Free Newsletter
HEAT AIR NEWS
Breaking News and Technical Articles for the HVAC Community, by EmailREFRIGERANTS  |  POLICY  |  DATA CENTERS  |  DEALS  |  TECHNICAL
Subscribe Free
EventsAboutContactNewsletter
Subscribe Free
Technical

R-32's Record Abroad Rests on Small Splits and Thin Incident Data

JRAIA reported no accident in October 2014 with a few to several million R-32 mini-splits sold in Japan. Daikin's global estimates run from 27 million units in 2017 to 280 million in 2025. A 3-ton Daikin R-32 split heat pump holds 83 ounces, against 1.65 pounds in its 1-ton ductless unit.

Rich Chaffin, President  |  November 4, 2026
Key TakeawayMarkets abroad have sold R-32 for 14 years, but the published record centers on small ductless units, and most global counts come from Daikin, which sells it. No source read for this article gives an R-32 ignition count with a denominator for any country. Ducted equipment in attics and closets is the US condition that record says least about.
Spotlight Series: The A2L JobPart 5 of 5
  1. "Mildly Flammable" Describes How an A2L Burns and Does Not Measure Ignition Odds
  2. A2L Rules Vary City to City Because Codes Adopt Safety Standards Edition by Edition
  3. R-454B and R-32 Change Cylinders, Leak Detectors and Ignition Checks on the Job
  4. Swapping the Other Half of an R-410A Split Can Create a Prohibited New System
  5. R-32's Record Abroad Rests on Small Splits and Thin Incident Data

In October 2014, Osami Kataoka of Daikin told a Dubai workshop, on behalf of the Japanese trade group JRAIA, that "a few to several millions of residential mini-splits have been sold with R32, but no accident has been reported." That slide was the plainest statement of the R-32 field record found for this article. It is 12 years old, it comes from a manufacturer of R-32 equipment, and it covers one country's residential mini-splits.

ASHRAE, UL, IEC and AS/NZS standards were not read for this article, and EUR-Lex refused the automated request for the EU regulation, so those rules appear only as other documents describe them. AHRI's server also refused the request for its full risk report, leaving the published abstract and AHRI's release.

Most Global Counts Come From Daikin

Daikin launched the first R-32 room unit in Japan in November 2012. JRAIA put cumulative Japanese sales above 800,000 by late 2013, according to Cooling Post, and a 2016 JRAIA deck says "sold over seven million units in 2015." By July 2019, JRAIA described a residential market of about 9.8 million units a year as "almost 100%" R-32, and marked commercial units "only Small-size; 41%."

The global figures are Daikin's, and their wording shifts: about 15 million units in use in May 2016, more than 27 million sold by March 2017, more than 84 million "in use" across 70 countries in September 2019, and "over 280 million units installed" across 130 countries in a brochure marked June 2025. Daikin puts its own sales above 49 million through December 2023. No independent audit of any of these turned up.

R-32 by Market
MarketFirst R-32 unitsDocumented shareRule behind it
JapanNovember 2012 (Daikin)"Almost 100%" of residential units (JRAIA, 2019)Weighted-average GWP target of 750 for mini-splits, target year 2018. A 2014 JRAIA slide on the draft excludes floor-mounted and multi-split units.
IndiaMarch 2013 (Daikin); local production January 2014 (JARN)About 80 percent of split units in 2021 (JARN estimate)Imports of R-22 air conditioners barred from 2015, local production of R-22 models exempt until January 2025 (JARN)
AustraliaSeptember 2013 (Fujitsu); Daikin dates its entry to 201485 percent of split imports in 2019, over 30 percent of single-split stock in 2020 (Cold Hard Facts reports, via trade press)Import and manufacture banned from July 1, 2024, for GWP over 750 in units charged to 2.6 kg or less. Ducted outdoor units are outside the ban (ARC).
ChinaNot confirmed70.9 percent of room units in 2024, R-410A 27.1 percent (CHEAA)GWP over 750 banned in room units for domestic sale from Jan. 1, 2029, residential multi-split excluded (CHEAA)
EU2013 (Daikin)Not foundSplits to 12 kW limited to GWP under 150 from Jan. 1, 2029, larger splits to under 750, with a site-safety exemption (Daikin's summary). Larger splits drop to GWP 150 in 2033 (Heat Pumping Technologies).

Japan's Numbers Put the Risk at the Service Stage

JRAIA began its assessment in 2011 under ISO/IEC Guide 51 and treated every ignition as a fatal accident, because it could not classify severity. It accepted one such event per century across 10 million units with a 10-year life, which works out to 10-10 per unit per year in use and 10-9 for storage, transport, maintenance and disposal. The base case was deliberately harsh: a wall unit 1.8 meters up in a room of 7 square meters with a 2.4-meter ceiling, losing its whole charge in four minutes. JRAIA's rapid-leak probability for the Japanese market was 0.023 percent.

JRAIA Ignition Probabilities, Mini-Split, 2016 Deck
Life stageR-32Propane (preliminary)
Logistics4.1 x 10-171.9 x 10-8 to 5.0 x 10-6
Installation2.7 x 10-101.5 x 10-5 to 1.7 x 10-5
Use, indoor3.9 x 10-155.9 x 10-9 to 1.1 x 10-4
Use, outdoor1.5 x 10-109.7 x 10-13 to 1.9 x 10-8
Service3.2 x 10-109.3 x 10-6 to 1.7 x 10-5
Disposal3.6 x 10-111.8 x 10-5 to 1.3 x 10-4

Service sits about 80,000 times above indoor use for R-32, and within a factor of about three of its tolerance. Kataoka's list of service concerns named accidental release near an ignition source, brazing, vacuum pumps and recovery compressors, and, with a question mark, "Smoking of service person?" Multi-split units had less margin, even against a tolerance 10 times looser. In a 2015 JRAIA deck, installation on a 3.24-square-meter veranda came to 9.0 x 10-9 against a 10-8 tolerance, and the deck judged the multi-split results acceptable with fan diffusion as a countermeasure.

Fire Reports Rarely Name the Gas

Japan's product-safety agency, NITE, logged 345 room air conditioner accidents from fiscal 2021 through 2025. Of 252 investigated, it found 152 were not caused by the product, including nine compressor ruptures after air got in through work errors, one of them a 2024 Osaka unit that burst during refrigerant recovery. Its May 2026 release does not sort the accidents by refrigerant. English and Japanese searches found no NITE, JRAIA or JSRAE count of R-32 ignitions after 2014, and NITE's searchable accident database was not queried. JSRAE's June 2021 report says reports of compressor explosions during pump-down "are rare." That hazard predates A2Ls, since JRAIA's slides list diesel explosion for R-410A as well, and in JSRAE's modeled engine with POE oil, R-32's flammable range of 0 to 20 volume percent was narrower than R-22's 0 to 30.

Indian press reports found for this article on fatal "AC blasts" seldom identify a refrigerant. A September 2025 fire in Faridabad killed three, and officials blamed an air conditioner blast, with the investigation still open when ETV Bharat reported it. Three people were reportedly killed at a chemical plant in Alibag in October 2022, with an inquiry launched. No report read for this article names R-32. In the one Indian case with a stated gas, Colaba police registered a case alleging that a supplier's "flammable refrigerant R152" went into a Navy destroyer's system in place of R-22 before a January 2022 blast that killed three sailors, Cooling Post reported, citing the Hindustan Times. That report carries no response from the supplier.

South Korea has the sharpest data, and it is not about R-32. The National Fire Agency said on Sept. 2 that it had tracked 36 fires over five years in which refrigerant was the suspected cause, rising from one in 2022 to 13 in 2025 and 14 by July 2026. The blend was R-22 cut with R-40 and labeled as R-22. Investigators found trimethylaluminum in outdoor units, and 47.2 percent of the fires came during removal or charging. "Illegal mixed refrigerant cannot be identified with the naked eye," said Ju Young-guk of the agency's 119 Response Bureau, as translated by Nocut News. The agency also said 11 cases initially classified under other causes have been re-examined, so first fire classifications are not final on this question.

Western Australia's 2018 safety bulletin, quoted by the trade group VASA, cites flammable refrigerant incidents causing injury and property damage in that state "and a fatality in New Zealand." Its concern is flammable gas put into systems built for non-flammable refrigerant, and VASA files it under hydrocarbons. Among the refrigerant-linked cases above, the stated or alleged cause is a wrong, illegal or substituted gas. No document read gives an R-32 ignition count with a denominator.

Conversions Draw the Warnings, and Insurers Say Little

Australia's AIRAH guide, in a second edition published in 2026, says that under work health and safety regulation, "a person changing a refrigerant to a more flammable refrigerant takes on a role similar to that of a designer of a refrigeration system." Compliance tests under AS/NZS 60335.2.40 can be run only under laboratory conditions, it says, so a legal appliance conversion "might not be technically or economically feasible." In the UK, the trade federation FETA said in 2018 that it had heard of R-410A being pulled and systems recharged with R-32, and said the change left a system non-compliant with EN 378 and voided any warranty.

Searches for FM Global, VdS, GDV and Allianz positions on R-32 found none, and what exists on insurers is mostly secondhand. Cooling Post, reporting UK broker Andy Chibeba's views in December 2013, wrote that "the use of R32 will need to be disclosed to your insurer and/or broker," including on fleet policies. His firm's policies did not yet extend to R-32, though he said it would look to tailor cover at an affordable cost. TAFE NSW's Stephen Smith spoke only to hydrocarbons that year, saying he was "not aware of any premium changes being exerted by insurance companies" from handling them. The Western Australian bulletin warns that a conversion "may invalidate business, car and home/contents insurance policies," and AIRAH's 2026 guide tells users to check property insurers' requirements on cylinder storage.

R-290's Footing Is Small Charges and Outdoor Monoblocks

The EU's 2029 limit closes small splits to R-32, whose GWP is 675, while larger splits stay open until the 2033 step. Daikin's EU site says it "is investigating and developing a range of R-290 and R-454C systems." IEC 60335-2-40's 2022 edition allows up to 988 grams of R-290 in a standard split with added safety measures, ACHR News reported. A 2025 Heat Pumping Technologies article says subsidy data put R-290 near 20 percent of subsidized German heat pumps by 2022, higher for monoblock air-to-water units, before its share fell 3.1 points in 2022-23 while R-32 gained 8.6. It says outdoor monoblocks face "almost no restrictions," while split air-to-air units to 12 kW are limited to 1 kg under IEC 60335-2-40.

China counted over 10 million R-290 air conditioners by the end of 2024, CHEAA said, of which nearly 600,000 were splits. In India, Godrej began R-290 split production in March 2012 and cumulative R-290 sales reached 100,000 units by October 2014, the IIR reported, but no current share turned up. JSRAE found R-32 "sufficiently safe" in floor-mounted units at the charge formula it tested, and said R-290 "had an inadequate safety margin" there. Its final propane assessment was still underway in June 2021. In Europe, Cooling Post reported that the organizer of the Daikin-led SkillSafe project maintains that "existing safety standards do not consider the total lifecycle of R290 heat pumps."

In the US, 40 CFR Part 82's listing read for this article accepts R-290 for residential and light commercial air conditioning in "self-contained room air conditioners only." EPA's November 2025 proposal for SNAP Rule 27 would update R-290's use conditions but keep that limit, saying R-290 "is not an available substitute for any of the other end-uses within the sector."

Two Risk Studies, and the Ducted Gap

AHRI's 2012 study is the closest US counterpart found for this article, and its number sits far from Japan's. It estimated 9 x 10-5 R-32 ignition events per unit per year in ducted residential split heat pumps, about 900,000 times JRAIA's in-use tolerance. The authors compared it with 1 x 10-3 significant home fires per home per year, and AHRI called the risk "well below the risk level commonly accepted by the public in general." The two studies differ in equipment, leak scenarios and assumptions. AHRI's study excluded mitigation and did not decide whether ignition would become a fire, so the gap does not measure real-world risk. It does show that the answer depends heavily on who sets the yardstick and how the tree is built.

The same abstract separates locations, finding that releases on the order of 170 g/s of R-32 from units in basements, garages or attics "would not reach flammable concentrations in areas where a sufficient ignition source might be present." From a utility closet, they could produce flammable concentrations in the closet for about 70 seconds. That is modeling and lab work, and no field record for ducted R-32 in attics or closets turned up in any market. Australia's guide raises the nearest parallel: "Ducted indoor units pose an additional hazard if the indoor unit is located in a confined space or underfloor area," where refrigerant could pool. Kataoka's 2014 deck made the general point, "Stagnation (pooling) is the issue."

Charge changes the comparison too. Using US-market equipment for scale, Daikin lists 1.65 pounds in a 1-ton R-32 ductless outdoor unit and 83 ounces, or about 5.2 pounds, in a 3-ton R-32 split heat pump with 15 feet of precharged line. Per ton the two are close, but total mass decides which side of a charge threshold a unit lands on, and AIRAH's table for AS/NZS 5149.1 puts R-32's m1 at 1.84 kg, about 4.06 pounds, between them. Daikin's brochure lists rival 3-ton R-454B units at 90 to 121.6 ounces, a comparison from a seller of R-32 that was not checked against each maker's sheet. JRAIA told other countries running similar assessments to set their own inputs, noting that installer skill can affect leaks and that in hot climates, "due to the equipment size (= refrigerants volume) to match the load, the risk may be higher." On any job, the manufacturer's instructions and the authority having jurisdiction govern.

Why This Matters to Contractors

Canada's Dec. 4, 2025, bulletin put the same R-40 chemistry next door, in cylinders labeled R-410A that held R-40 mixed with HFCs. The agency calls R-40 extremely flammable and says it can react with aluminum inside HVAC systems. Cooling Post later reported that Canadian officials identified the HFC as R-32, traced the product to China and had no incidents to report, and a Nov. 4 web search found no EPA or AHRI alert on fake R-410A containing R-40. A mislabeled R-410A cylinder would land on R-410A service calls, and the bulletin's advice is to verify a system's refrigerant before servicing and buy only from authorized distributors.

Sources

  1. Osami Kataoka for JRAIA, "Safety concerns for A2L refrigerants in AC service procedures," Oct. 28, 2014, archived copy (JRAIA's site was under maintenance). web.archive.org
  2. Osami Kataoka for JRAIA, "Japanese Policy and HVAC&R Industry Evolutions," July 15, 2014. ozone.unep.org
  3. JRAIA, UNEP OEWG side-event deck on risk assessment, 2016, archived copy. web.archive.org
  4. Kenji Takaichi, JRAIA, "Overview of the Risk Assessment for Residential Air-Conditioners," 2015. jsrae.or.jp
  5. Satoru Fujimoto, JRAIA, "Basic procedure of Risk Assessment in JRAIA," Aug. 19, 2015. jsrae.or.jp
  6. Tetsuji Okada, JRAIA, "Refrigerant conversion activities including energy efficiency in Japan," July 3, 2019, archived copy. web.archive.org
  7. JSRAE, "Safety and Risk Evaluation of Next-Generation Refrigerants, Year 2020 Progress Report, Brief Edition," June 1, 2021. jsrae.or.jp
  8. NITE, air conditioner accident advisory, May 28, 2026 (Japanese). nite.go.jp
  9. Cooling Post, "R32: larger systems could be next," Dec. 7, 2013. coolingpost.com
  10. Daikin, R-32 page, Middle East site, with May 2016 estimate. daikin.eu
  11. Cooling Post, "Daikin passes 10 million R32 sales," April 28, 2017. coolingpost.com
  12. Cooling Post, "Daikin adopts R32 for key US products," Sept. 26, 2019. coolingpost.com
  13. Daikin, "R-32 Refrigerant: Get the Facts," brochure marked 06-25. goodmanmfg.com
  14. Daikin, "Daikin at a Glance," R32 sales through December 2023. daikin.com.my
  15. JARN, "The Global R32 AC Market, 2021 Overview Part II," Nov. 9, 2022, public preview only. No link is given because the site's security certificate had expired when checked on Nov. 4, 2026.
  16. China Household Electrical Appliances Association, China Appliance magazine, May 27, 2025. en.cheaa.org
  17. Australian Refrigeration Council, "Ban on high-GWP small AC equipment," July 2, 2024. arctick.org
  18. HVAC&R News, "Government eyes ban on high-GWP air conditioners," June 29, 2021. hvacrnews.com.au
  19. Climate Control News, "Rapid transition to R32," Feb. 17, 2022. climatecontrolnews.com.au
  20. Cooling Post, "R32 - the Australian view," Nov. 12, 2013. coolingpost.com
  21. AIRAH, Flammable Refrigerants Safety Guide, second edition, 2026. airah.org.au
  22. VASA, "WA issues flammable refrigerant bulletin," Sept. 12, 2018, quoting Dangerous Goods Safety Bulletin No. 0218. vasa.org.au
  23. Cooling Post, "Insurer downplays flammable fears," Dec. 2, 2013. coolingpost.com
  24. ACR Journal, "FETA warns against using A2L refrigerants as retrofit solution," March 5, 2018. acrjournal.uk
  25. ETV Bharat, Faridabad air conditioner blast report, Sept. 8, 2025. etvbharat.com
  26. Cooling Post, "Three die in AC explosion," Oct. 19, 2022. coolingpost.com
  27. Cooling Post, "Wrong refrigerant blamed for fatal AC blast," March 6, 2025. coolingpost.com
  28. Nocut News, National Fire Agency announcement on illegal mixed refrigerant, Sept. 2, 2026. en.nocutnews.co.kr
  29. Cooling Post, "Lethal R40 refrigerant blamed for Korean AC fires," Sept. 2, 2026. coolingpost.com
  30. Daikin, "F-gas regulation: air-to-air heat pumps and air conditioners." daikin.eu
  31. ACHR News, "New Standard Allows Higher A3 Charge in A/C," May 27, 2022. achrnews.com
  32. Heat Pumping Technologies Magazine, "Domestic Heat Pumps Using Hydrocarbons: Current Status and Market Overview in Europe," Vol. 43, No. 1, 2025. heatpumpingtechnologies.org
  33. Cooling Post, "EU project will tackle R290 heat pump safety," Sept. 19, 2024. coolingpost.com
  34. International Institute of Refrigeration, "R290 AC sales in India exceed 100,000 units," May 26, 2015. iifiir.org
  35. Legal Information Institute, 40 CFR Part 82, Subpart G, Appendix R. law.cornell.edu
  36. EPA, proposed SNAP Rule 27, Federal Register, Nov. 10, 2025. govinfo.gov
  37. T. Lewandowski and K. Reynolds Reid, "Risk assessment of residential heat pump systems using 2L flammable refrigerants," 2012, abstract. iifiir.org
  38. ACHR News, "AHRI Assesses Refrigerant Risk," Dec. 3, 2012. achrnews.com
  39. Daikin Comfort, DH4SEA3630 specification sheet. daikincomfort.com
  40. Daikin, RXC12AXVJU Entra submittal sheet. gotductless.com
  41. Environment and Climate Change Canada, "Information Bulletin: Counterfeit Refrigerants," Dec. 4, 2025. canada.ca
  42. Cooling Post, "Fake R410A refrigerant mixed R40 with R32," Dec. 9, 2025. coolingpost.com
Technical > A2L SeriesR-32A2LR-290JapanAustraliaIndiaF-Gas RegulationCounterfeit RefrigerantJRAIADucted Systems