Refrigerant Issues

The refrigerant issue is very important to all Industries whether for comfort cooling, preservation of food, process cooling or in any application where mechanical refrigeration takes place.

Most, if not all new refrigerant blends are only temporary solutions with little if any long-term future. Some of these are already causing products to fail in service, resulting in antagonism between producers of split packaged units, compressor manufacturers, specifiers and installing contractors…….. who are the first in the firing line!

Are there existing long term solutions and if so why do we have this problem? What are the solutions?

The alternative long-term refrigerants are not in themselves being adopted by the manufacturers (OEM) as they require degrees of skills mostly unavailable within the HVAC Industry but more understood by refrigeration engineers.

Not so many years ago, only refrigeration engineers installed comfort cooling equipment. Today those same systems are being installed by many other trades but limited to specifically to the comfort cooling market. But not only does this represent a problem in itself, but the so called ‘drop-in alternatives’ are now coming to plague and confuse the issue.

The most widely known refrigerant, R22 is still being charged into new systems and the cut off date is getting closer and closer.

Packaged equipment presents an altogether different story to the HVAC Company, with many OEM or OEM representatives commissioning their own equipment. But once out of warranty, the operator of the equipment faces many problems, not least of all, the service and maintenance costs.

Most Company’s operating these systems with short life-cycle refrigerants and interim refrigerants will find that if they don’t sort themselves out soon, they could and will face huge conversion or replacement costs. These costs will have to be found from decreasing fiscal budgets forced upon them by fierce competition in the commercial world. This applies whether they are Supermarkets, Retail, Offices, Industry, NHS etc.

The BBC can advise upon this very issue, recommend alternative solutions, not just name and quote the alternatives, but provide consultation to place the infrastructure required into perspective and enable the customer to manage the change.

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