HEATING AT wrongly assume that it contains water.
Clearly, there is an immediate need to educate the plumbing and heating community on what is actually inside the systems they are installing. However, whilst these incidences are environmentally damaging, there is not really a health and safety concern.
With the F-Gas Regulation (EC517/2014) imposing a strict phase-down of the
refrigerants available for placing on the market expressed in terms of CO2 tonnes equivalent, there will be significan t re-manufacturing of small heat pumps to utilise alternative gases to the standard used today.
The alternatives are almost entirely
flammable, to some extent, or bring with them other safety concerns in regard to toxicity. The concern from a skills perspective is that, if the plumbers continue to work on systems they do not understand, there will be safety hazards presenting themselves where the plumber cuts the copper pipes in future. With R410A and R407C having GWP levels of 2088 and 1774 respectively, it is clear that the phase-down will bring an end to their use on a large scale in the very near future, so the safety implications for improper servicing are
imminent. Some manufacturers are building l arge service teams in-house to cope with expected demand as heat pumps become more common in domestic environments, but there still remains the problem of local plumbers trying to do something they are not qualified to do, before the manufacturer is even called o ut to an issue.
Safety Issue
The main barrier to widespread uptake of flammable refrigerants to date has been both the EN378 safety standard and local building regulations.
However, the revision of EN378 in 2016 saw the introduction of the mildly flammable classification that allowed significantly higher charge limitations for 2L gases such as R32, which makes this refrigerant’s use as an alternative to R410A or R407C all the more likely in domestic systems.
With charge limits now being considered for classification 2 and 3 refrigerants such as R600 or R290 – both highly flammable hydrocarbon refrigerants – it is imperative that the skills crisis is addressed and that the installing community, for monoblocks especially, are
educated as to the potential hazards of misusing these appliances.
Just as the domestic gas sector has mandatory training, qualification and registration for installing or servicing gas boilers, so the refrigeration, air conditioning and heat pump sector needs to have its calls to legislators recognised to mandate training and registration of engineers, operatives and technicians working on heat pump systems in the interests of safety.
Domestic refrigerators an d freezers are
almost entirely using highly flammable R600a in the EU these days, but the normally very low charge of 40-80 grams has meant that legislators have encouraged or endorsed venting when work is carried out.
Clearly, however, that would not be safe to do if the charge size was being measured in kilograms.
The future will undoubtedly see a large u ptake of heat pumps usin g refrigerants with charge sizes likely to create hazards if the systems are worked on by unqualified and unknowledgeable people, so this particular skills crisis needs to be addressed before these products hit the market.
Nuremberg 16 –18.10.2018
HALL 5 - STAND 224 Come and see us! Advanced
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