Underestimating how much you are losing every year due to refrigerant leaks can be a critical blind spot for your business. Not only that, the EPA has cracked down on damaging and toxic refrigerant leaks – in the fall of 2016, the EPA updated existing requirements related to ozone-depleting substances such as CFCs and HCFCs and extended them to substitutes such as HFCs. Changes include more stringent requirements for leak repair in larger appliances and reporting requirements when larger appliances leak 125% or more of their refrigerant charge per year. These regulations will apply to most industrial process refrigeration, commercial refrigeration, and comfort cooling appliances (HVACs). Should your business be found liable, you risk being fined $35,000 to $40,000 per day until the issue is resolved. Read on for a short list of things you can do proactively to prevent tanking your bottom line due to avoidable leaks:
Prevention is better than a cure
Using ALD (Automatic Leak Detection) can be vastly more effective than trying to fix leaks once they become noticeable. Refrigerant leaks can have impacts on your business’ funds, your equipment itself, and the climate. Leak detection lets you get ahead of the problem: the more refrigerants leak, the bigger the impact on your business. Knowing which pieces of equipment are leaking can save your business thousands of dollars per year. And fixing a leak while it’s still small limits the impact the leak has on your business – a big leak can have an impact on worker health, energy costs and system capacity due to insufficient cooling. ALD allows you to fix the issue before it has a chance to affect your bottom line.
More information is always better
If you’re already using Automatic Leak Detection then your first line of defense – information – is already covered. Collating the data and comparing performance to industry standards can help you benchmark your systems to ensure that you aren’t falling behind the competition. This can also help you pinpoint problematic equipment and behaviors allowing you to reward employees, technicians, or entire offices for their best practices that contribute to good refrigerant management.
Regular maintenance is the cheapest way
A lot of expensive repairs can be avoided simply by keeping refrigerant equipment clean and tidy. Dirty equipment means it’s harder for technicians and maintenance workers to spot leaks and makes it harder for everyone to do their jobs in a quick and timely manner.
Highlight the extent of the issueEven though most companies will understand the importance of finding refrigerant leaks, other responsibilities can get in the way of making proper refrigerant management a high priority. Businesses need to stress the importance of this issue among all employees and get them on board with saving the company money. If everyone is mindful of the issue, it reduces the likelihood that leak checks and routine maintenance tests get overlooked.
Of course, there’s always another alternative: get professionals to take care of it for you. If you and your employees don’t have the time or the expertise to deal with all of this yourselves, it may be more prudent to let certified refrigerant technicians, like those we have a Refrigerant Services LLC., deal with taking care of your refrigerant management. If you’re already in the process of taking care of leaks and getting your equipment and refrigerant up to EPA standards, we can also offer refrigerant reclamation for your old or used refrigerants. We can reprocess used refrigerant to meet or exceed purity specifications and standards for new refrigerant gases.
Once the refrigerants have been filtered, dried, distilled and all impurities have been removed, they can then be reused for consumer or industrial applications. They can even be resold if you have an excess. A good refrigerant management program can cost a nontrivial amount for any business, but our refrigerant reclamation program can help you eliminate some of those costs or even make a little money. It’s important to note that these procedures can only be performed by an EPA approved and certified team of technicians, and Refrigerant Services LLC takes pride in being one of those teams.
If all this sounds good, then get in touch with us today at 844-PURECFC (787-3232) so we can talk about how we can help you. We realize that taking the time out of your busy schedule for a lengthy phone call might not always be possible, which is why we also have a short online form which you can fill up. Once submitted, we’ll get in touch with you to answer any questions you may have.
