One of the very first steps when it comes to diagnosing your home air conditioner, refrigerator, or even your vehicle’s air conditioner is understanding the temperature and the current pressure that your system is operating at. Having these facts along with the saturation point, the subcool, and the superheat numbers for the refrigerant you are working on are essential when it comes to really understanding what is going wrong with your system.
After a visual inspection the very next step for the most seasoned technicians is pulling out their gauges and checking the pressure and temperature. It just becomes second nature after enough calls. I have heard stories of rookie techs calling some of the pros on their team for help on a system that they’re stuck on. It doesn’t matter what the situation is. It doesn’t matter if you’re in Miami or in Fargo. It will never fail that one of the first questions the pros ask the rookie is what is your subcool and what is your superheat? Having and understanding these numbers is key to figuring out what to do next.
But, these numbers won’t do you any good if you don’t know what refrigerant you are dealing with and what the refrigerant’s boiling point is at each pressure level. This article aims at providing you with just that information.
R-22 History
R-22 refrigerant is the major refrigerant, or… it was. R-22 was invented by a partnership with General Motors and DuPont back in the 1930’s. In the 1950’s the use of R-22 exploded and for nearly sixty years it was THE refrigerant to be used in home, office, and commercial air conditioning. Along with air conditioning it was also used in chillers, ice rinks, and many other applications.
It was in the 1980’s that it was discovered that R-22 was damaging the Ozone layer with the chlorine that it contained. In order to correct this R-22 was phased out across the world. Here in America our phase out began in 2010 and the refrigerant will be completely phased out in 2020. Taking R-22’s place is the HFC refrigerant blend known as R-410A, our Puron.
As I write this article, in 2019, there are still thousands of R-22 machines out there, but they are a dying breed and within the next ten to twenty years R-22 will be as rare to find as R-12 is today.
If you would like to read more about R-22 Freon please have a look at our R-22 Freon refrigerant fact sheet.
R-22 PT Chart
Let’s take a look at the complete pressure table for R-22 below.
| °F | °C | PSI | KPA |
| -40 | -40.0 | 0.5 | 3.4 |
| -35 | -37.2 | 2.6 | 17.9 |
| -30 | -34.4 | 4.9 | 33.8 |
| -25 | -31.7 | 7.4 | 51.0 |
| -20 | -28.9 | 10.1 | 69.6 |
| -15 | -26.1 | 13.2 | 91.0 |
| -10 | -23.3 | 16.5 | 113.8 |
| -5 | -20.6 | 20.1 | 138.6 |
| 0 | -17.8 | 24 | 165.5 |
| 5 | -15.0 | 28.2 | 194.4 |
| 10 | -12.2 | 32.8 | 226.1 |
| 15 | -9.4 | 37.7 | 259.9 |
| 20 | -6.7 | 43 | 296.5 |
| 25 | -3.9 | 48.8 | 336.5 |
| 30 | -1.1 | 54.9 | 378.5 |
| 35 | 1.7 | 61.5 | 424.0 |
| 40 | 4.4 | 68.5 | 472.3 |
| 45 | 7.2 | 76 | 524.0 |
| 50 | 10.0 | 84 | 579.2 |
| 55 | 12.8 | 92.6 | 638.5 |
| 60 | 15.6 | 102 | 703.3 |
| 65 | 18.3 | 111 | 765.3 |
| 70 | 21.1 | 121 | 834.3 |
| 75 | 23.9 | 132 | 910.1 |
| 80 | 26.7 | 144 | 992.8 |
| 85 | 29.4 | 156 | 1075.6 |
| 90 | 32.2 | 168 | 1158.3 |
| 95 | 35.0 | 182 | 1254.8 |
| 100 | 37.8 | 196 | 1351.4 |
| 105 | 40.6 | 211 | 1454.8 |
| 110 | 43.3 | 226 | 1558.2 |
| 115 | 46.1 | 243 | 1675.4 |
| 120 | 48.9 | 260 | 1792.6 |
| 125 | 51.7 | 278 | 1916.7 |
| 130 | 54.4 | 297 | 2047.7 |
| 135 | 57.2 | 317 | 2185.6 |
| 140 | 60.0 | 337 | 2323.5 |
| 145 | 62.8 | 359 | 2475.2 |
| 150 | 65.6 | 382 | 2633.8 |
Conclusion
There you have it folks. I hope this article was helpful and if you find that something is inaccurate here in my chart please do not hesitate to reach out to me. I have sourced this the best I could but there is always going to be conflicting data. I’ve seen it multiple times on various refrigerants. I’ll search for a refrigerant’s pressure chart and get various results all showing different pounds per square inch temperatures.
The aim with this article is to give you accurate information so again, if you see anything incorrect please contact us. On top of this post we are also working on a comprehensive refrigerant pressure/temperature listing. The goal is to have every refrigerant out there listed with a pressure/temperature chart that is easily available.