• 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?

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! Wittichen Supply Company 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.  
   
   IMPORTANT:  Please watch this video from DuPont regarding MO99:
   
   
4. Carefully guard your R22 inventory. This stuff is liquid gold, and will walk off if left unattended.

The events of the past few days have created some challenges for our industry. But, we want to assure you that Wittichen Supply Company is working hard behind the scenes to make this as painless as possible for you. With your help in the 4 areas above, we will all be successful in making that happen.

Thank you so much for your support!

Charles Herring
General Manager
Wittichen Supply Company

Complaints normally surface when heat pumps go into defrost, or when systems are run in heating for a brief time then switched back into cooling. The bacteria or odor collects and grows on the coil during this heating time and is released all at once when the indoor coil gets cool and damp. Heat pump owners notice the odor when the system goes into defrost, usually when the outdoor temperature dips below 40 degrees. Heat pumps and air conditioners experience the problem, when the air conditioner is turned back on after the heating has been used. Our climate can require heating in the morning and cooling in the afternoon. This is a perfect condition for a complaint to surface.

Read more about Dirty Sock Syndrome and how to resolve it here.

First, to my knowledge now, no company lives were lost. Hearing some employees had home damage or lost homes, and everyone knows someone with damage. This morning the Alabama death count at 162 and climbing.

We had 8 or 9 of our stores close and very close to the path of the tornadoes yesterday.

Our Tuscaloosa store had a major hit. The tornado came close to us on our left side of our building and the immediate pressure drop blew out the left side of the building and part of the roof. There may be other structure damage we may discover at our visual inspection today; inventory was tossed around and some just gone. We are meeting our builder this morning at the store to develop a plan on securing/repairing the building.

I want to thank everyone for their prayers and concerns. The whole story will unfold over the next week. It’s hard to imagine how bad this event was, even for us looking at it first hand.
David Henderson

President,

Wittichen Supply Company