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JHC Cooling and Heating — HVAC in Houston, TX
HVAC Glossary · Refrigerants

What is R-22 (Freon)?

R-22, also called HCFC-22 and widely known by the brand name Freon, is an ozone-depleting refrigerant used in most U.S. home air conditioners and heat pumps installed before 2010. Under the Clean Air Act phaseout, U.S. production and import of R-22 ended January 1, 2020. Existing systems may keep running on recovered or stockpiled supply.

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Why it matters to you

If your Greater Houston home still has an R-22 system, it can keep running, but a major leak repair depends on recovered or stockpiled refrigerant. That makes a large refrigerant repair on an R-22 system hard to justify and a strong reason to start planning for replacement.

Practical guidance

Check the outdoor unit's data plate for "R-22" or "HCFC-22". R-410A and the newer A2L refrigerants cannot be added to an R-22 system, so if yours needs a major refrigerant repair, use it as a prompt to compare repair against replacement.

Sources

  1. U.S. EPA — Residential Air Conditioning and the Phaseout of HCFC-22: What You Need to Know
  2. U.S. EPA — Phaseout of Class II Ozone-Depleting Substances

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