# HVAC refrigerant - do they keep the reclaimed stuff? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 2, 2013, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hvac-refrigerant-do-they-keep-the-reclaimed-stuff/662451 "2013-07-02T15:34:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 3:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hvac-refrigerant-do-they-keep-the-reclaimed-stuff/662451/21 "2013-07-05T15:22:24Z")
I work on cars. Automotive systems on average use about two pounds of R-1324a, which I sell for ~$1/oz. We’re not talking about hundreds of bucks here. In actuality my fee for emptying a system is $X plus the refrigerant recovered. I was just illustrating that I could restructure the charge to reflect greater use of the equipment when there’s more stuff to recover and it would work out the same. Maybe it’s not a helpful illustration. While the recovery machine purports to measure how much refrigerant it takes in, field experience shows that this is not a reliable measurement (whereas its measure of how much it dispenses is reliable). So I have an indeterminate amount of stuff that once was yours, and it’s in my machine. It’s not something I can just hand you, and even if I could I wouldn’t know how much to allot. It becomes a mess trying to figure out how much to credit a customer for what is usually just a few dollars of material. It’s much simpler, and I think fairer to all concerned, to accept it as partial payment for the recovery process. If that bothers you, you’re welcome to go elsewhere where maybe they figure it differently. Just beware that while their price structure may be more satisfying psychologically, it doesn’t mean their prices are less than mine. You may actually pay more to “feel” you’ve gotten a better deal. As far as contaminated refrigerant, it’s a question of contaminated with what? In automotive systems, contamination with moisture, oil, and compressor debris is rectified by my machine. Contamination with other refrigerants (including any type of blend), propane, or leak-stop products is not fixable, and it would mess up my machine to even recover that crap. I don’t know what the situation is with non-automotive systems. ---
**Author:** ![Excel10k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/977dab/32.png) [@Excel10k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excel10k)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hvac-refrigerant-do-they-keep-the-reclaimed-stuff/662451/22 "2013-07-05T16:20:10Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > WRT that, it’s actually kind of a nice industry standard. Look at it this way. If you go and get your oil changed and it _should_ cost $30, would you rather it cost $35 to help pay for their alignment machine? Or would you rather get your wheels aligned and pay a bit more for use of the machine and only pay $30 for an oil change? > > When I have service done from my HVAC people there’s a charge for the pump. If I don’t use the pump there’s no charge. > I remember a while back I was kind of annoyed when I looked at their bill and noticed (very small, like pennies) charges for individual screws and wire nuts. Bugged me at first, but then I figured it makes more sense for me to pay for the wire nuts and screws that they use on my job, but not pay for the ones that they use on other jobs, right? Otherwise they’ll just raise their hourly rate a bit to cover it as a ‘cost of doing business’ and everyone will pay for it. So, should I have to pay an extra, say, two or three dollars an hour when there’s no electrical work so that they can pay for all the wire nuts they used on the install at the job down the road? I’d rather be charged for exactly what my job consumed (plus any profit that the company feels is fair). Should I pay an extra $5 or $10 an hour to pay for the recovery pump even if it isn’t used on my job? > > Basically, it’s convenient for the shop owner to just charge a flat rate to cover all the different situations, but it’s almost always cheaper for the individual to only pay for exactly what they used. But unless they understand what they’re being charged for, it may result in a lot more calls/complaints to the shop asking about things like “Recovery pump” or “Why am I getting charged for wirenuts and zip screws and soldering rods” or “Why am I getting charged $150 an hour, he spent half the time he was here on the phone troubleshooting someone elses AC” (while the pump was running and he was still keeping an eye on the meters to check for leaks). It’s just easier to bill it as “Came out to find Compressor cycling and evaporator iced over, tested system and found low on freon. Found leak. Fixed leak, recharged, tested system and confirmed that it works…$450” and leave it at that. When I say the cost of the machine is spread over all of his clients, I actually mean all of his clients that use recovery services. Therefore, your example of an oil change that bill for the use of a wheel alignment machine is not relevant. Being charged for wire nuts and such is not a problem if they were actually used. My problem is being charged for materials or supplies that were NOT USED or a fee structure that is intended to make my materials or supplies become your materials or supplies by default then charge me for selling me my own product. In your “found leak…$450” scenario, it opens the door for fraud and inconsistent billing practices. “Rent is due today, so I will bill $450” If you tell me in advance that your billing rate is $150 from the time you leave the shop to the time you leave my residence and I agree to it, If you bill me for the 2 hours you spent on site plus the 30 minutes of drive time, I don’t have anything to complain about. If you billed me for wire nuts and screws, I don’t have anything to complain about. But if you are unwilling to give a detailed bill or an estimate that indicates your hourly billing rate and expected materials or fees, you open the door to shooting from the hip and billing what ever you feel like billing that particular day. ---
**Author:** ![Joey\_P](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/919ad9/32.png) [@Joey\_P](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Joey_P)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hvac-refrigerant-do-they-keep-the-reclaimed-stuff/662451/23 "2013-07-05T16:45:26Z")
> [@Excel10k](#): > > When I say the cost of the machine is spread over all of his clients, I actually mean all of his clients that use recovery services. Therefore, your example of an oil change that bill for the use of a wheel alignment machine is not relevant. Being charged for wire nuts and such is not a problem if they were actually used. My problem is being charged for materials or supplies that were NOT USED or a fee structure that is intended to make my materials or supplies become your materials or supplies by default then charge me for selling me my own product. You’re contradicting yourself. In the above quote, you say that you’ll be happy to be billed for individual wire nuts and whatever other materials and supplies are actually used. Fair enough. But, upthread you said > [@](#): > > Remember, your machine that cost thousands of dollars is just a tool that is required to do your job. It’s no different than a repair shop that does wheel alignments. They must have this expensive tool to do the job, but they don’t get to bill you a fee for using the machine AND a fee for how many turns the machine tell them to make to adjust your alignment. The cost of this machine is spread over all of your clients and just part of the cost of doing business. So, first you say that equipment that gets used on your job should be priced into all the jobs it’s used on, then you say things specifically used on your job should be individually billed to you. But wait, there’s more… > [@](#): > > In your “found leak…$450” scenario, it opens the door for fraud and inconsistent billing practices. “Rent is due today, so I will bill $450” If you tell me in advance that your billing rate is $150 from the time you leave the shop to the time you leave my residence and I agree to it, If you bill me for the 2 hours you spent on site plus the 30 minutes of drive time, I don’t have anything to complain about. If you billed me for wire nuts and screws, I don’t have anything to complain about. But if you are unwilling to give a detailed bill or an estimate that indicates your hourly billing rate and expected materials or fees, you open the door to shooting from the hip and billing what ever you feel like billing that particular day. So, you want a detailed bill, you want to be charged for wire nuts, but you _don’t_ want to be charged for the use of a recovery pump. I’m sure there’s a handful of other things you do and don’t want to be charged for. Good luck finding a HVAC company that’s going to play ball. Maybe it’s me, maybe I’m just not understanding you or you’re doing a bad job explaining it. The thing is, all said and done, the charge is going to be the same. In my scenario, you’re going to get charged $450 it’s just a matter of what level of detail the bill goes into (at least on your end, they should have more details on their end). Keep in mind, it’s just a matter of (in this specific example) if the bill says: Fixed leak $450 or Recovery pump $50 Fixed Leak $400 Total $450 It’s all the same. ---
**Author:** ![Excel10k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/977dab/32.png) [@Excel10k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excel10k)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hvac-refrigerant-do-they-keep-the-reclaimed-stuff/662451/24 "2013-07-05T17:20:03Z")
> [@Gary\_T](#): > > I work on cars. Automotive systems on average use about two pounds of R-1324a, which I sell for ~$1/oz. We’re not talking about hundreds of bucks here. In your case, no. In the situation I am referring to, yes, we are talking about hundreds of bucks. R-22 is about triple the price of R-134a and the system uses an 6 times the refrigerant. The equipment used to recovery/reclaim process cost about the same or less as it does for the R-134a and it takes almost the same amount of time (slightly more) to recover your 2 lbs as it does to recover my 12 lbs. > [@Gary\_T](#): > > In actuality my fee for emptying a system is $X plus the refrigerant recovered. I was just illustrating that I could restructure the charge to reflect greater use of the equipment when there’s more stuff to recover and it would work out the same. Maybe it’s not a helpful illustration. If you recover 2 lbs or 12 lbs is there REALLY THAT MUCH greater use of the equipment? If it takes the machine an additional 15 minutes (Which it doesn’t take anywhere near that) to does that justify an additional fee of $300 for the “greater use of the equipment?” I realize your smaller scale doesn’t make it as blatant as the real world example I am using, but I think it clearly demonstrates that charging the amount of the cost of a pound of freon to recover a pound of freon is absolutely ridiculous. You are already compensated for the “greater use” in your hourly billable rate. When you change a starter, then change an engine, do you charge more for greater use of your tool box?? > [@Gary\_T](#): > > While the recovery machine purports to measure how much refrigerant it takes in, field experience shows that this is not a reliable measurement (whereas its measure of how much it dispenses is reliable). So I have an indeterminate amount of stuff that once was yours, and it’s in my machine. It’s not something I can just hand you, and even if I could I wouldn’t know how much to allot. It becomes a mess trying to figure out how much to credit a customer for what is usually just a few dollars of material. It’s much simpler, and I think fairer to all concerned, to accept it as partial payment for the recovery process. As mentioned before, in this case we are certainly talking about a lot more than just a few dollars of material. We are talking about several hundred dollars in material. If your machine is off by 10% of what it recovered yet you are charging for 100% at $30 - $40 per pound, somebody is being taken to the cleaners and it’s not you but the client. > [@Gary\_T](#): > > If that bothers you, you’re welcome to go elsewhere where maybe they figure it differently. Just beware that while their price structure may be more satisfying psychologically, it doesn’t mean their prices are less than mine. You may actually pay more to “feel” you’ve gotten a better deal. Yes, it does bother me. What matters is if you had explained this to me up front. In the smaller scale case of 2 lbs rather than the larger scale case of 12 lbs I might be ok with it, but with the triple the price and the much larger quantity, it becomes an unacceptable rip off. If you give a true estimate which doesn’t hide the fact that you are charging me for my own freon, I can make an informed decision and not have to “feel” I’ve gotten a better deal. I can KNOW, based on an apples to apples comparison. > [@Gary\_T](#): > > As far as contaminated refrigerant, it’s a question of contaminated with what? In automotive systems, contamination with moisture, oil, and compressor debris is rectified by my machine. Contamination with other refrigerants (including any type of blend), propane, or leak-stop products is not fixable, and it would mess up my machine to even recover that crap. I don’t know what the situation is with non-automotive systems. Are you suggesting that if a client has unsuccessfully used stop leak to repair their system then come to you for a repair you would turn them away or are you saying that you would illegally release their refrigerant into the atmosphere? Lets assume for a minute that you are not licensed and cannot legally service your home HVAC system. Let’s say you decided to have your home system serviced by a company that is licensed. Would you consider it “fair” to be charged for the full capacity of your system at $30 - $30 per lb if you know your system is full? ---
**Author:** ![Excel10k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/977dab/32.png) [@Excel10k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excel10k)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hvac-refrigerant-do-they-keep-the-reclaimed-stuff/662451/25 "2013-07-05T17:30:55Z")
> [@Gary\_T](#): > > I work on cars. Automotive systems on average use about two pounds of R-1324a, which I sell for ~$1/oz. We’re not talking about hundreds of bucks here. In your case, no. In the situation I am referring to, yes, we are talking about hundreds of bucks. R-22 is about triple the price of R-134a and the system uses an 6 times the refrigerant. The equipment used to recovery/reclaim process cost about the same or less as it does for the R-134a and it takes almost the same amount of time (slightly more) to recover your 2 lbs as it does to recover my 12 lbs. > [@Gary\_T](#): > > In actuality my fee for emptying a system is $X plus the refrigerant recovered. I was just illustrating that I could restructure the charge to reflect greater use of the equipment when there’s more stuff to recover and it would work out the same. Maybe it’s not a helpful illustration. If you recover 2 lbs or 12 lbs is there REALLY THAT MUCH greater use of the equipment? If it takes the machine an additional 15 minutes (Which it doesn’t take anywhere near that) to does that justify an additional fee of $300 for the “greater use of the equipment?” I realize your smaller scale doesn’t make it as blatant as the real world example I am using, but I think it clearly demonstrates that charging the amount of the cost of a pound of freon to recover a pound of freon is absolutely ridiculous. You are already compensated for the “greater use” in your hourly billable rate. When you change a starter, then change an engine, do you charge more for greater use of your tool box?? > [@Gary\_T](#): > > While the recovery machine purports to measure how much refrigerant it takes in, field experience shows that this is not a reliable measurement (whereas its measure of how much it dispenses is reliable). So I have an indeterminate amount of stuff that once was yours, and it’s in my machine. It’s not something I can just hand you, and even if I could I wouldn’t know how much to allot. It becomes a mess trying to figure out how much to credit a customer for what is usually just a few dollars of material. It’s much simpler, and I think fairer to all concerned, to accept it as partial payment for the recovery process. As mentioned before, in this case we are certainly talking about a lot more than just a few dollars of material. We are talking about several hundred dollars in material. If your machine is off by 10% of what it recovered yet you are charging for 100% at $30 - $40 per pound, somebody is being taken to the cleaners and it’s not you but the client. > [@Gary\_T](#): > > If that bothers you, you’re welcome to go elsewhere where maybe they figure it differently. Just beware that while their price structure may be more satisfying psychologically, it doesn’t mean their prices are less than mine. You may actually pay more to “feel” you’ve gotten a better deal. Yes, it does bother me. What matters is if you had explained this to me up front. In the smaller scale case of 2 lbs rather than the larger scale case of 12 lbs I might be ok with it, but with the triple the price and the much larger quantity, it becomes an unacceptable rip off. If you give a true estimate which doesn’t hide the fact that you are charging me for my own freon, I can make an informed decision and not have to “feel” I’ve gotten a better deal. I can KNOW, based on an apples to apples comparison. > [@Gary\_T](#): > > As far as contaminated refrigerant, it’s a question of contaminated with what? In automotive systems, contamination with moisture, oil, and compressor debris is rectified by my machine. Contamination with other refrigerants (including any type of blend), propane, or leak-stop products is not fixable, and it would mess up my machine to even recover that crap. I don’t know what the situation is with non-automotive systems. Are you suggesting that if a client has unsuccessfully used stop leak to repair their system then come to you for a repair you would turn them away or are you saying that you would illegally release their refrigerant into the atmosphere? Lets assume for a minute that you are not licensed and cannot legally service your home HVAC system. Let’s say you decided to have your home system serviced by a company that is licensed. Would you consider it “fair” to be charged for the full capacity of your system at $30 - $30 per lb if you know your system is full? ---
**Author:** ![Excel10k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/977dab/32.png) [@Excel10k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excel10k)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2013, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hvac-refrigerant-do-they-keep-the-reclaimed-stuff/662451/26 "2013-07-05T18:02:57Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > You’re contradicting yourself. In the above quote, you say that you’ll be happy to be billed for individual wire nuts and whatever other materials and supplies are actually used. Fair enough. > But, upthread you said > > So, first you say that equipment that gets used on your job should be priced into all the jobs it’s used on, then you say things specifically used on your job should be individually billed to you. > But wait, there’s more… I think you are misunderstanding me. I have made no contradiction. By “priced into” (I didn’t use that phrase, but don’t have a problem with it) I mean appropriately charged to those clients that require it’s use, just as charging wire nuts and screws to those clients that require their use. > [@Joey\_P](#): > > So, you want a detailed bill, you want to be charged for wire nuts, but you _don’t_ want to be charged for the use of a recovery pump. I have no problem being charged an appropriate fee for the use of a recovery pump. $50 is an appropriate fee. $300 is not an appropriate fee for the use of a recovery pump to recover 10 lbs of refrigerant. Is this clear enough for you? Gary T indicated that his fee to recover a lb of freon would be the same as the price of the freon making it “HIS” freon by default for recovering it. Yes, I have a problem with that and it doesn’t contradict anything I have said. > [@Joey\_P](#): > > I’m sure there’s a handful of other things you do and don’t want to be charged for. Good luck finding a HVAC company that’s going to play ball. Maybe it’s me, maybe I’m just not understanding you or you’re doing a bad job explaining it. The thing is, all said and done, the charge is going to be the same. In my scenario, you’re going to get charged $450 it’s just a matter of what level of detail the bill goes into (at least on your end, they should have more details on their end). Keep in mind, it’s just a matter of (in this specific example) if the bill says: > Fixed leak $450 > > or > Recovery pump $50 > Fixed Leak $400 > Total $450 > > It’s all the same. Yes, it is you. You are seeing contradictions where none exist. You think I don’t want to be charged for things I have no problem being charged for. You apparently think I want something for nothing. You are very wrong on all accounts. Yes, I want a detailed bill. If you use the services of any service provider and accept sketchy invoices such as “fixed leak $450” I would venture to say you have been and will continue to be ripped off many times in your life. If your car is leaking water because the radiator hose has been punctured and you take it to a repair shop are you going to accept a bill that says “fixed leak $450?” Of course not. So why do you expect anyone else to accept such a ridiculous lack of detail? A completely acceptable bill would be: Diagnostic fee: $75 Recovery fee: $50 Supplies: $25 Refrigerant: $100 Labor: $200 Total: $450 What is so complicated or strenuous about providing this level of detail? ---
**Author:** ![Snnipe\_70E](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5a626/32.png) [@Snnipe\_70E](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snnipe_70E)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hvac-refrigerant-do-they-keep-the-reclaimed-stuff/662451/27 "2013-07-06T06:30:10Z")
> [@Gary\_T](#): > > I work on cars. Automotive systems on average use about two pounds of R-1324a, which I sell for ~$1/oz. We’re not talking about hundreds of bucks here. > > . Ah a completely different world. ---
**Author:** ![theinscrutabledoctorknow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e68b1a/32.png) [@theinscrutabledoctorknow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/theinscrutabledoctorknow)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hvac-refrigerant-do-they-keep-the-reclaimed-stuff/662451/28 "2013-07-06T06:47:37Z")
Whats going on here?? They stopped using the bad freon, I think it was freon 12, and replaced it with a good freon I think it was freon 14, about 30 years ago. So why are they still freaking out over it?? ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 12:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hvac-refrigerant-do-they-keep-the-reclaimed-stuff/662451/29 "2013-07-06T12:01:33Z")
> [@theinscrutabledoctorknow](#): > > Whats going on here?? > They stopped using the bad freon, I think it was freon 12, and replaced it with a good freon I think it was freon 14, about 30 years ago. So why are they still freaking out over it?? It’s a potent greenhouse gas for one thing, and we’ve become a bit vary in general about just releasing anything in quantity into the atmosphere just because we think it’s a-okay. ---
**Author:** ![Rick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/9f8e36/32.png) [@Rick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2013, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hvac-refrigerant-do-they-keep-the-reclaimed-stuff/662451/30 "2013-07-06T15:19:22Z")
> [@Excel10k](#): > > The equipment used to recovery/reclaim process cost about the same or less as it does for the R-134a and it takes almost the same amount of time (slightly more) to recover your 2 lbs as it does to recover my 12 lbs? logic would say it takes about 6X longer as the pressures and fitting sizes are similar. Thinking about it since the engine room of a car can run a hell of a lot hotter than a home AC unit it can be well over 6X as long. > [@](#): > > Are you suggesting that if a client has unsuccessfully used stop leak to repair their system then come to you for a repair you would turn them away or are you saying that you would illegally release their refrigerant into the atmosphere? Legally Gary T and I have to recover it into a separate container, we cannot vent it. If we don’t have a separate container there are services we can call (at additional$$$) to do the recovery. > [@](#): > > Lets assume for a minute that you are not licensed and cannot legally service your home HVAC system. Let’s say you decided to have your home system serviced by a company that is licensed. Would you consider it “fair” to be charged for the full capacity of your system at $30 - $30 per lb if you know your system is full? Again Gary T and I work on cars so that is our frame of reference. To further complicate matters I’m in California where I have to give you a written estimate before I start to work on your car. Since I have no idea how much R-134 is in your system it makes giving an estimate for just what you need a bit of a bitch. Actually I have my AC service pricing set up for assuming a 50% recovery. If your system is empty I lose a couple of bucks. If it is 75% full I make a couple of bucks. It averages out. In auto work it is rare that a system is full when it needs attention. So if you come into my shop for AC work it will cost $X for my guys to evacuate, recharge, leak check, and performance test your system. Add to that any repairs that the system might require. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_T](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Gary\_T](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_T)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hvac-refrigerant-do-they-keep-the-reclaimed-stuff/662451/31 "2013-07-08T03:11:03Z")
> [@Excel10k](#): > > If you recover 2 lbs or 12 lbs is there REALLY THAT MUCH greater use of the equipment? If it takes the machine an additional 15 minutes (Which it doesn’t take anywhere near that) to does that justify an additional fee of $300 for the “greater use of the equipment?” I realize your smaller scale doesn’t make it as blatant as the real world example I am using, but I think it clearly demonstrates that charging the amount of the cost of a pound of freon to recover a pound of freon is absolutely ridiculous. You are already compensated for the “greater use” in your hourly billable rate. When you change a starter, then change an engine, do you charge more for greater use of your tool box?? Sigh. 1. It’s not a matter of 2 lbs. vs. 12 lbs. It’s more likely a matter of 5 oz. vs. 2 lbs. 2. It’s not a matter of 15 (or any number of) additional minutes. It’s use/strain/consumption of the filter, oil separator, and dessicant. 3. I am not compensated for greater use in my hourly rate. Where did you get that idea? 4. Apples and oranges. My tools and tool box aren’t the kind of equipment that get part of their useful life used up by starter or engine replacements. > [@](#): > > Are you suggesting that if a client has unsuccessfully used stop leak to repair their system then come to you for a repair you would turn them away or are you saying that you would illegally release their refrigerant into the atmosphere? I am stating positively I would turn them away. I don’t care to have my recovery machine messed up by the stop-leak. I do not illegally release refrigerant into the atmosphere, and \_\_\_ you for suggesting I might. As for all your other stuff, that applies to non-automotive situations. It is, as **Snnipe 70E** observed, a different world in this regard. Kindly quit badgering me about it. ---
**Author:** ![Excel10k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/977dab/32.png) [@Excel10k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excel10k)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hvac-refrigerant-do-they-keep-the-reclaimed-stuff/662451/32 "2013-07-08T22:51:12Z")
> [@Gary\_T](#): > > Sigh. > > 1. It’s not a matter of 2 lbs. vs. 12 lbs. It’s more likely a matter of 5 oz. vs. 2 lbs. > 2. It’s not a matter of 15 (or any number of) additional minutes. It’s use/strain/consumption of the filter, oil separator, and dessicant. > 3. I am not compensated for greater use in my hourly rate. Where did you get that idea? > 4. Apples and oranges. My tools and tool box aren’t the kind of equipment that get part of their useful life used up by starter or engine replacements. > > I am stating positively I would turn them away. I don’t care to have my recovery machine messed up by the stop-leak. I do not illegally release refrigerant into the atmosphere, and \_\_\_ you for suggesting I might. > > As for all your other stuff, that applies to non-automotive situations. It is, as **Snnipe 70E** observed, a different world in this regard. Kindly quit badgering me about it. For the record, Gary T I have two older model Robinair recovery/recycling machines that work just fine. One is for R-134a and the other for R-12 so I know there is no “greater use of the equipment” that would justify an additional $300 to sell a client their own refrigerant back to them. I honor of your request that I stop badgering you, that is all. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hvac-refrigerant-do-they-keep-the-reclaimed-stuff/662451.md?page=1)