Refrigerant rules read as a pile of numbers until you notice that different bodies wrote different parts. Congress set the framework, EPA wrote the servicing and substitute rules under it, the Department of Transportation owns the cylinder, and the federal workplace-safety regulations own the room you work in. This guide reads those instruments directly and says, per topic, which one settles the question — and where the answer is trade practice that no regulator publishes, it says that rather than inventing a citation. Orientation for study, not a substitute for the refrigerant's own safety data sheet, the equipment manual or an employer procedure, and not affiliated with any agency or exam body.
Each chapter opens with the short version. Tap one to read the detail.
One molecule, two altitudes, and a number the statute defines
~2 min
Ozone is a shield in the stratosphere and a pollutant at ground level — same molecule, different place. The statute does the rest of the work: it defines ozone-depletion potential from a substance's own physics, and it sorts controlled substances into two classes that everything downstream keys on.
What the rule says about a substitute, and what it leaves to the trade
~2 min
Federal text governs whether a substitute may be used, in which end use, and under what conditions — it requires flammability data and separates retrofit from new equipment. It does not teach the trade's own vocabulary: safety groups, temperature glide and blend behaviour are engineering practice.
Leak rate is a rate, and repairs are proven twice
~2 min
The servicing rule turns on two defined terms. Full charge is the amount an appliance needs to run normally; leak rate is the speed it loses that charge, expressed as a percentage of full charge between charges. Repairs are verified before the appliance returns to service and again after.
Four certifications, and the jobs that need none
~2 min
The certification types map to appliance pressure classes, not to job titles. Type I is small appliances, Type II medium through very high pressure, Type III low pressure, Universal all three — and several real tasks, including disposing of a small appliance, require no certification at all.
The cylinder is federal too, and it is not EPA's
~2 min
The cylinder is regulated by the Department of Transportation, and the fill limit is a ratio of weights, not of volume. The federal workplace-safety regulations own the other half: locking out energy before service, and the permit-required confined spaces where heavier-than-air vapour collects.
Records prove compliance; the statute prices the failure
~2 min
The regulation says what must be written down and kept — invoices naming the purchaser, date and quantity, and a technician's certificate held at the place of business. The Clean Air Act supplies the consequence, and its penalty is assessed per day of violation.
A second phase-down, for gases that never touched ozone
~2 min
Hydrofluorocarbons have no ozone-depletion potential and are being phased down anyway, because the concern is climate. The rule works through allowances weighted by exchange value, restricts high-warming fluids sector by sector, and reaches back into servicing with container and reclaim duties.
The car is a separate programme
~2 min
Motor-vehicle air conditioning is regulated under its own section with its own certification and its own equipment standard. The trigger is servicing a vehicle for consideration, and the recovery equipment must reach a specified vacuum — a different number from the stationary rules.
EPA lists substitutes; it does not bless refrigerants
~2 min
The substitutes programme makes decisions per end use, not per chemical. A substitute is acceptable, acceptable subject to use conditions or narrowed use limits, or unacceptable — and nobody may put a new one into commerce until a notice has sat with EPA for ninety days.
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