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Ralph E. Flori Sr. is the owner of a local Heating, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration Service and installation firm, and has been in the business for over 30 years. He is also a Certificate Member of the Refrigeration Service Engineers Society, which has been active in certification of qualified service people.

Several new laws have been enacted by our Congress that will affect every person dramatically. One of these is as follows: "Effective July 1, 1992 it shall be unlawful for any person in the course of maintaining, servicing, repairing, or disposing of an appliance or industrial process refrigeration, to knowingly vent or otherwise knowingly release or dispose of any class I or class II substance used as a refrigerant in such appliance (or industrial process refrigeration) in a manner which permits such substance to enter the environment.." Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990 (report 101-952, Section 608).

What exactly does this mean? It means that no one, homeowners included, will be able to throw away old air conditioners, refrigerators, or any appliances containing refrigerants. (Although I can't say for sure at this time, but those of us who will be certified will probably have to "uncharge" the units, and reclaim the refrigerant).

It means that those of us who are in the air conditioning and refrigeration business will have to purchase "reclaim equipment", which is now selling at the $3,000 and above mark.

It also means that we will have to charge this to the customer in the form of a special service charge per call. It means that from then on, no one except those trained in reclaim will be able to buy refrigerant and charge their own auto or home air conditioning units.

It means that we will no longer be able to "add just a little gas" to a unit to get it going again without a serious effort to find and repair the leak. Some leaks are very hard to find, even with expensive leak detection equipment and the labor cost in doing this type of repair is going to be high.

Refrigerant 12, the most common of all the refrigerants, which is used in all auto air conditioners, household refrigerators, dehumidifiers, commercial refrig~erators, walk-in coolers, and some small freezers, is the biggest problem. No acceptable substitute has been found that can be used directly without major modifications to the equipment. On Jan. 1, 1990, we saw the price of R-12 dramatically increase because of the tax imposed on the sale of it. The current plan for excise tax on the commodity is as follows:TS18R

1990 $1.37/lb.

1991 1.37

1992 1.67

1993 2.65

1994 2.65

1995 3.10

1996 3.55

1997 4.00

1998 4.45

1999 4.90

These figures are just the tax imposed upon the basic cost of the refrigerant, which is sure to increase as well, as several manufacturers have already ceased production of this product.

There has been some talk in the industry, to also "do something about R22 as well" even though nothing has been proved against it in regards to polluting the environment. (There is still serious discussion going on in regards to whether or not R12 affects the ozone layer as much as originally thought.)

There are going to be some dramatic changes in this industry in the next few years, and only time will tell if we have refrigerated products and air conditioning, or if we will have to go back to hand fans and lots of deodorant! The consumers, of course, are going to be the ones to bear the full economic impact of this legislation.