Well ladies and gentleman I think it is safe to say that 2015’s summer is out of here. We are halfway through September and Fall is just around the corner. There are still a few hotter days here and there here in Kansas City, but you can tell it’s cooling off. You can almost feel it in the air, winter is coming. These next few months can be rather slow for our industry, but I can’t lie… I love the Fall months. There is no better time to enjoy the outdoors. It’s just the right amount of cold here in the mid-west. It’s not so cold that you stand it, it’s just enough to make you feel alive.
I hope everyone had a warm and profitable past few months. I know on my side of the industry things really start to slow down in September and can even come to a standstill come October. I was expecting prices on refrigerant to rise over the summer months due to the lawsuit filed by the American Hydrocarbon Coalition and due to the Environmental Protection Agency announcing the phase out of HFCs. But, after watching pricing the past few months nothing really happened. Even R-134a stayed flat, which is remarkable, as it is always the one that seems to go up an down like crazy over the summer months. (Last year it went from $75 to $140 in just a few weeks.) R-410A stayed the same, but that was predictable. I was surprised by the consistent price point of R-404A. It still has stayed in the $70-$80 range even after the EPA announced the phase out 404A in just a few years. I will be doing another pricing prediction article here in a few more months as we get closer to 2016 and as the Montreal Protocol in Dubai gets closer.
This was the first full year of RefrigerantHQ.com. I founded this site in late August of 2014 and have slowly been working on it here and there as the weeks go on. The site has grown from having just a few articles and questions and answers to over one-hundred published articles, tons of frequently asked questions, 608 and 609 practice tests, and many other additions. I slowed down a bit on updates over the past month but I can assure you that I will be back with more frequent updates and articles. Towards the end of 2015 and in 2016 I hope to continue to add to this site and provide more relevant articles and facts.