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The refrigerant that charged up air conditioners and heat pumps for the last 15 years is going away in 2025, and replaced by two new more climate-friendly ones. Whether you’re buying a new system, or you want to help battle the misinformation and confusion that’s likely to ensue, here’s what you need to know.
On January 1st, 2025, a new US Environmental Protection Agency rule will effectively ban the refrigerant that’s been used in air conditioners and heat pumps for the last 14 years. R-410A is being banned because of its excessive contribution to climate change, and two new more climate-friendly refrigerants will be used in equipment manufactured after that date.
You may be wondering why, if you’re not in the heating and air conditioning business, you should care about these changes. After all, this isn’t the first time something like this happened. In 2010, the EPA banned R-22, which at the time had been the residential air conditioner standard for over fifty years, because it was depleting the ozone layer. That’s when R-410A became the new standard. If you’re like most people, you never knew what refrigerant was in your air conditioner, other than it was Freon, or something like that.
This round of refrigerant re-regulation is going to be different. Contractors and retailers are already telling customers what refrigerant is in their units. Not only will those customers be concerned, but they will be confused by a wave of misinformation that’s likely to surge. In the face of this confusion and misinformation, even if you’re not in the market for a new system, if you’re a regular reader of this blog, your friends and relatives will be turning to you for advice. Here’s what they’ll be concerned about.
First, for the first time since the late 1950s, when the domestic industry settled on R-22, there will be two standard refrigerants for newly manufactured air conditioners and heat pumps: R-32 and R-454B. Manufacturers are already selecting one of the new refrigerants for their product lines, and are using their selections in their sales pitches. Refrigerant is now another distinguishing factor between manufacturers, in addition to price, efficiency, and reliability. Some folks who don’t even have a working understanding of the refrigeration cycle will be sorting through that information to figure out which refrigerant is the best one for them.
Second, both of these new refrigerants are slightly flammable. What enables refrigerants to be climate friendly is a tendency to break down rapidly in the atmosphere, and that tends to make them flammable. The new refrigerants are so slightly flammable that they’re unlikely to ignite. If they do, they’re unlikely to cause much damage. Furthermore, regulators and industry leaders developed a set of safety features that will further ensure they are safely used. Even so, since the founding of the home air conditioning industry in the 1930s, manufacturers only used nonflammable refrigerants. The introduction of even slightly flammable refrigerants is bound to make some consumers anxious.
What will you tell them? Hopefully, you’ll say that the EPA’s decision was necessary to keep refrigerants from becoming a major contributor to climate change. That they needn’t agonize over which of the two new refrigerants to choose because the differences between them are slight, and there are more important factors that will determine the success of any air conditioner or heat pump installation. And that if this equipment is installed properly, it is extremely unlikely it will jeopardize their health or property.
In these highly polarized times, in which both anxiety and misinformation are abundant, it’s challenging to formulate and implement public policies to address climate change. This new round of refrigerant re-regulation is an example of the sorts of public policies that are both needed and will require public support to succeed. The more folks who understand why these policies are necessary, and why this isn’t a radical environmentalist plot to incinerate Americans in their homes, the more likely it will be that the general public supports these regulations, and climate change policies in general.
Do you want to help build such understanding and support? Then, simply, read on.
The situation
In October, 2023, the US Environmental Protection Agency issued a rule designed to reduce the climate impact of residential air conditioner and heat pump refrigerants. This rule had its origin in scientific studies over a dozen years earlier that found that as the climate warms, and humanity gets richer, the amount of air conditioning we’re using is rising rapidly. As we install more air conditioning systems, charged with refrigerants, more of those refrigerants are leaking into the atmosphere.
The refrigerants we currently use are powerful global warming agents, thousands of times more potent per pound than carbon dioxide. The scientists conducting those studies concluded that before long, atmospheric warming attributed to refrigerants would be equivalent to a substantial portion of the warming attributed to carbon dioxide itself. The only meaningful public policy remedy would be to switch to refrigerants that contributed far less to climate change. That insight led policymakers to craft an international agreement, which led to US Federal government legislation, which then culminated in the EPA rule.
The metric the EPA uses to regulate refrigerants is Global Warming Potential. It expresses how much more a refrigerant warms the climate than does carbon dioxide, which features a GWP of 1. A refrigerant with a GWP of 1,000 would be about a thousand times per pound a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Starting in 2025, the EPA will require all newly manufactured air conditioners and heat pumps to contain refrigerants featuring a GWP of 700 or less. R-410A, the current standard for this equipment, features a GWP of 2090, so it can’t clear this bar. Of the refrigerants the EPA approved for this sector, equipment manufacturers are largely choosing between two, R-32 (GWP 675) and R-454B (GWP 470).
This new rule only applies to equipment manufactured in 2025 or later. Already installed equipment can continue to operate indefinitely with the refrigerant it was originally charged with. No one need chain themselves to their air conditioner to keep it from being dragged away by jackbooted thugs from the EPA.
There will likely be enough R-410A to continue to service existing equipment indefinitely, but if you’d like to switch over your existing equipment to one of the new lower-GWP refrigerants, you won’t be able to. With few exceptions, equipment is manufactured to work with a single refrigerant and can’t be charged with another.
Of course, when everyone puts up their 2025 calendars, there will still be air conditioners and heat pumps manufactured in 2024 still in stock. Split systems (with separate indoor and outdoor units) manufactured before 2025, and containing R-410A, can continue to be installed until the end of 2025. Window units and other self-contained systems can continue to be sold until January 1, 2028. How long R-410A equipment remains available, it’s impossible to say.
Mild flammability explained
Ever since the emergence of the home air conditioning industry about 90 years ago, manufacturers produced equipment charged with non-flammable refrigerants. But about a dozen years ago, when scientists began to search for a low-GWP alternative to R-410A, they came to a distressing realization: it wasn’t possible to identify a residential refrigerant that was both low-GWP and nonflammable. What enables a refrigerant to exhibit a low-GWP rating is that if it leaks into the atmosphere, it reacts with oxygen and breaks down quickly. Such reactivity tends to make things flammable.
When those scientists came to accept that the next refrigerant generation would be flammable, they developed a new category, mildly flammable, and identified chemicals that fit within it. Although mildly flammable refrigerants can be ignited, they will only do so within a limited range of air-refrigerant mixtures. Too much air, or too much refrigerant, and the mixture won’t ignite. A good way to keep a mildly flammable refrigerant from igniting is to mix it up with more air.
Also, for a mildly flammable refrigerant to ignite, there has to be a high energy flame present, like a candle or a cigarette lighter. A static electricity spark, a hair dryer, or a toaster won’t start a fire. Should a fire start, the flames are slow moving and they go out when the high energy flame is extinguished. Indeed, the flames are so lethargic, their burning velocity is much slower than a baby can crawl. Although it might seem scary to use them, mildly flammable refrigerants have been used for several years now in millions of air conditioning and heat pump systems around the world. I’m not aware of any reports of these refrigerants causing catastrophic fires.
Even with the minimum risk they pose, US regulators and the HVAC industry spent over $7 million developing measures to enable mildly flammable refrigerants to be used safely. They include special techniques for joining pipes and fittings, and enhanced leak testing. Any system containing more than 3.91 lb. of refrigerant will be required to include a refrigerant leak detector, and in some cases, systems containing less refrigerant will also feature leak detectors.
Since there’s usually about 2-4 lb. of refrigerant per ton of equipment capacity, nearly all systems larger than a ton or two require leak detectors. Should these detectors ever sense a significant leak, they’ll turn on the system’s central distribution fan to dilute the leaked refrigerant with air, and turn off any gas furnaces or water heaters.
These safety features don’t come for free. While it’s too soon for a comprehensive study on how much they add to the cost of a system, I’ve seen anecdotal reports that range from a few hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars.
With these safety measures in place, it’s unlikely that mildly flammable refrigerants will harm anyone or cause catastrophic property damage. What’s more concerning are the logistics of getting these systems installed. Currently, few domestic contractors have worked with either of the new refrigerants or their safety systems. System buyers will want to be sure their installers are trained and are following the installation instructions.
Also, these refrigerants are new to building code officials. Early installations may get caught up in red tape as building inspectors work to enforce recently implemented codes and standards. Nearly all building code jurisdictions in the US recently adopted new codes enabling them to approve installations containing mildly flammable refrigerants. There are, however, a few laggards. To see if your state’s building departments are ready, you can check out this map from the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute. Alternatively, you might find it easier to just call up your local building department.
Meet R-32
R-32 consists of a single chemical named difluoromethane, which is composed of carbon, hydrogen, and fluorine. Although it was only recently approved in the US to be used in air conditioning systems as a single chemical refrigerant, it’s long been used as a component in approved mixtures. R-410A, the standard for residential air conditioning for the last 15 years, is a 50-50 mixture of R-32 and a flame retardant. Because R-32 is mildly flammable, it couldn’t be used on its own in the US until approved safety systems for these refrigerants were developed.
R-32’s GWP is about one-third that of R-410A, and it’s about 5% more efficient. Those improved characteristics come at a price. R-32 is about 60% more expensive than R-410A according to eRefrigerants.com. Given the amount of refrigerant most residential systems hold, it would probably add less than $100 to the cost of an installed system.
Manufacturers already committed to use R-32 in their products include Daikin, Fujitsu, and LG, all of which are Asian-based, and have been using the refrigerant in their products for years. Goodman and Amana, which are recognizable North American brands but owned by Daikin, also opted for R-32.
Meet R-454B
R-454B is a blend containing 68.9% R-32 and 31.1% of an ultra-low GWP refrigerant from a new family known as hydrofluoroolefins. These refrigerants are composed of hydrogen, carbon, and fluorine, just like R-32, but feature a different chemical structure. Hydrofluoroolefins are remarkable in that they exhibit single-digit GWP, but are often mildly flammable. The particular hydrofluoroolefin used in R-454B was developed by the Dupont corporation for the automotive market, and is widely used. If you bought a car in the last few years, it probably came charged with it. It costs about 2½ times as much as R-32.
R-454B’s GWP is about 30% lower than R-32’s, but it is slightly less efficient, perhaps as little as 1% less. Because it contains a hydrofluoroolefin, R-454B costs about 25% more than R-32 and about twice as much as R-410A.
Many of the major North American air conditioner and heat pump manufacturers adopted R-454B, including Trane, Carrier, Lennox, and Rheem.
Which one is best?
So, if we’ve got two refrigerants, one of them has got to be better than the other, right? Which one is best depends on your what you want to achieve. Do you want the cheapest refrigerant? Then R-32 is your choice, although for a typical split system, choosing R-454B would at most add just a few hundred dollars to the overall installed cost of an R-32 system. That doesn’t seem like a big deal for a purchase that runs somewhere between five and twenty thousand dollars.
Do you want the most efficient one? Again, R-32 would be your choice. How about the lowest GWP? Here, R-454B has the edge. However, the overall lifetime climate impact of an air conditioner or heat pump depends on much more than refrigerant GWP. You’ve also got to take into account overall system efficiency, annual operating hours, the cleanliness of the local electric grid, how much refrigerant the system contains, how much refrigerant leaks during its lifetime, and how much refrigerant is reclaimed at the end. In some cases, R-32, with its higher efficiency, could well contribute less to climate change. Indeed, the HVAC manufacturer Daikin calculated out such a scenario, although the difference in climate emissions between the two refrigerants was less than 1%.
For any given system, it’s not worth breaking out the laptop and going through all the calculations that Daikin did. You’ll probably find that the difference is slight. The equipment selected and installation quality will have a far bigger influence on system outcomes than refrigerant choice. Also, it’s not as though an installer is going to ask which refrigerant you prefer. Equipment will come from the factory designed and manufactured to work with only a single refrigerant.
My suggestion is that you find an installer who does high quality work and select equipment from the manufacturers that installer likes to work with. In the end, it will matter little whether that equipment is charged with R-32 or R-454B. Your time and energy are better spent finding an excellent contractor.
Practice non-attachment
Don’t get too attached to either of these refrigerants. There’s at least one more round of re-regulation coming from the EPA, and probably several. When that next rule goes into effect, and by how much it lowers the GWP bar, no one can currently say. With a GWP of less than 500, R-454B might survive the next round, but not the one after that. Ultimately, it’s likely that propane, or some other similar hydrocarbon, with a GWP close to zero and no fluorine, will emerge as the long-term standard refrigerant for residential air conditioners and heat pumps. It remains to be seen what sort of safety systems will be required for such highly flammable refrigerants.
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