Recharging Fridge refrigerant (sucess)

You doomed the entire planet with your release of CFCs!!!!

at yoyodyne they were all veterans of the psychic wars exiled from the eighth dimension where the winds of limbo roar"              mariposa rand mair theal

Please turn yourself in at your local office of the ELF. Ecoterrorist!

Wes

On Sun, 08 Mar 2009 01:31:43 -0500, the infamous Wes scrawled the following:

Electron Liberation Front?

============================================================ Help Save the Endangered Plumb Bobs From Becoming Extinct!

Nah, Earth Liberation Front, the arseclowns that burn down ski resorts to save the enviroment.

Wes

No he didn't - R-134 is not R-12.

But if you are going to all the trouble of grabbing a torch, you braze in permanent access fittings so you can do it again in a few years. If it's got a slow leak you'll probably have to do it again every 5 to 10 years.

Then you go over it really carefully with a leak sniffer to see if you can find the super slow leak that caused it to come up empty on you. If it's a less than perfect joint you can rebraze...

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But its a CFC!! SCREEEECH!!

at yoyodyne they were all veterans of the psychic wars exiled from the eighth dimension where the winds of limbo roar"              mariposa rand mair theal

No, it's an HFC, no chlorine, zero ozone depletion potential but substantial global warming potential so it too will eventually be phased out (Europe is working on selecting a replacement now). Course the R12 that leaked out from the original fill is a CFC but we were ignoring what happened before his repair, right?

----- Regards, Carl Ijames

JR didn't say he used R12, and he didn't say the freezer had R12 in it originally.

He said he had an R12 guage set, and stated that the data plate on the freezer specified 2.3 oz (of) R134.

He saved one from the landfill, or being scrapped, then recycled into cheap products from China.

Congrats, keep up the good work.

We were just tweeking him. Venting R134a is subject to a $25,000 maximum fine per day. A bit draconian since R134a was supposed to save us from the horible dangers of R12.

JR, you do know I was funning ya? Bravo Zulu on the diy repair.

Wes

Right. Thank you. Not much comprehension from the others. Gee, a whole

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None, bloody thing didn't have AC :-(

Makes you wonder about all of the piles of Fridges one sees at the tip/recycling center though...

Mark Rand RTFM

Lets just hope that eventually is a long long time, because it's a very practical refrigerant. They keep coming up with exotic stuff that doesn't do the job worth a darn. And costs a fortune.

And let's hope that we drive the Greenies into the ocean before they totally wreck the world and force us back to the Stone Age. We should be doing things Cleaner and Greener because "It's the right thing to do" for the environment and when it also makes financial sense, not because we are forced into it at gunpoint.

That's one of the reasons I got out of HVAC/Refrigeration - you wanna work in that field without chancing a huge fine >_< from the EPA, you have to spend thousands on an electronic refrigerant assay tester just to see exactly what is inside the system (or the bottle) before you touch it. One for every field worker. Then spend half of your time in recordkeeping of what you have touched, and where exactly it went.

Create a recovery tank or system full of "Mixed Waste" and it can cost you thousands of bucks for a remediation firm to incinerate the offending gases. Even if some other dolt mislabeled and mixed it, and you were just called in to do a normal service.

that leaked out

And that's where you went off the rails. The Original Message said it took R-134 factory fill. The OP just popped it open and added more.

Haven't got one, but FWIH the trick to charging one is having an ultrasonic "Electronic Sight Glass" so you can see the liquid level in the line right before the expansion capilary.

That's the problem with fractional HP capilary systems - 2 ounces of refrigerant is empty, 2 1/2 just right, and 3 overfull and won't work. They really need to read up on Liquid Receivers and Thermal Expansion Valves so they'll work over a far broader range of charge.

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Exactly. They treat minor quantity releases as a Felony. You can't leak a single ounce, a gram, not a drop.

But get in a car wreck through stupid driving and release pounds of the stuff, and nobody gets charged. If they fined reckless drivers the same way they can go after HVAC techs ($100,000 per incident) that would discourage insanity like passing on the shoulder, Jersey Turns in front of oncoming traffic that has to panic-brake, and running red lights. If you have a police helicopter following you and filming, let the fines start.

Someone is most likely already running around there with a Recovery machine sucking out the precious refrigerant for reuse. Then once safely evacuated they can dismantle them and mine for Copper.

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I wasn't aware of fines for releasing R134a, Wes, but I'd read about the fines for R12 before.

I've been somewhat outraged by the discontinued/removal of R12, but then allow the sale of R134a to anyone with $4-6 in their hand. I doubt that a customer even needs to be at least 18. The crap is sold almost everywhere.

It's gotta make me wonder how many million cans of R134a are sold every year just in the US, to consumers that will misuse the stuff, possibly many times, to try to avoid having their car systems properly repaired/serviced by a qualified AC tech.

It's as if those in charge are implying that R134a is actually good for the atmosphere.. maybe it cleans the air and actually makes trees greener!

FWIW I had some cans of Memorex AirDuster duster gas that state on the label: Chemical Components: Difluoroethane

Propellant made in China Assembled in USA

These duster products are a very popular retail product, too. They're sold at many places that sell office supplies, but also at that Shack store, and a large number of general retailers.

Lip service: we are very committed to "saving the earth". But then, we won't sacrifice the instant gratification, push-button miracle aerosol produts that make our lazy lives richer by not having to do any actual work (cleaning a keyboard with a brush or vacuum cleaner).

I like the convenience of air dusters for small delicate assemblies, but I might only use 1 or 2 cans per year.

It seems to me that there hasn't been any reduction in the overall numbers of, or different varieties of aerosol products in recent years, and I wouldn't be surprised if the numbers have actually increased (butane and propane have become common propellants, but there seem to be many others).

I was a bit shocked when I read about them myself. I thought all the pain of changing was for a environmentally safe substitute.

I've got a 30# tank of R134a, only thing the retailer cared about was if my debit card would clear.

Generally they put some in and see if the a/c works. If it works long enough, they put more in periodically.

Right. Likely Dow Corning had a patent and the right pockets were lined.

I know they changed out the mix in areosols a long time back. Can't remember what it was or what is is now. CO2 seems like it would good for air dusters, I think it goes liquid at

Wes

-- "Additionally as a security officer, I carry a gun to protect government officials but my life isn't worth protecting at home in their eyes." Dick Anthony Heller

Such a cynic.

R12 knocked holes in the ozone. They've gotten smaller since the stuff was outlawed in '92 or so.

R134a is benign to ozone. However, it's a greenhouse gas -- something like

There's another replacement that's supposed to be problem-free. We'll be hearing about it soon.

Meantime, expect Stirling refrigeration engines to come on the market in a few years for consumer applications. They use air or helium.

-- Ed Huntress

I guess you haven't been around the third world where they produce and vent far more R12 today than we ever did.

I was stunned on a plant trip to Belize. R12 is dirt cheap. They were casually using it in ways that are literally felony crimes here in the USA.

Environmentalism: expensive, shoddy, deadly [Schwartz].

Nope, I haven't. It's a violation of law in about 130 countries to fill a refrigeration system with it, and its production has been banned or nearly so in most of those countries. So it's hard to judge how much actually is being "produced and vented" in third-world countries.

Well, again, it's hard to put a number on it. Some international agencies that research it say that it's a fraction of what it once was. Keep in mind that it was being put into cars (and leaking out) to the tune of something like 10 million units per year, not to mention the other legal uses before

-- Ed Huntress

Some 130 that don't matter, perhaps. Still legal and widely used in China, India, Mexico, and Russia, which is to say, most of the world. Any assertion that usage has declined is against supposition and utterly unknowable.