Earlier this summer, Mike White, CEO, Clean Air Systems of Louisiana, greeted his front office crew as they headed out for lunch. Due to the sweltering Shreveport, Louisiana, heat, his staff left the garage doors up to allow air to flow throughout the space. White and his wife retreated to their offices, opting to enjoy their midday meals at their desks.

COLUMBUS, OHIO – Martin C. Eldridge III, 35, Columbus, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to violating the Clean Air Act when he cut the tubing on air conditioning units he was stealing and released a regulated refrigerant into the environment.

Carter M. Stewart, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio, Randall K. Ashe, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (U.S. EPA), Franklin County Prosecuting Attorney Ron O’Brien and Columbus Police Chief Kim Jacobs announced the plea entered today before U.S. Magistrate Judge Elizabeth Preston Deavers.

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When determining where our industry is headed, we should take into account how our industry has evolved over the past several years. Traditionally, contractors had only one outlet for used refrigerant,  and typically it was an inconvenient and costly process.

Counterfeit R-134a, containing R-40 (Methyl Chloride or Chloromethane), has been found in mobile air conditioners, stationary air conditioning, and transport refrigeration systems in many countries. For your personal safety and to avoid serious injury or death, special care must be taken when accessing the service ports to sample or work on systems that are not functioning properly or have been serviced by others. R-40 chemically reacts with aluminum inside HVACR systems to generate highly reactive and/or toxic compounds, and exposure of the system’s contents to air and/or moisture could result in production of a strong acid and violent chemical reaction. Several container systems have exploded at service facilities, some resulting in fatalities. Some of these systems were found to contain R-40 and/or other

unacceptable substances. Read the entire article here.

If and when contractors step up their commitment to reclamation, they will find plenty of places ready to perform the process that brings questionable refrigerant back to ARI-700 purity standards. And contractors will also find plenty of incentives to do so.

FORT MYERS, Fla. – Every year there was at least one unexplainable low-refrigerant service call,but when more than 10 occurred in 2009, executives at HVAC contractor Advanced Air and Refrigeration suspected more than phantom leaks that were difficult to find. Professional thieves, who have been stealing R-22 and R-410A nationally, were service manager Ronda Szymanski’s initial suspects. However, when a company service tech found a butter knife laying next to a central air conditioning condenser depleted of refrigerant, and its service port visibly damaged, Szymanski knew the loss was due to huffing. She suspected that the trend of inhaling refrigerants for a free high, which has killed hundreds of teenagers nationally, had finally reached Fort Myers, Fla., where Advanced Air has run a family HVAC service contracting firm for 25 years.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)  appears to be aggressively  auditing the  refrigerant record  keeping  of  HVACR  contractors in the South. The NEWS has been receiving reports of the effort in  Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi, although it is unclear as to how many contractors are being audited. One  distributor from that region  did  say that he  has  received  “numerous calls”  in  recent weeks from  contractors who  have  been  visited  by  the  EPA Another distributor from that region  said  contractor customers have told  him they are being audited by the EPA and need to produce records of their refrig­erant recoveryIre claim activities.

Most contractors understand the need for refrigerant recovery and the importance of integrating a reclaim program into their company’s day-to-day operations. However, many contractors have overlooked the aspect of record keeping and still have no definitive procedures in place to accurately collect and record reclaim data. Insufficient records maintenance can make data retrieval very difficult and a detailed Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) compliance report near impossible. As a result, potential issues could arise.

In light of the pending HCFC phaseout, contractors are faced with many challenges. The call for increased recovery efforts has never been greater. Therefore, finding a viable and beneficial reclamation program is a concern of increasing importance.

One method used by contractors to help reduce the impact of the ensuing phaseout is to consolidate recovered refrigerants in house. The belief has been that it will minimize the costs of cylinder handling fees, and/or maximize the profits from recovered R-22. There are four key issues to consider when consolidating recovered refrigerants into larger vessels.

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