Recovery Best Practices w/ NAVAC (Podcast)

In today's podcast, Kevan Mayer from NAVAC comes talks about recovery and ways to make it work better and more safely for you.

Recovering refrigerant is better for the environment and safer for us. When designing recovery equipment, NAVAC's goal is to limit the gases we put into the atmosphere and leave the planet in better shape than we gound it. Recovery also ensures that refrigerants for phased-out refrigerants remain available.

Tanks require vacuums of at least 1000 microns, if not deeper. We also need to remember what the previous tank contents were to make sure that we only fill the tank with those refrigerants and oils. You absolutely DO NOT want to mix refrigerants. Tanks should always be up-to-date and must be certified every 5 years.

When recovering refrigerant, one of the best practices is to use a filter-drier to filter out moisture and contaminants. Reducing moisture and contamination will increase the life of your recovery machine. However, a filter-drier will not restore refrigerant back to the highest purity standards.

The speed of your recovery will depend on your vacuum, recovery machine, hose sizing, and core removal. You can also raise pressure by turning the fan on. The goal to produce speedy recoveries is to reduce tank pressure and increase system pressure.

When it comes to filling the tanks, we must pay attention to the tare weight and water capacity. However, we must understand that the water capacity is NOT the same as refrigerant capacity. We need to do a little bit of math to fill our tanks safely.

Kevan and Bryan also discuss:

Evacuation vs. recovery
Reclaim company tank-handling protocols
Refrigerant mixing costs/consequences
Using recovered refrigerant legally
Compression ratio
Hose sizing and manifolds
Push-pull method
The 80% rule
NRDD recovery machine

Learn more about NAVAC tools at navacglobal.com.

Learn more about Refrigeration Technologies HERE.

If you have an iPhone, subscribe to the podcast HERE, and if you have an Android phone, subscribe HERE.

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Author:

Bryan Orr

Company: HVAC School

Position: Founder

Kevan Mayer

Check out our most recent video

How to Evacuate an AC system, Full Vacuum Procedure

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HVAC School – For Techs, By Techs

Real training for HVAC ( Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning and Refrigeration) Technicians. Including recorded tech training, interviews, diagnostics and general conversations about the trade.

In today’s podcast, Bryan talks with legendary Hydronics author and trainer Dan Holohan about the history of steam heating and some practical applications of old ideas. Recently, Dan has been working on more novels, having published two of them over the past few months.

Steam heating is a “lost art” nowadays; it has become increasingly uncommon and has been disappearing since the Vietnam War. Many people who understood steam heating either retired or died after the Vietnam War. Many elements of steam heating are difficult to understand or surprising. (For example, steam pressure has a surprising relationship with velocity: low-pressure steam moves through piping much more quickly than high-pressure steam.) So, Dan Holohan is on a mission to revive that knowledge and teach the newer generations about the lost art.

There are many older steam heating systems still operating today, especially in the older large buildings in New York. Dan learned a lot about steam heating when working on these old systems and optimizing them. Most of the time, he optimized those systems by removing unnecessary accessories, not by adding components like steam traps.

Many old boilers used coal as a heat source. Nowadays, many old boilers have been fitted with conversion oil burners with thermostats, but they are still piped for coal. Some systems now have multiple risers or massive vents on the main riser to prevent the thermostats from getting too hot too early and satisfying the thermostat too early. We call that master venting, which reduces pressure and allows steam to move very quickly and efficiently.

Dan also discusses:

The 2-PSI standard
Transportation metaphors for BTUs in steam
Harmful renovations for old boilers
Replacement vs. restoration mindsets
Gaps in steam boiler education
Monopolizing the market if you HAVE the education
Boiler piping and venting
Two-pipe vs one-pipe steam

Find out more about Dan and hydronic heating at HeatingHelp.com.

Have a question that you want us to answer on the podcast? Submit your questions at https://www.speakpipe.com/hvacschool.

Purchase your tickets or learn more about the 6th Annual HVACR Training Symposium at https://hvacrschool.com/symposium. Subscribe to our podcast on your iPhone or Android. Subscribe to our YouTube channel. Check out our handy calculators here or on the HVAC School Mobile App for Apple and Android.