Short answerR-22 (Freon) has not been manufactured or imported into the United States since January 1, 2020. Systems that use it can still be legally repaired and recharged, but only with reclaimed or stockpiled gas, which is scarce and expensive. If your Michigan air conditioner was installed before 2010 and needs more than a minor repair, replacement usually makes more financial sense than a recharge.
How to tell if your system uses R-22
Walk out to the condenser, the unit sitting on the pad beside the house, and find the silver data plate on the side. It will list the refrigerant as either R-22 or R-410A, and sometimes a charge weight in pounds and ounces. If the plate is faded past reading, the manufacture date is the next best clue. Nearly every split system installed in Southeast Michigan before 2006 is R-22, the 2006 to 2010 window is mixed, and anything from 2010 forward is almost certainly R-410A. Some manufacturers also printed a "Puron" or "R-410A" sticker near the service valves to make the distinction obvious to technicians.
The other tell is the service port size. R-22 systems use a 1/4-inch flare fitting on both the liquid and suction lines; R-410A systems were given a 5/16-inch port on purpose so the two gases could not be cross-connected. We see a lot of R-22 equipment still running in the 1950s and 60s ranches around Westland and Garden City and in the older sections of Ypsilanti Township, where the original central air went in during the 1990s and has simply never failed badly enough to replace.
What the phase-out actually did
R-22 is a hydrochlorofluorocarbon, and the chlorine in it damages the ozone layer. Under the Montreal Protocol and the Clean Air Act, the EPA stepped down its production over two decades. The milestone that matters to homeowners is January 1, 2020, after which no new R-22 could be produced in or imported into the United States. The gas was not banned from use. A system charged with R-22 can be serviced, repaired and recharged for as long as it runs, and nothing in federal or Michigan law requires you to replace it.
The supply, though, is now limited to two sources: gas that was stockpiled before the deadline, and gas that was recovered from retired systems, cleaned to the industry purity standard and resold as reclaimed refrigerant. Reclaimed R-22 is chemically the same product. There is just not very much of it, and the price reflects that. A technician who recharges an R-22 system is drawing from a shrinking pool, and the per-pound cost has climbed to many times what R-410A costs. On a system that holds six to ten pounds, a full recharge after a leak can approach what a significant mechanical repair used to cost.
Why a recharge is rarely the right call
Refrigerant does not get used up. A sealed system that is low on charge has a leak, full stop. On older R-22 equipment the usual culprits are a corroded evaporator coil in the furnace plenum, a rubbed-through line set where it passes through the rim joist, or a leaking Schrader core at the service port. Adding gas without fixing the leak means paying scarce-refrigerant prices to watch it escape again, often within a season.
That changes the math on repairs. If the leak is at a service valve or a flare fitting, fixing it and topping off a pound or two can be reasonable. If the evaporator coil is leaking, the repair involves a new coil, a vacuum, and a full charge of refrigerant that costs more than the coil. A replacement R-22 coil is itself hard to find, since manufacturers stopped making them, and a dry-shipped R-410A coil cannot be paired with an R-22 condenser. At that point you are putting serious money into one half of a system that is at least 16 years old. We walk homeowners through the same numbers in our repair or replace air conditioner guide.
Drop-in replacement refrigerants
You will hear about "R-22 alternatives" such as R-407C, R-422B, R-438A (MO99) and a few others marketed as drop-ins. They are legitimate products and we have used them, but they come with real trade-offs. Most require changing the oil or at least confirming compatibility with the mineral oil in an R-22 compressor. Capacity typically drops a few percent, so a system that was marginal on a 92-degree July afternoon in Canton gets a little more marginal. The system has to be fully recovered and recharged, since the blends cannot be mixed with the R-22 already in it, and the data plate must be relabeled. And the alternative refrigerants are not cheap either, just less expensive than reclaimed R-22.
Where a drop-in makes sense is a system that is mechanically sound, has a small repairable leak, and whose owner needs a few more summers out of it before a planned replacement. Where it does not make sense is as a way to avoid a replacement decision on a compressor that is already drawing high amps.
What replacing an R-22 system involves
A split system is matched: the outdoor condenser, the indoor evaporator coil and the metering device are designed together. Replacing only the condenser with an R-410A unit and leaving the old R-22 coil in place is not a legitimate installation; the oils are incompatible, the pressures are different, and the efficiency rating on the new unit assumes its matched coil. A proper replacement includes both the condenser and the coil, a new line set or a thorough flush of the old one if it is the right size and in good condition, and a new metering device.
Because the manufacture date on new residential equipment moved to A2L refrigerants at the start of 2025, a replacement today will most likely be an R-454B system. We cover that transition in R-454B: what changed in 2025. The short version for someone leaving R-22 behind is that you are skipping a generation; the new systems are much more efficient, quieter, and far better at handling the humid summers along the Huron River valley than a 1990s 10-SEER unit ever was.
How we handle R-22 calls
When we get a no-cooling call on an R-22 system, we diagnose it the same way as any other. A failed capacitor or contactor on an R-22 condenser is still a quick, inexpensive fix, and we will not talk you into a replacement over a part that costs less than a tank of gas. If the diagnosis comes back as a leak, we find it, tell you where it is, and give you both numbers: what the leak repair plus reclaimed-refrigerant recharge would run, and what a new matched system would run, with the free estimate on the AC installation side. More than one customer has told us they expected to be pushed toward replacement and were surprised when we said the old unit had another couple of years in it.
The one piece of advice we give every R-22 owner in Washtenaw and western Wayne County is to plan rather than react. A system from 2004 that is still cooling is on borrowed time, and the worst time to make a replacement decision is the first 90-degree week of June when every shop is booked out and the only choice on the table is whatever is in stock. Get an AC tune-up in the spring, ask the tech for an honest read on the compressor amps and the coil condition, and start getting quotes while you still have the luxury of comparing them.