CFC Action Steps

Building owners must get passionate about refrigerant containment and emission reduction. We need to get below 10 percent. Preferably to 5 percent of a system's charge on an annual basis, from our historic rate of 20-25 percent. The ability to do this is available now from equipment manufacturers and also under the new EPA service guidelines. The options available today at modest cost are recovery devices, high efficiency purges that reduce purge losses up to ten-fold, downtime vacuum preventers that minimize the need to even operate the purges, and pressure relief attachments. And finally, fix leaks rather than just top off. Once we get emissions under control, owners should next evaluate the retrofit of their existing equipment versus replacement. Each chiller is different. Owners need to contact their equipment manufacturers for compressor performance and alternative refrigerants.

This will provide you with the estimated cost to convert your system and give you the basis to develop an economic comparison of retrofit versus replacement. Then you need to evaluate your options on a lifetime operation cost basis and develop a plan for an orderly withdrawal from CFCs.