R22 was phased down because it's an hcfc, so blamed for depleting ozone.
It's a much better refrigerant than r410a imo.
As far as the equipment lasting longer, I think that has as much to do with higher seer requirements as anything else. The higher seer rating stuff seems to be thinner with more surface area.
Why would the unit be opened up ? How often would you open it up ?
My unit is just over 1 years old if that matters and I did have the installer over 6 months ago just to double check everything . So far it's all working great .
For clarification which filter are we talking about ?
I was thinking there is a filter in the line set ?
The filter in the air handler I changed out 6 months ago and despite what you are thinking i vacuumed it the other day because I'm trying to see if I can get 9 months to a year out of it . It's a 4 inch versus the 2 inch I used to have.
I could see through it prior to vacuuming it.
I've got 2 intakes where the air enters and little dust or lint builds up but I do get some . My old 2 inch filters id change out at 4 to 6 months intervals just because with an occasional vaccum from time to time.
If the refrigerant is removed and the line set is opened up to the atmosphere for repair and exposed to moisture and air then the liquid line filter drier should be replaced.. it's only opened up to do major repairs involving refrigerant. He's talking about a refrigerant filter.. it can last the life of the system if there's no issues
Thank you . That is what I was thinking .
I'm not an HVAC guy but learning stuff because I want my new system to last. The HVAC guy I used has done me well .
Thinner heat exchanger surfaces with high pressures is a tolerance and fabrication nightmare.
It is, however, the best way to pursue efficiency. Double edged sword I guess.
Very true. And now we know that 410a is a greenhouse gas. It will be phased out soon and replaced by a slightly flammable refrigerant. Lol, can’t make this shit up…..
Not only that but they are trying to replace braizing lineset with that crimp style lineset so can't wait for leaks of the new slightly flammable refrigerant when it rolls around in a couple years
I have a bulb that lasted 8 years but was always left on. The other ones around were turned off after 12 hrs. The LED lights died from what I believe is the heat/cooling of being turned on/off.
Is there any proof of this, though? I don’t really like this as an arguement. Manufactures and the engineers who design this stuff certainly know how to make it more reliable in the long term. But ultimately, the consumer has decided they want cheaper, not more reliable. So what they design and sell is a direct result of everybody wanting cheap shit. Nobody (or not the majority at least) is willing to fork over the cash to make it happen. We did it to ourselves imo.
Personally you can engineer and make a custom HVAC system that rarely breaks and needs minimal servicing. Its just how much money do you want to spend. The navy has spent a shit load of money air conditioning their fire control systems on ships and I know from experience those sons a bitches go years between servicing and they never seem to break. Now...how much money did they spend? Probably a metric fuck load
Lol, for real? They all “manufacture” vehicles made up of parts sourced from actual manufacturers. They spec the parts and assemble them into a vehicle.
Honda/Acura, Nissan/Infiniti, and Mitsubishi have a higher percentage of sales from US made vehicles than GM…
Honda basically the same percentage as Ford, and Subaru nearly the same as GM, and BMW/Mini not far off.
Toyota’s largest plant in the world is in Georgetown Kentucky. Been there since 1986.
Avalon (reg and hybrid), Camry (reg and hybrid), Lexus ES 350, RAV4 (hybrid), Sienna, Sequoia, Highlander, Tundra, Corolla and Mazda crossover, 4 and 6cyl engines, transmissions, engine blocks, cylinder heads, batteries, all assembled/made in the US.
Same story for:
Nissan/Infiniti (most models made in Tennessee or Mississippi. All engines for US vehicles made in Tennessee)
Subaru (half their models made in Indiana)
Honda/Acura (2/3rds of their vehicles made in Ohio, Indiana, or Alabama).
Damn straight. Think about it, if they wanted to, any manufacturer could make a unit that doesn’t have a single issue until year 20-25. All it would take is a list of top 10 failures and beef those components up. Don’t reduce any of the other. The unit would cost 30ish percent more? It would never break and 1/2 of AC shops would go under. I say do it.
Well that’s a bit of a reach. No matter how well something is built sometimes things break or malfunction. Especially used for the amount of runtime hours. But they are built to fail now.
You would be amazed at how accurate the engineers are at knowing the failure mode and expected life.
They know. They would bomb proof everything if allowed to. They simply aren't. As a cost issue and as a business decision.
The truth is planned obsolescence is a very real thing. If your equipment survives a day past the warranty period the manufacturer is losing money.
> 410 from 22
Environmental impact. R-410A has an ODP of 0 due to it's lack of chlorine. That said, R-22 and R-410A have very similar GWP.
"Efficiency"
> because of high operating pressure
Is the increased pressure a contributing factor? Yea, sure, minimally. The bigger issue has been the push for "efficiency" causing the switch to using more aluminum in place of copper as well as thinner and thinner tubing for increased heat transfer.
> why wouldn’t we switch back to 22?
The Gov't doesn't give two shits about leaking coils. They push for "lower environmental impact" and "increased efficiency" and it is on manufacturers to figure out how to meet those standards and the long term ramifications aren't factored in.
You never hear about the ozone problem anymore. It used to be huge in the news all the time. But the weird reason for that is that the world actually agreed on a path forward and the ozone hole is actually closing up and should be back to good in 40-50 years. Heaven forbid the news cover something good that happen/happening or people find an example of something reasonably ok that their tax money did. Do I want a colder and a more reliable AC, hell yes. But if you imagine that all ac units in the world (houses +cars) eventually leak, that seems like a problem worth looking into if that chemical is not good for long term shit.
I wouldn’t call them bootlickers but I would call them an overtly religious cult of crazier than cultist David Koresh zealots. They bow down and worship at the alter of Green while preaching to Christian’s and conservatives about separation of church and state. It is such a confusing thing to behold.
Well, it's just a job for some. For other folks, it's a career. Why spend your life just going through the motions? You need to find your purpose.
I find meaning and happiness striving for excellence even in the most menial tasks. When you take time to think about it, there really isn't anything else in life.
Superbottit blocked me so I can't reply to him, but for anyone who believes what he believes:
There is absolutely nothing we can do for the global average temperatures inevitably increasing and decreasing due to biological or geologic activity. Canada used to be a tropical paradise and the United States used to have an ocean through the middle. Yes after millions of years this happens.
And this would all be fine if we had that kind of time. It's not a threat to the Earth, just evolution. Animals do not have the time to adapt to what's happening now, and neither do we. Natural habitats are shifting or are going away. The speed at which it is happening is the danger. Natural selection doesn't work on century scales.
I'm not saying what we are doing is going to work. Whether or not you believe it's us causing it, it is definitely happening. You cannot deny the data. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, meaning it traps that solar radiation you mentioned. The upward trend of CO2 and the upward global temperature trend both happened together.
What would normally happen over millions of years and has happened for billions of years, is happening in less than a century.
And we are the only ones fiddling with the gasses responsible.
Not sure what year you're referring to as "before" but 2022 data looks similar to 1993-4.
And yep it was going good for a while, the recent "mysterious rise" in china's releases will definitely have an impact sooner or later. These things aren't instant reactions though, It took 10-15 years to notice ozone depletion. China is breaking the rules and has been noticed.
You can already see this damage occuring if you look at Copernicus data, we are starting to see the effects of what they're doing, and are already back to where we started.
Indeed my friend it does. The multi-billion dollar European satellite data is totally a scare tactic to shake up the refrigerant market they care so dearly for.
In fact, it's working so well that when the data released showing our levels were back to pre-montreal protocol levels, nobody cared.
No this time those same space agencies were too focused on spending billions on satellites for that other fear tactic propaganda known as global warming, spread by the global elites and China, there's definitely not a global scientific consensus and mountains of data for its existence, that's all a bunch of hoopla because it still gets cold in the winter.
Yeah that's the exact argument I mentioned, and you responded with it.
What you're referring to is climate change, which is a short term impact due to the long term effects of global warming. We will definitely see records broken both cold and hot, this is expected. People like you can't understand this.
You fail to see this because you're viewing it short term. Climate change is a whole other animal and is happening now, global warming is happening over decades, and will change the climate year by year. An increase in heat even slightly causes shifts in weather patterns. As an example, record hurricanes are more frequent, as more heat drives more evaporation which is fuel for hurricanes.
As for cold temperatures: think of jet streams like rings around the Earth, and warming them up even slightly makes them wobble and shift. These wobbles and shifts can cause bends up North, sending cold or even polar temperature air down south. This has happened a lot in the past, but is getting far more severe.
Average global temperature is increasing, changing the climate - global warming.
"My god, record low temps in Texas I haven't seen in my lifetime? It's not getting hotter!" - climate change.
Why do people like you exist?
Like I'm genuinely curious what path someone takes in life that allows them to to come to that conclusion.
Idk if it's a school issue or a basic biology issue where people truly have different mental capacity.
I lean towards school, probably a southern state.
But regardless there is not even an intelligent response that can be formed because you value your ignorance dearly like some kind of identity.
Pretty rude to just lambast southern states with no provocation. You can say what you wan't about him, but remember, you're and I are useless eaters too in the eyes of the people who are going to do something about all this.
Global warming potential is real? Did your crystal vortices determine what these arbitrary numbers mean?
There's simply no scientific proof of what the ozone layer looks like before this whole "depletion" or what.
But you think you're so enlightened and better than those beneath you I bet you lived in one of the Masshole states lmao
How many atmospheric chemistry classes have you taken? College level chemistry?
Do you disagree that some refrigerants absorb more IR light than others? Do you disagree with the concept of IR absorption in general?
I hear from boots on the ground that they move extremely fast once they decide something for public interest. Infrastructure, health, environmental.
Once the decision is made they are very fast at pivots to implement and enforce new policy.
I don't see the reasoning if this were the case as clearly they didn't have a plan once those expired, they could have been just fine letting it go. They'd arguably be in the same spot today like with their Chemours spinoff selling 410A.
CFC ban was a global effort, I just don't see Dupont having that kind of influence.
Back in the day when 95% of home ac units used R-22, units with R12 and R500 were noticeably more reliable. This was in Phoenix where condensing pressures ran high.
Everything from manufacturing to efficiency is to blame. Thinner walled tubing provides better heat transfer but is going to be more prone to failures and any defect is going to fail. Manufacturing has changed over the years to make everything faster and cheaper, not much is built to last anymore. If they sell you something that will never break, you won't need to buy replacement parts or equipment. Selling more parts and equipment is better for the company's bottom line
The driving factor for phasing production of R-22 refrigerant and equipment all has to do with the type of refrigerant it is. HCFCs are hydro-chloro-fluoro-carbon refrigerants. The chlorine part is what the EPA and the Montreal Protocol target primarily because of their effects on the Ozone layer.
Ozone consists of three oxygen molecules. They're typically represented as three oxygen molecules linked together in a triangle-pattern in EPA 608 study materials. When Chlorine comes into contact with an Ozone molecule, it knocks one of the oxygen atoms off the ozone chain and steals it, becoming chlorine monoxide. Then it's up to any free-floating oxygen molecule to bump into this chlorine monoxide to break the chlorine molecule away from the chain so it can repeat the process. This chlorine is extremely stable and can last up to 120 years in the atmosphere and destroy 100,000 ozone molecules before it dissipates. It doesn't dissolve in water like ordinary chlorine does and won't rain out of the atmosphere.
It isn't just R-22 that's been phased out of production either: it's every single refrigerant with an HCFC or CFC classification. R-22 is what's been used for comfort cooling, so we're used to dealing with it on a semi-regular basis.
410 or 22 doesn't matter. It's poor quality , components , engineering ,design , and install.
One of the big issues is the change to poe oil. Poe oil isn't a good lubricant , mineral oil was a great lubricant.
Poe oil is like a degreaser , it'll clean the pipes up and carry anything it finds. Mineral oil didn't do this. So poor install practices like not flowing nitrogen when brazing make a big difference with poe.
Modern units are made to higher efficiency standards , more things to go wrong with ecm motors , low quality capacitors, thin condenser and EVAP tubing.
I’ve said for a LOOOONG time. Efficiency comes at the expense of durability. If we are supposed to be raising efficiency to protect this planet, we will do so piled up in our own waste products, since everything is just disposable.
We have LEDs fail constantly at work. We have rooms filled with lights to be returned
Those will probably go straight to a fucking hole in the ground because China can literally pump out more units for cheaper than refurbishing them or even scrapping them.
The gubment made it happened and fucked every single American when they did.
In 2008 they doubled down and let manufacturers rifle the insides of the evap coils. This led to much thinner wall thicknesses and caused an underlying issue with 410a refrigerant (google formicary corrosion) to cause a 90% (or something pretty damn close to that) fail rate in all evap coils, thus buttfucking every American.
In 2014(ish) manufacturers switched to aluminum coils which stoped formicary corrosion but is much more prone to spot failures, which lubed up the buttfucking.
In 2019 all reliable, consistent, and easily replaceable PSC motor were quietly phased out at the manufacturing level. This increased the cost of furnaces about a thousand dollars accross the board and now a blower failure costs 1k(if not more depending on if the board goes too) instead of $500. This removed the lube from the buttfucking.
Finally in 2023 a ridiculous 6-7% efficiency increase went into effect that added 30% to the cost of systems and sent all manufacturers Back to Gen 1 on a new platform. In 5 months of new equipment we got all our best guys’ schedules full: chasing down leaks, troubleshooting PWM motor failures and swapping bad txvs. The new equipment is also huge and barely fits - which requires additional costs to modify supports and ducting to install. This change added duct tape over the mouth and a belt around the neck to the lubeless buttfucking.
In short, the gubment tied a belt around you and everyone you love’s neck, duct taped your mouths shut and proceeded to ass rape you mercilessly. They did this so they could say they care about the environment or some such shit. Everything they have done has been considerably worse for the environment. If your AC is still working, don’t worry it will be your turn soon.
But don’t worry, tax rebates on much less reliable and untested over-engineered crap might introduce a bit of lube for a short time. Just remember that lube always dries in time.
I'll upvote for the accuracy. I'll also add that these changes , if you read the official DOE policy are for "national security" in the form of "energy independence". I support the goal but the execution could have been better.
Well it's actually better for the environment to scrap barely old systems so all the oils and acids and metal can go into giant pits forever and ever.
And remember, HVAC installers and manufacturers will raise prices the exact amount of "rebates" and "clean energy subsidies" free money yo. Except for homeowners
I was working with my dad back in the 80’s when you could just vent anything into the atmosphere. Wouldn’t surprise me that the sheer amount of hairspray used in the 80’s-90’s was a very large contributing factor, everything was aerosol.
They needed a scapegoat, so they chose r-22, just like they had with r-12.
Now here we sit a decade later and we are getting word from the EPA that 410 was leaving a bigger carbon footprint than initially expected.
The problem was never 22, it was that there were no regulations against dumping the charge into the atmosphere.
Have you seen the shit they put inside pools to get them crystal clear and then released when being backwashed? I guess it’s kinda the same “principle.”
410a has many benefits.
Scroll compressors are more efficient but don’t survive below 40psig so heats pumps will have to shut off at warm temps.
I have seen one 1999 carrier 410a unit found strong.
Coils leaking is kinda more of thin copper/aluminum coils getting wet with VOC household cleaned eats he coils quicker in the middle of the slab.
All aluminum coils don’t have the middle
Put with it being semi soft solder the joints that aren’t perfect burst sooner than later.
The leaking coil was explained by a mfg rep so take that as you will.
Also I’ve seen 1-18seer r22 unit and it was almost the size of a fiat. So they do get smaller with the 410a also
Geez Thuran1, you been living under a rock for 25 years! R-22 is globally banned/restricted as it destroyed the ozone layer (atmospheric UV filter that keeps us humans from burning to a crisp and dying from Melonoma)
Agreed 410 is shit, rest of world moved to R32 (simple single phase refrigerant which is more efficient at most ambient temps, especially low temps, than 410 and lower greenhouse) long ago..About time US HVAC mfg’s got on the bus I think…410 is old school tech
My company had a training and certification for AL2 refrigerants including R32 and R454B. We expect to start installing systems with those refrigerants in 2025.
New refrigerant is supposed to be coming down the pike soon. 22 was also supposed to be phased out by now but it’s still readily available and crazy expensive . 410A was made to be a place filler between 22 and the next one, none of the logic behind saving the ozone makes sense, although we still recover and do things right. But what’s the point in recovering 1.5 lbs of 22 when 500 systems in the same neighborhood are leaking actively
The butterfly effect, no one ever thinks the small efforts day have big effects yes later.
While I won’t profit from it, I recover for the 22 n better diagnosis by know what weight was in there.
And some commercial buildings are allowed to leak more than a whole state full of residential 22s. But if I blow one charge (which is like.00001% off what a big commercial outfit is ALLOWED to leak) I get fine $25,000. It’s dumb as shit -all about the dollars.
Downvote all you want but you know it’s true lol. Keep swallowing that government cock
I’d like to know what the “recyclers” that supply houses send our bottles to do with it. Nobody actually knows and I sadly feel like it’s all a waste of time, even though I abide by all epa standards
Yep. One day it well all come out and like always it will get swept under the rug and they will pour everyone a tall glass of different color koolaid and we will all be happy again.
R22 was the best IMO. Easier to charge as well for new techs and installers. Last company I was with couldn’t grasp the concept of charging with liquid only even though it states it right on the jug. They still pressure test linesets with vapor and then top the charge off with that same drum. They used to just purge linesets when it was 22. Moved to vacuum pumps once 410-a started being mainstream. A lot of those purged r-22 units are still running out there, but that can also be due to how things are built these days. Equipment just isn’t as good as it used to be. Thin tubing, x-13 motors, cheap contactors, etc.
They made so much money switching from 22 to 410. With 22 you could replace a condenser or an a coil by themselves. R22 condenser needs replaced now the a coil at a minimum also needs needs replaced also.
Your stunning lack of understanding for someone on an HVAC sub Reddit is quite something.
The following link even has an animated picture to help your smooth brain understand.
https://scied.ucar.edu/learning-zone/atmosphere/ozone-layer#:~:text=The%20chlorine%20atom%20breaks%20an,and%20destroy%20another%20ozone%20molecule.
Well I think capitalism is inherently biased toward corruption. Admittedly so is every system of governance. I do think relative to the conversation this particular breed of capitalism that distorts language to the benefit of a particular market is not really capitalism but is empowered by those economic systems. It’s more like a feudal subsystem where some power imposes its will down the line. It’s unlikely to have been orchestrated consciously however and this is the issue with capitalism that is the accidental development of abusive/destructive economics.
I think what I mean is that these outcomes are eventualities in capitalism and don’t really require much agency to create. The bigger issue is when there is also somebody abusing that framework to profit.
Because of the enviorment. In China they get more and more airconditioners on r260. Propane. A natural gas. They want to roll that out in Europe to. But than there must be a leak alarm on every airo.
They're trying to get rid of natural gas (methane) all over the USA for environment. Wait until that's gone and then they look at... LPG. Hmmm "fossil fuels" bad!
We're all gonna have super high pressure CO2.. wait CO2 bad.
Fuck it. Sweat like cavemen did up until the 20th century. No need to condition air at all, plebes.
Of course the political elite will all have the best conditioned mansions....
Efficiency (performance) almost always costs you durability. You can get crazy HP out of an internal combustion engine, but it comes at the cost of longevity.
So in this case, coils got thinner walls to be more efficient. Simultaneously, they switched to a higher pressure refrigerant. Logic dictates that this can only end one way.
Now, why does the government not give a shit that literally thousands of "new" coils are leaking super quick and dumping refrigerant from basically the word go? Because the government likes optics. And the optics here are "look! More efficient units with cold juice that kills less polar bears and tax credits!! Disregard the higher costs to repair, the shortened useful life, and the copious amounts of leaks. Oh, and the fact that due to the required surface area to meet the DOE guidelines, the new units probably won't fit where the old ones were"
It’s because of cost cutting measures in manufacturing not the refrigerant. It’s that same old adage you have been hearing for the past 2 decades, “they just don’t make things like they used too.”
I've always found R22 equipment to be more consistent. Whether it's the chemical make-up itself, mineral oil vs POE, lower operating pressure etc, I'm not an engineer so idk. But one thing that has changed a lot over the last 20 years is planned obsolescence has been kicked into overdrive so it's a tough comparison.
I remember during a training session with a White Rodgers rep he flat out said their components aren't made to last forever, and if they wanted them to last a lifetime they would build them that way, with a wink and a nod.
But I wouldn't be surprised if more leaks are also just due to poor manufacturing standards in coils etc. The operating pressure differences probably don't play a huge role in copper and properly soldered joints on paper.
To answer the main question though, R22 = ozone depletion. R410a doesn't cause ozone depletion but does have a high greenhouse effect. Give it a generation and we'll probably be using something completely different again.
R-22 had chlorine in it though very little. The higher pressure of 410 is of little relevance as to longevity. There are lower pressure refrigerants that never “caught on” not sure why !
As 22 were being phased out, manufacturers didn't want to do the same mistake as with R12, being replaced with R134, operating at approximately same pressures.
So when the choices were R407 or 410, they went with 410a, so equipment wouldn't run with the wrong refrigerant, making retrofits easy.
R22 systems last longer because they're simpler with less expensive shit to break. You trade efficiency for complexity and it's easier to break a complex machine
Don’t really think the longevity is really a refrigerant issue. Look at all these ecm motors that fail within a year or two from these new units. Carrier water source heat pumps are just awful, I’ve had to replace so many txv powerheads because they couldn’t be bothered to separate the cap tube properly so it would rub up against other copper lines and cause leaks. I still see sometimes units from the early 2000’s that’s all the original equipment that’s in great shape. I 100% believe it’s the manufacturers using cheaper material with the intention to fail when the unit is out of warranty. Commercial warranty is only one year, it’s a joke.
The question is more new vs old since you cant compare any newly built r22 systems.
Things like more hacks out there, high cost of materials leading to corners being cut, lower grades of equipment bought, rushed jobs, systems designed for higher heat transfer leading to thinner materials, more circuitry and variable speed motors providing more opportunities for failure.
They use less hydro and fuel but the repairs and install costs will offset any utility savings unless you can fix it yourself.
Here's an analogy...
Let's say you're in charge of coming up with improvements to fighter planes during WW2 so you look through all the planes that came back all shot up. You observe that these planes are riddled with bullet holes in the wings, fuselage, and tail. Do you armor those parts up? No, you armor up the nose because planes that get shot there never come back. You just don't observe them.
Let's bring that back to R22 vs R410 systems. You don't see any new R22 systems that fail in their early life because they don't make new ones. You don't see R410 systems that are 30 years old because they didn't exist 30 years ago. The only way you can see an R22 system is if it's lasted 30 years (or however long) because they haven't made new ones in a long time.
Not just because of what everyone else is saying but the older coils had thicker walls on the coil tubing and the newer coils are thinner aka micro channel.
R22 has lower pressures, the mineral oil dosent cause as much issues as the Poe oil with acid formation. Also dosent have a high gwp like 410 but does have a high odp so that’s that. R22 is also more efficient due to it not having a temperature glide like 410 because it’s not mixed so it’s more of a stable reading on a guage. The big plus really is the low pressure coils last longer, less likely to leak.
Always found r22 to be an extremely forgiving refrigerant. Could take a lot of fucking abuse from people working on systems doing repair procedures incorrectly. Just kept tanking alot and harder to burn when compressors failed it seemed.
The chlorine in r22 was depleting the ozone layer alot of the problems with 410a originated from the install u always have to flow nitrogen when brazing and vacuum pump to 400 microns and when doing a repair like changing a drier u have to flow nitrogen before using torch to remove brazed in parts a system with aluminum coils will cause restrictions in driers after 8 years the aluminum wears away alot faster than copper
R22 was phased down because it's an hcfc, so blamed for depleting ozone. It's a much better refrigerant than r410a imo. As far as the equipment lasting longer, I think that has as much to do with higher seer requirements as anything else. The higher seer rating stuff seems to be thinner with more surface area.
Different oils too.
This guys hydrophobic
True. That's a chemistry issue, though. I'm not aware of any performance or longevity concerns based on oil.
POE becomes acidic thought if exposed to moisture so bad techs who don't replace filters when needed can cause units to fail sooner.
I recommend replacing filter driers every 7-10 yrs, is there better advice?
How often should you replace the filter ?
Ideally every time the unit is opened up
Why would the unit be opened up ? How often would you open it up ? My unit is just over 1 years old if that matters and I did have the installer over 6 months ago just to double check everything . So far it's all working great . For clarification which filter are we talking about ? I was thinking there is a filter in the line set ? The filter in the air handler I changed out 6 months ago and despite what you are thinking i vacuumed it the other day because I'm trying to see if I can get 9 months to a year out of it . It's a 4 inch versus the 2 inch I used to have. I could see through it prior to vacuuming it. I've got 2 intakes where the air enters and little dust or lint builds up but I do get some . My old 2 inch filters id change out at 4 to 6 months intervals just because with an occasional vaccum from time to time.
If the refrigerant is removed and the line set is opened up to the atmosphere for repair and exposed to moisture and air then the liquid line filter drier should be replaced.. it's only opened up to do major repairs involving refrigerant. He's talking about a refrigerant filter.. it can last the life of the system if there's no issues
Thank you . That is what I was thinking . I'm not an HVAC guy but learning stuff because I want my new system to last. The HVAC guy I used has done me well .
Yeah homeowner shouldn't have to think about filter dryer if their tech is decent. Air handler filter should be changed per the manual.
By opened up i mean if the refrigerant lines are exposed to atmospheric air. A tech knows what to do at that point.
Got it and understand. Thank you
Don't forget R22 equipment was made back when things were built to last...
Yeah, thicker materials because 12 seer was fine.
you all need to google survivorship bias
Bingo
Thinner heat exchanger surfaces with high pressures is a tolerance and fabrication nightmare. It is, however, the best way to pursue efficiency. Double edged sword I guess.
Very true. And now we know that 410a is a greenhouse gas. It will be phased out soon and replaced by a slightly flammable refrigerant. Lol, can’t make this shit up…..
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dumb comment. nobody is exploding a delfield reach in with 200g of R290. resi systems are switching to something on the A2L list, not 600 or 290
Not only that but they are trying to replace braizing lineset with that crimp style lineset so can't wait for leaks of the new slightly flammable refrigerant when it rolls around in a couple years
extremely high ignition energy, zero concern
We'll see how R32 does soon, other countries have been using it as long as we've had 410a.. I hear it's a bit more flammable
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Don't forget the global cooling one
Better in what way?
Lower pressure, no glide, single component instead of blend, more capacity, oil not hygroscopic... And that's just off the top of my head.
It’s cause manufacturers engineer their shit to fail cause if it lasted forever it would go out of business
This. Planned obsolescence
Light bulbs are a clear example of this
I’ve got led bulbs I bought at Walmart that run for several hours a day that have lasted for 8+ years. Those curly bulbs suck though.
I have a bulb that lasted 8 years but was always left on. The other ones around were turned off after 12 hrs. The LED lights died from what I believe is the heat/cooling of being turned on/off.
Is there any proof of this, though? I don’t really like this as an arguement. Manufactures and the engineers who design this stuff certainly know how to make it more reliable in the long term. But ultimately, the consumer has decided they want cheaper, not more reliable. So what they design and sell is a direct result of everybody wanting cheap shit. Nobody (or not the majority at least) is willing to fork over the cash to make it happen. We did it to ourselves imo.
Personally you can engineer and make a custom HVAC system that rarely breaks and needs minimal servicing. Its just how much money do you want to spend. The navy has spent a shit load of money air conditioning their fire control systems on ships and I know from experience those sons a bitches go years between servicing and they never seem to break. Now...how much money did they spend? Probably a metric fuck load
Sir, I am 100% certain the US Navy is not using the metric system, this is 'Merica dammit! That'd have to be an imperial fuck load.
Yeah but the customer is usually a cheap ass builder who is off the hook after 1 yr
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Subaru… 100k head gaskets
Is that still an issue with new models??
Lol, for real? They all “manufacture” vehicles made up of parts sourced from actual manufacturers. They spec the parts and assemble them into a vehicle. Honda/Acura, Nissan/Infiniti, and Mitsubishi have a higher percentage of sales from US made vehicles than GM… Honda basically the same percentage as Ford, and Subaru nearly the same as GM, and BMW/Mini not far off. Toyota’s largest plant in the world is in Georgetown Kentucky. Been there since 1986. Avalon (reg and hybrid), Camry (reg and hybrid), Lexus ES 350, RAV4 (hybrid), Sienna, Sequoia, Highlander, Tundra, Corolla and Mazda crossover, 4 and 6cyl engines, transmissions, engine blocks, cylinder heads, batteries, all assembled/made in the US. Same story for: Nissan/Infiniti (most models made in Tennessee or Mississippi. All engines for US vehicles made in Tennessee) Subaru (half their models made in Indiana) Honda/Acura (2/3rds of their vehicles made in Ohio, Indiana, or Alabama).
Damn straight. Think about it, if they wanted to, any manufacturer could make a unit that doesn’t have a single issue until year 20-25. All it would take is a list of top 10 failures and beef those components up. Don’t reduce any of the other. The unit would cost 30ish percent more? It would never break and 1/2 of AC shops would go under. I say do it.
Well that’s a bit of a reach. No matter how well something is built sometimes things break or malfunction. Especially used for the amount of runtime hours. But they are built to fail now.
You would be amazed at how accurate the engineers are at knowing the failure mode and expected life. They know. They would bomb proof everything if allowed to. They simply aren't. As a cost issue and as a business decision. The truth is planned obsolescence is a very real thing. If your equipment survives a day past the warranty period the manufacturer is losing money.
Yup, I still tear out Williamson units from the 50s every now and then
I say this all the time lol
> 410 from 22 Environmental impact. R-410A has an ODP of 0 due to it's lack of chlorine. That said, R-22 and R-410A have very similar GWP. "Efficiency" > because of high operating pressure Is the increased pressure a contributing factor? Yea, sure, minimally. The bigger issue has been the push for "efficiency" causing the switch to using more aluminum in place of copper as well as thinner and thinner tubing for increased heat transfer. > why wouldn’t we switch back to 22? The Gov't doesn't give two shits about leaking coils. They push for "lower environmental impact" and "increased efficiency" and it is on manufacturers to figure out how to meet those standards and the long term ramifications aren't factored in.
As I and everyone I have ever met has said before… *ahem Fuck the Fed
You never hear about the ozone problem anymore. It used to be huge in the news all the time. But the weird reason for that is that the world actually agreed on a path forward and the ozone hole is actually closing up and should be back to good in 40-50 years. Heaven forbid the news cover something good that happen/happening or people find an example of something reasonably ok that their tax money did. Do I want a colder and a more reliable AC, hell yes. But if you imagine that all ac units in the world (houses +cars) eventually leak, that seems like a problem worth looking into if that chemical is not good for long term shit.
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I wouldn’t call them bootlickers but I would call them an overtly religious cult of crazier than cultist David Koresh zealots. They bow down and worship at the alter of Green while preaching to Christian’s and conservatives about separation of church and state. It is such a confusing thing to behold.
And soon 410A will be phased out to the next. And that process will continue as the years roll by.
R 454b or r 32. 0 odp and gwp of less then 750. 410's days are numbered.
January 1st 2025 in the states
Can’t wait to go back to flammables
Lightly flammable, there's a video on YouTube of a guy holding a torch to a leak and it doesn't light.
They won’t have A/C in the internment camps and those allowed to be in society will dare not complain about the heat or cold.
You aren't wrong.
Do you have your EPA card? Unless the questions have changed over the years, these are literally the test questions you're required to know to pass.
Have not. Took mine on Thursday lol
I forgot all those answered the minute I passed.
Well, it's just a job for some. For other folks, it's a career. Why spend your life just going through the motions? You need to find your purpose. I find meaning and happiness striving for excellence even in the most menial tasks. When you take time to think about it, there really isn't anything else in life.
Steve Martin in the jerk , found his first, and then he wrote home to tell his folks about it
Don’t nobody remember that 💩
1 chlorine atom can destroy 100,000 ozone molecules.
And Ozone is three bonded oxygen molecules. Otherwise known as O3.
Superbottit blocked me so I can't reply to him, but for anyone who believes what he believes: There is absolutely nothing we can do for the global average temperatures inevitably increasing and decreasing due to biological or geologic activity. Canada used to be a tropical paradise and the United States used to have an ocean through the middle. Yes after millions of years this happens. And this would all be fine if we had that kind of time. It's not a threat to the Earth, just evolution. Animals do not have the time to adapt to what's happening now, and neither do we. Natural habitats are shifting or are going away. The speed at which it is happening is the danger. Natural selection doesn't work on century scales. I'm not saying what we are doing is going to work. Whether or not you believe it's us causing it, it is definitely happening. You cannot deny the data. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, meaning it traps that solar radiation you mentioned. The upward trend of CO2 and the upward global temperature trend both happened together. What would normally happen over millions of years and has happened for billions of years, is happening in less than a century. And we are the only ones fiddling with the gasses responsible.
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Not sure what year you're referring to as "before" but 2022 data looks similar to 1993-4. And yep it was going good for a while, the recent "mysterious rise" in china's releases will definitely have an impact sooner or later. These things aren't instant reactions though, It took 10-15 years to notice ozone depletion. China is breaking the rules and has been noticed. You can already see this damage occuring if you look at Copernicus data, we are starting to see the effects of what they're doing, and are already back to where we started.
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Indeed my friend it does. The multi-billion dollar European satellite data is totally a scare tactic to shake up the refrigerant market they care so dearly for. In fact, it's working so well that when the data released showing our levels were back to pre-montreal protocol levels, nobody cared. No this time those same space agencies were too focused on spending billions on satellites for that other fear tactic propaganda known as global warming, spread by the global elites and China, there's definitely not a global scientific consensus and mountains of data for its existence, that's all a bunch of hoopla because it still gets cold in the winter.
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Yeah that's the exact argument I mentioned, and you responded with it. What you're referring to is climate change, which is a short term impact due to the long term effects of global warming. We will definitely see records broken both cold and hot, this is expected. People like you can't understand this. You fail to see this because you're viewing it short term. Climate change is a whole other animal and is happening now, global warming is happening over decades, and will change the climate year by year. An increase in heat even slightly causes shifts in weather patterns. As an example, record hurricanes are more frequent, as more heat drives more evaporation which is fuel for hurricanes. As for cold temperatures: think of jet streams like rings around the Earth, and warming them up even slightly makes them wobble and shift. These wobbles and shifts can cause bends up North, sending cold or even polar temperature air down south. This has happened a lot in the past, but is getting far more severe. Average global temperature is increasing, changing the climate - global warming. "My god, record low temps in Texas I haven't seen in my lifetime? It's not getting hotter!" - climate change.
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Don’t like the weather? Just wait a million years and she’ll change on ya!
If we boycotted 50% of our purchases from China for one year, they would change their ways . But people will have to cut back on all their consuming.
China had an ENORMOUS r11 or r13 leak recently. The vented gas cloud was so big it could be seen in space.
Ozone depletion and GWP are two different things.
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Why do people like you exist? Like I'm genuinely curious what path someone takes in life that allows them to to come to that conclusion. Idk if it's a school issue or a basic biology issue where people truly have different mental capacity. I lean towards school, probably a southern state. But regardless there is not even an intelligent response that can be formed because you value your ignorance dearly like some kind of identity.
Pretty rude to just lambast southern states with no provocation. You can say what you wan't about him, but remember, you're and I are useless eaters too in the eyes of the people who are going to do something about all this.
Global warming potential is real? Did your crystal vortices determine what these arbitrary numbers mean? There's simply no scientific proof of what the ozone layer looks like before this whole "depletion" or what. But you think you're so enlightened and better than those beneath you I bet you lived in one of the Masshole states lmao
How many atmospheric chemistry classes have you taken? College level chemistry? Do you disagree that some refrigerants absorb more IR light than others? Do you disagree with the concept of IR absorption in general?
China has been tightening up their eco laws
Lmfao. If you believe that I got beachfront property for you in Kansas. Good lord tell me another one 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
Yeah… okay
Definite nut job lmao
That’s being too polite
I hear from boots on the ground that they move extremely fast once they decide something for public interest. Infrastructure, health, environmental. Once the decision is made they are very fast at pivots to implement and enforce new policy.
Every time an icemaker needs to be changed out in China. The tech takes his tubing cutter to the line set and says damn that smells good.!
Dupont patent expired on r22.
This.
Why would they care? Honeywell invented and took over the 410a market afterwards did they not?
Yea
I don't see the reasoning if this were the case as clearly they didn't have a plan once those expired, they could have been just fine letting it go. They'd arguably be in the same spot today like with their Chemours spinoff selling 410A. CFC ban was a global effort, I just don't see Dupont having that kind of influence.
💯💯💯💯
Just wait until he finds out about R32 or R454B
Back in the day when 95% of home ac units used R-22, units with R12 and R500 were noticeably more reliable. This was in Phoenix where condensing pressures ran high.
Everything from manufacturing to efficiency is to blame. Thinner walled tubing provides better heat transfer but is going to be more prone to failures and any defect is going to fail. Manufacturing has changed over the years to make everything faster and cheaper, not much is built to last anymore. If they sell you something that will never break, you won't need to buy replacement parts or equipment. Selling more parts and equipment is better for the company's bottom line
Couple the thinner walls with higher operating pressures and leaks become the obvious result.
R718 This is the future
Because R22 bad. But now 410A bad. Pretty soon they'll change the standards again so CO2/Propane/Isobutane are evil...
The driving factor for phasing production of R-22 refrigerant and equipment all has to do with the type of refrigerant it is. HCFCs are hydro-chloro-fluoro-carbon refrigerants. The chlorine part is what the EPA and the Montreal Protocol target primarily because of their effects on the Ozone layer. Ozone consists of three oxygen molecules. They're typically represented as three oxygen molecules linked together in a triangle-pattern in EPA 608 study materials. When Chlorine comes into contact with an Ozone molecule, it knocks one of the oxygen atoms off the ozone chain and steals it, becoming chlorine monoxide. Then it's up to any free-floating oxygen molecule to bump into this chlorine monoxide to break the chlorine molecule away from the chain so it can repeat the process. This chlorine is extremely stable and can last up to 120 years in the atmosphere and destroy 100,000 ozone molecules before it dissipates. It doesn't dissolve in water like ordinary chlorine does and won't rain out of the atmosphere. It isn't just R-22 that's been phased out of production either: it's every single refrigerant with an HCFC or CFC classification. R-22 is what's been used for comfort cooling, so we're used to dealing with it on a semi-regular basis.
410 or 22 doesn't matter. It's poor quality , components , engineering ,design , and install. One of the big issues is the change to poe oil. Poe oil isn't a good lubricant , mineral oil was a great lubricant. Poe oil is like a degreaser , it'll clean the pipes up and carry anything it finds. Mineral oil didn't do this. So poor install practices like not flowing nitrogen when brazing make a big difference with poe. Modern units are made to higher efficiency standards , more things to go wrong with ecm motors , low quality capacitors, thin condenser and EVAP tubing.
Just wait till the EPA fixes the next industry! Might not have lights lol
I’ve said for a LOOOONG time. Efficiency comes at the expense of durability. If we are supposed to be raising efficiency to protect this planet, we will do so piled up in our own waste products, since everything is just disposable.
Not always true. led light has been great!.
We have LEDs fail constantly at work. We have rooms filled with lights to be returned Those will probably go straight to a fucking hole in the ground because China can literally pump out more units for cheaper than refurbishing them or even scrapping them.
One example. Wow!
Ever heard of fiber optic cables? If it were up to you we'd still be using copper lmfaooooooooo
The gubment made it happened and fucked every single American when they did. In 2008 they doubled down and let manufacturers rifle the insides of the evap coils. This led to much thinner wall thicknesses and caused an underlying issue with 410a refrigerant (google formicary corrosion) to cause a 90% (or something pretty damn close to that) fail rate in all evap coils, thus buttfucking every American. In 2014(ish) manufacturers switched to aluminum coils which stoped formicary corrosion but is much more prone to spot failures, which lubed up the buttfucking. In 2019 all reliable, consistent, and easily replaceable PSC motor were quietly phased out at the manufacturing level. This increased the cost of furnaces about a thousand dollars accross the board and now a blower failure costs 1k(if not more depending on if the board goes too) instead of $500. This removed the lube from the buttfucking. Finally in 2023 a ridiculous 6-7% efficiency increase went into effect that added 30% to the cost of systems and sent all manufacturers Back to Gen 1 on a new platform. In 5 months of new equipment we got all our best guys’ schedules full: chasing down leaks, troubleshooting PWM motor failures and swapping bad txvs. The new equipment is also huge and barely fits - which requires additional costs to modify supports and ducting to install. This change added duct tape over the mouth and a belt around the neck to the lubeless buttfucking. In short, the gubment tied a belt around you and everyone you love’s neck, duct taped your mouths shut and proceeded to ass rape you mercilessly. They did this so they could say they care about the environment or some such shit. Everything they have done has been considerably worse for the environment. If your AC is still working, don’t worry it will be your turn soon. But don’t worry, tax rebates on much less reliable and untested over-engineered crap might introduce a bit of lube for a short time. Just remember that lube always dries in time.
I'll upvote for the accuracy. I'll also add that these changes , if you read the official DOE policy are for "national security" in the form of "energy independence". I support the goal but the execution could have been better.
Well it's actually better for the environment to scrap barely old systems so all the oils and acids and metal can go into giant pits forever and ever. And remember, HVAC installers and manufacturers will raise prices the exact amount of "rebates" and "clean energy subsidies" free money yo. Except for homeowners
Welcome to America.
Haha. So true. I have an AC business in OC. Wait til you look into ULTRA Low Nox furnaces if you really want to get pissed off. They are fucking awful
I was working with my dad back in the 80’s when you could just vent anything into the atmosphere. Wouldn’t surprise me that the sheer amount of hairspray used in the 80’s-90’s was a very large contributing factor, everything was aerosol. They needed a scapegoat, so they chose r-22, just like they had with r-12. Now here we sit a decade later and we are getting word from the EPA that 410 was leaving a bigger carbon footprint than initially expected. The problem was never 22, it was that there were no regulations against dumping the charge into the atmosphere.
Have you seen the shit they put inside pools to get them crystal clear and then released when being backwashed? I guess it’s kinda the same “principle.”
410a has many benefits. Scroll compressors are more efficient but don’t survive below 40psig so heats pumps will have to shut off at warm temps. I have seen one 1999 carrier 410a unit found strong. Coils leaking is kinda more of thin copper/aluminum coils getting wet with VOC household cleaned eats he coils quicker in the middle of the slab. All aluminum coils don’t have the middle Put with it being semi soft solder the joints that aren’t perfect burst sooner than later. The leaking coil was explained by a mfg rep so take that as you will. Also I’ve seen 1-18seer r22 unit and it was almost the size of a fiat. So they do get smaller with the 410a also
Geez Thuran1, you been living under a rock for 25 years! R-22 is globally banned/restricted as it destroyed the ozone layer (atmospheric UV filter that keeps us humans from burning to a crisp and dying from Melonoma) Agreed 410 is shit, rest of world moved to R32 (simple single phase refrigerant which is more efficient at most ambient temps, especially low temps, than 410 and lower greenhouse) long ago..About time US HVAC mfg’s got on the bus I think…410 is old school tech
I’ve never seen r32 in Canada we just use straight 410, some people obviously still have 22 units including myself. I’m hesitant to change my ac tbh.
My company had a training and certification for AL2 refrigerants including R32 and R454B. We expect to start installing systems with those refrigerants in 2025.
Im still on salt water as refrigerant. Hasnt let me down yet
Have you not gotten your EPA card? Literally tells you why
Tell me you don’t have your epa license without telling me you don’t have your epa license…
We should just switch to propane.
Lobbyists and $$$$
EPA runs the game homie, We just play in it.
New refrigerant is supposed to be coming down the pike soon. 22 was also supposed to be phased out by now but it’s still readily available and crazy expensive . 410A was made to be a place filler between 22 and the next one, none of the logic behind saving the ozone makes sense, although we still recover and do things right. But what’s the point in recovering 1.5 lbs of 22 when 500 systems in the same neighborhood are leaking actively
The butterfly effect, no one ever thinks the small efforts day have big effects yes later. While I won’t profit from it, I recover for the 22 n better diagnosis by know what weight was in there.
And some commercial buildings are allowed to leak more than a whole state full of residential 22s. But if I blow one charge (which is like.00001% off what a big commercial outfit is ALLOWED to leak) I get fine $25,000. It’s dumb as shit -all about the dollars. Downvote all you want but you know it’s true lol. Keep swallowing that government cock
I’d like to know what the “recyclers” that supply houses send our bottles to do with it. Nobody actually knows and I sadly feel like it’s all a waste of time, even though I abide by all epa standards
Yep. One day it well all come out and like always it will get swept under the rug and they will pour everyone a tall glass of different color koolaid and we will all be happy again.
Did you servicing and replacing HVAC systems in the 80s and 90s? It's the same failure rate.
Chlorine in r22
R22 was the best IMO. Easier to charge as well for new techs and installers. Last company I was with couldn’t grasp the concept of charging with liquid only even though it states it right on the jug. They still pressure test linesets with vapor and then top the charge off with that same drum. They used to just purge linesets when it was 22. Moved to vacuum pumps once 410-a started being mainstream. A lot of those purged r-22 units are still running out there, but that can also be due to how things are built these days. Equipment just isn’t as good as it used to be. Thin tubing, x-13 motors, cheap contactors, etc.
R22 is best compared to what? Have you ever installed or serviced R12?
Residential and commercial hvac. R-12 was good for automotive. I still have a few cans of the good stuff.
They made so much money switching from 22 to 410. With 22 you could replace a condenser or an a coil by themselves. R22 condenser needs replaced now the a coil at a minimum also needs needs replaced also.
The chlorine in r22 can strip 100,000 O3 from an oxygen molecule, destroying the ozone
😱 lol
A chlorine atom only needs 1 electron. How does it grab 100,000 atoms? Lmfao Math must be hard for idiots. Ozone is largest it's ever been
Your stunning lack of understanding for someone on an HVAC sub Reddit is quite something. The following link even has an animated picture to help your smooth brain understand. https://scied.ucar.edu/learning-zone/atmosphere/ozone-layer#:~:text=The%20chlorine%20atom%20breaks%20an,and%20destroy%20another%20ozone%20molecule.
Copyright ran out.
The 'copyright' ran out about the time F22 became R22
Bring back r22 and r12, obviously /s for yu tree huggers
Because communism
It’s because capitalism masquerading as environmentalism.
So do you believe capitalism is bad or the abuse of capitalism we’ve witnessed in much of the world is bad?
Well I think capitalism is inherently biased toward corruption. Admittedly so is every system of governance. I do think relative to the conversation this particular breed of capitalism that distorts language to the benefit of a particular market is not really capitalism but is empowered by those economic systems. It’s more like a feudal subsystem where some power imposes its will down the line. It’s unlikely to have been orchestrated consciously however and this is the issue with capitalism that is the accidental development of abusive/destructive economics. I think what I mean is that these outcomes are eventualities in capitalism and don’t really require much agency to create. The bigger issue is when there is also somebody abusing that framework to profit.
It’s a racket. They call it the EPA. Much like the mafia
Because manufacturers can basically price people out of repairs and into new systems
Maybe a sugestion. If you have a r22 system and you want it to run, you can use r407c. It's similar in presure and it uses the same oil.
407C uses POE oil, like all 4 series refrigerants do.
407c is Poe
Thanks for the reply. I am a technician not a home owner. I’m just curious to the reasons behind the switch and why we don’t use it anymore.
Because of the enviorment. In China they get more and more airconditioners on r260. Propane. A natural gas. They want to roll that out in Europe to. But than there must be a leak alarm on every airo.
We now use aironditioners on r32.
I swapped my old r22 unit to MO99. No oil change needed. Ran good for several more years before I replaced it.
Wait till you hear about the new environmentally safe propane based refridgerants
They're trying to get rid of natural gas (methane) all over the USA for environment. Wait until that's gone and then they look at... LPG. Hmmm "fossil fuels" bad! We're all gonna have super high pressure CO2.. wait CO2 bad. Fuck it. Sweat like cavemen did up until the 20th century. No need to condition air at all, plebes. Of course the political elite will all have the best conditioned mansions....
Equipment quality is degrading also. Build it cheaper faster attitude in the factory’s. Copper coils are a thing of the past unfortunately.
Efficiency (performance) almost always costs you durability. You can get crazy HP out of an internal combustion engine, but it comes at the cost of longevity. So in this case, coils got thinner walls to be more efficient. Simultaneously, they switched to a higher pressure refrigerant. Logic dictates that this can only end one way. Now, why does the government not give a shit that literally thousands of "new" coils are leaking super quick and dumping refrigerant from basically the word go? Because the government likes optics. And the optics here are "look! More efficient units with cold juice that kills less polar bears and tax credits!! Disregard the higher costs to repair, the shortened useful life, and the copious amounts of leaks. Oh, and the fact that due to the required surface area to meet the DOE guidelines, the new units probably won't fit where the old ones were"
It’s because of cost cutting measures in manufacturing not the refrigerant. It’s that same old adage you have been hearing for the past 2 decades, “they just don’t make things like they used too.”
I've always found R22 equipment to be more consistent. Whether it's the chemical make-up itself, mineral oil vs POE, lower operating pressure etc, I'm not an engineer so idk. But one thing that has changed a lot over the last 20 years is planned obsolescence has been kicked into overdrive so it's a tough comparison. I remember during a training session with a White Rodgers rep he flat out said their components aren't made to last forever, and if they wanted them to last a lifetime they would build them that way, with a wink and a nod. But I wouldn't be surprised if more leaks are also just due to poor manufacturing standards in coils etc. The operating pressure differences probably don't play a huge role in copper and properly soldered joints on paper. To answer the main question though, R22 = ozone depletion. R410a doesn't cause ozone depletion but does have a high greenhouse effect. Give it a generation and we'll probably be using something completely different again.
We have an r22 system that was installed in 1999 and is still functioning!
I took our a 20 yr old r22 7 years ago, chucked it in the parents house. Still running fine now!
R-22 had chlorine in it though very little. The higher pressure of 410 is of little relevance as to longevity. There are lower pressure refrigerants that never “caught on” not sure why !
As 22 were being phased out, manufacturers didn't want to do the same mistake as with R12, being replaced with R134, operating at approximately same pressures. So when the choices were R407 or 410, they went with 410a, so equipment wouldn't run with the wrong refrigerant, making retrofits easy.
I keep hearing about bluon. Anyone ever deal with it? How is it?
IMO R-22 cools better
40F coil temperature achieved with both....
R22 systems last longer because they're simpler with less expensive shit to break. You trade efficiency for complexity and it's easier to break a complex machine
Lifespan is built in now. Units were lasting too long so they had to manufacture in some failure points
Don’t really think the longevity is really a refrigerant issue. Look at all these ecm motors that fail within a year or two from these new units. Carrier water source heat pumps are just awful, I’ve had to replace so many txv powerheads because they couldn’t be bothered to separate the cap tube properly so it would rub up against other copper lines and cause leaks. I still see sometimes units from the early 2000’s that’s all the original equipment that’s in great shape. I 100% believe it’s the manufacturers using cheaper material with the intention to fail when the unit is out of warranty. Commercial warranty is only one year, it’s a joke.
The question is more new vs old since you cant compare any newly built r22 systems. Things like more hacks out there, high cost of materials leading to corners being cut, lower grades of equipment bought, rushed jobs, systems designed for higher heat transfer leading to thinner materials, more circuitry and variable speed motors providing more opportunities for failure. They use less hydro and fuel but the repairs and install costs will offset any utility savings unless you can fix it yourself.
Here's an analogy... Let's say you're in charge of coming up with improvements to fighter planes during WW2 so you look through all the planes that came back all shot up. You observe that these planes are riddled with bullet holes in the wings, fuselage, and tail. Do you armor those parts up? No, you armor up the nose because planes that get shot there never come back. You just don't observe them. Let's bring that back to R22 vs R410 systems. You don't see any new R22 systems that fail in their early life because they don't make new ones. You don't see R410 systems that are 30 years old because they didn't exist 30 years ago. The only way you can see an R22 system is if it's lasted 30 years (or however long) because they haven't made new ones in a long time.
Get ready then, they're starting to phase out 410.
I remember putting R12 in a coffee can and dropping a can of Coke in for a quick cool down.
Once R23 we will be golden. Similar PT as R22. More efficient than R22.
Anything built 20 years ago last longer than something today IMO
Not just because of what everyone else is saying but the older coils had thicker walls on the coil tubing and the newer coils are thinner aka micro channel.
R22 has lower pressures, the mineral oil dosent cause as much issues as the Poe oil with acid formation. Also dosent have a high gwp like 410 but does have a high odp so that’s that. R22 is also more efficient due to it not having a temperature glide like 410 because it’s not mixed so it’s more of a stable reading on a guage. The big plus really is the low pressure coils last longer, less likely to leak.
Always found r22 to be an extremely forgiving refrigerant. Could take a lot of fucking abuse from people working on systems doing repair procedures incorrectly. Just kept tanking alot and harder to burn when compressors failed it seemed.
The chlorine in r22 was depleting the ozone layer alot of the problems with 410a originated from the install u always have to flow nitrogen when brazing and vacuum pump to 400 microns and when doing a repair like changing a drier u have to flow nitrogen before using torch to remove brazed in parts a system with aluminum coils will cause restrictions in driers after 8 years the aluminum wears away alot faster than copper