Air Conditioner Maintenance

In November of 1990, the Clean Air Act was signed into Federal law. This law requires a complete phase out of chlorofluorocarbons (commonly known as CFCs) and other ozone-depleting chemicals (ODCs) by the year 2000, although it might be revised to 1997 or sooner. What does this have to do with your air conditioner? Your air conditioner uses a CFC based refrigerant, known as R-12, or freon. This law means that there won't be much R-12 left by the year 2000, and what is left will be very expensive, because of a tax that will reach about $5.00 per pound. Why are they doing this to us? We like our cars to have air conditioning. This is being done because of the terrible damage CFC based refrigerant is doing to the ozone layer. In the U.S., the largest single source of ozone damaging emissions is from our automobile air conditioners. It's been estimated that car air conditioners used over 48,000 metric tons of R-12 in 1989 -- this is 21%% of all CFC use in the U.S. Of course, this causes a big problem for both us and our mechanics. We won't be able to go out and buy a can to "top-off" our systems. The new laws specify that all refrigerant will have to be recaptured and recycled when we have repairs made. Of course, this will take expensive and specialized equipment. Our mechanics will have to make sure that there are no leaks, and fix them if there are, before they can add any R-12 to our air conditioning systems. Naturally, this cost will be passed along to us. Recovered refrigerant will be recycled. Capturing refrigerants and restoring them for reuse is not only environmentally sound, but mechanically safe. Each molecule of CFC in the atmosphere has a 120 year life that will destroy tens of thousands of ozone molecules. This means that a CFC molecule released in 1991 will still be damaging the ozone layer in 2100.