, given that the auto-ignition temp. of these refrigeration-grade propane mixes is higher than R134 and R410, and from an electrical energy usage standpoint, using propane seems to cut that down by 40%.

What I don't really understand is the safety hazzard issue of using propane.

If you have a small leak (the sort of leak that is typical in an HVAC system) it's going to take days or weeks for the system to de-pressurize to ambient pressure, and the relatively small amount of propane in the system is going to dissapate in the typical home during that time (if the leak is inside the house).

If you have a furnace malfunction (blower-motor burn-out, fan-belt breaks, over-heat cut-off malfunction) then again would you ever have a condition where a run-away plenum temperature would bake the evap coil to the point of combustion?

Could you get combustion happening *inside* the compressor due to some sort of mechanical compressor malfunction?

Some sort of accidental dammage to AC lines (either inside or outside the house) could release all of the propane within minutes or seconds - is this the combustion hazzard that the HVAC industry / gov't is worried about? Is this the only practical safety issue with using propane for home A/C recharging?

[Nancy Belosi]

I think I'll buy 90 lbs or so and store it right next to my stash of 100 watt incandescent bulbs.

[Stormin Mormon]

If propane and air are mixed in the system, the explosion can be dangerous. AC systems are designed for totally non flammable refrigerants. if there is some air in the system, and the happy home owner adds propane, the resulting explosive mix can, well, explode.

In any case, it's looking more and more that home owners are going the DIY route by recharging their leaking home R22 units with propane (and I know that you so-called pro's in alt.hvac will just love it when that happens).

And I don't see why not, given that the auto-ignition temp. of these refrigeration-grade propane mixes is higher than R134 and R410, and from an electrical energy usage standpoint, using propane seems to cut that down by 40%.

What I don't really understand is the safety hazzard issue of using propane.

If you have a small leak (the sort of leak that is typical in an HVAC system) it's going to take days or weeks for the system to de-pressurize to ambient pressure, and the relatively small amount of propane in the system is going to dissapate in the typical home during that time (if the leak is inside the house).

If you have a furnace malfunction (blower-motor burn-out, fan-belt breaks, over-heat cut-off malfunction) then again would you ever have a condition where a run-away plenum temperature would bake the evap coil to the point of combustion?

Could you get combustion happening *inside* the compressor due to some sort of mechanical compressor malfunction?

Some sort of accidental dammage to AC lines (either inside or outside the house) could release all of the propane within minutes or seconds - is this the combustion hazzard that the HVAC industry / gov't is worried about? Is this the only practical safety issue with using propane for home A/C recharging?

[Nate Nagel]

I would think that it would be possible for a leak to not only let propane out but let air in if it's on the low side, making that a not unlikely scenario. It should be perfectly safe IF THERE ARE NO LEAKS but do you want to bet that that is never going to happen on your system?

nate

[Stormin Mormon]

I don't have any verifiable proof, or examples to point to. But, I'm not going to volunteer to have my AC system exploded for science.

I would think that it would be possible for a leak to not only let propane out but let air in if it's on the low side, making that a not unlikely scenario. It should be perfectly safe IF THERE ARE NO LEAKS but do you want to bet that that is never going to happen on your system?

nate

[clare]

systems are designed for totally non flammable refrigerants. if there is some air in the system, and the happy home owner adds propane, the resulting explosive mix can, well, explode.

But if there is air in the system the owner has other problems. That's why a system is "evacuated" before recharging - with ANY refrigerant.

[clare]

How low does the low side of a refrigeration unit go???? Are they not supposed to run somewhere between 40 and 85 PSI??? Not much change of getting ANY air into a system that has enough gas in it to function at all. In fact virtually impossible to get air into anything but an OPEN system (one with a severe leak or one with a slow leak that has existed for a long time - system totally non-functional)