Degrees - HVAC-R and Refrigeration Latest News
Can you trust the label?
The wrong label in the kitchen will give you a nasty surprise when you put salt in your coffee instead of sugar. But the wrong label on refrigerant units and equipment can be lethal.
A couple of recent incidents in New Zealand are timely reminders of the dangers of incorrectly labelled refrigerants. In May this year, a South Auckland refrigeration technician was working on a cool store refrigeration unit with a label that indicated it contained the non-flammable R22 gas Freon. In fact it was full of a volatile hydrocarbon-based refrigerant. The unlucky worker was five metres up a ladder welding a valve when the refrigerant exploded in his face. Two years earlier a Hamilton firefighter was killed and seven others injured in a huge explosion at an Icepak coolstore. In neither case was there any indication the system contained potentially explosive gas.
There have been similar incidents in Australia, technicians discovering equipment that’s either incorrectly labelled. Or not labelled at all. What do you do then? Take your chances and keep welding?
For owners and operators of cool stores it’s worth remembering that if a disaster happens because of incorrect labelling, they could be liable. If there’s any doubt about the labelling they should immediately determine the substance that’s in their refrigeration units.
And there are three lessons for technicians and their employers:
- Always read the label.
- Never take chance. If in doubt stop work until what’s inside the equipment can be properly identified.
- Always make sure you leave equipment correctly labelled.
That’s where we can help. We’ve developed a series of Refrigerant Labels to help you identify the refrigerant in the system. They’re designed to be stuck directly on the equipment. They’re weatherproof, UV stable and free whenever you purchase refrigerant from your Reece hvac-r branch.
For more information talk to your hvac-r branch manager.
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