About R22 Prices & Availability Due to EPA Announcements in 2012

To all Advanced Heating & Cooling Customers:

• What is going on with R22?
• Why the sudden price increases?
• Why the sudden shortages?
• Is this just something the manufacturers have cooked up to try and drive the prices up?

     Advanced Heating & Cooling has prepared for this day when the EPA announces reduction in the production and phase-out of the refrigerant R22. We can still service all R22 systems. We have alternatives to aleviate the price and frustration of dealing with the current R22 price increase and availibility status.

1. We can still service your R22 system with traditional R22 at the increased price rate.
2. We can service your R22 system with alternative R22 that is compatible with the existing R22 in your system and that is more economical than using traditional R22.
3. We can recover your existing R22 and charge your system with alternative, retrofit refrigerants that are more economical.
4. We can replace your current R22 system with a new R410a system that uses the more evironment friendly and economic R410a refrigerant.

     I am sure all of you have asked these questions & more a thousand times over the last few days. I am going to try and answer them & give you some information to help you stay on top of the situation. On December 30, 2011, the EPA issued a rule for further reduction to the production and importation rites of R22, than was put in place on January 1, 2010. Original plans called for a 10% reduction to last year’s numbers. The proposed rule put everything on hold while the industry waited on an official number from the EPA. On Friday, January 20, the EPA shocked the world by stating these reductions would be a staggering additional 35% (total reduction of 45% less than last year’s numbers)! This has to go through several legal channels, and the EPA says it cannot issue the final ruling for 45-90 days, but most industry experts think this number will stick.

When word of this hit the streets, it created panic buying everywhere, and Distributor Inventories (which were low because of the off-season anyway) were quickly depleted. As Distributors scrambled to buy more, Manufacturer’s inventories were also quickly depleted because they were already scaling back production for 2012, and had just learned of the new, much lower production number. All 3 U.S. manufacturers quickly raised prices and limited what distributors could order, in an effort to curtail the panic buying. This plan, however, backfired, and made matters even worse.

What does all of this mean? There will definitely be much less R22 available in the U. S. this year than last year, and much less than projected demand calls for. What is available will cost much more than it did last year, and the price is going to continue to rise. But, if we are smart in our management of this unforeseen situation, we can all get through it together. The absolute worst thing anyone can do is panic buy MORE R22 than they NEED! Advanced Heating & Cooling is committed to taking care of our loyal customers by having the R22 you NEED. Over the next 2 – 3 months as we work to secure more R22 and while things settle down some, we might have to limit the amount we will sell you at one time based on your previous purchase history. We are only doing this to keep some from buying way more than they actually NEED, so we can have enough to take care of all of you.

There are 4 things YOU can do to help us all get through this:

1. Buy only what you NEED. Trying to buy more than you NEED is only going to make things worse, and drive the price from manufacturers even higher, as they try to stop this panic buying.
2. Recover! Recover! Recover! We need your used, recovered R22. Every pound of recovered gas we can get from you and return to DuPont increases the amount of virgin R22 we can buy, and the more we will have available for you. You enable us to take care of your R22 needs in 2012 and beyond by returning every ounce of recovered R22 to us that you possibly can. Every time you do a unit change-out where you are replacing an old R22 unit, recover the gas and bring it to us.
3. Let us show you DuPont’s MO99, which is a great alternative to R22 in Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Applications. This refrigerant requires no oil change, which makes for an easy retrofit, and performance characteristics are extremely close. MO99 is also now priced less than R22. If you are installing a Dry R22 unit that has never been charged with R22, it is a no brainer. You would do nothing different to charge the unit with MO99 than you would with R22. Just blow the Nitrogen charge, install a liquid line drier, evacuate the system, charge the unit, and go. And, it would cost you less! We can get you all of the literature you need to show you how easy this is. DuPont also has a great video to show you how easy this product is to use.