In 2019 Watchdog Dave Lieber took this photo of the meter that measured the Freon leak at his house. It was 8 pounds — an environmental hazard and a tremendous waste of money to fill it up again.If you get a second opinion from another company, you may get a completely different diagnosis. Yet another tech offers a third opinion. Who to believe?It happens a lot, but it especially happens when the federal government orders a new coolant to be used. Prices for the old coolant shoot up.
But there’s still widespread confusion in the industry about how to describe the new required refrigerants. To correct misinformation, the manufacturers are doing more and more classes, he said.Most of us have coolants such as R-22 or R-410A in our system. The new version is called R-454B. There’s also a version called R-32. Both are said to be environmentally friendly.
Michael Mushegan, owner of Gorman Mechanical, the AC company I’ve used for the past decade, asks a good question.He says the new setup is, in fact, a propane-based refrigerant. But it gets expensive. Arrisola says the average bill his customers pay for an updated system is $12,000. You can’t simply convert your old system to take the new coolant. You have to replace the entire guts of the old system.Mushegan told me his plan. “I don’t want that refrigerant in my house. This is me, personally. So I changed out over in the winter when we were slower. I changed out my last unit with R-410A.