Re using refrigerant after a burnout

[paulj]

Just curious on the differing thoughts about re using refrigerant after a burnout. In our own shop, the views range from an absolute refusal to re-use the old refrigerant, to the opinion that, the refrigerant does not break down during a burnout and a proper clean up procedeure is all that is required.
Other thoughts?
Cheers
PaulJ

[big johnson]

Burnouts are costly and time consuming. Spend the extra bucks and use new gas. The old gas will be contaminated. Ever use an acid tester?

[macdaddy]

Oil travels with refrigerant so the refrigerant that you recovered has acid in it. (Or it could) one of my old recovery machines from Robinair, you could blow off the system oil captured during recovery but, even then I wouldn‘t take the chance of putting that refrigerant back in a system: not to mention the recovery cylinder that might have acid in it that you would use on the next job. For your question…NO I wouldn’t do it.

[BigJon3475]

If your even able to remove all the acid is it saving the customer money to reuse the refrigerant and come back several times replacing filter driers until the acid removing cores do their job or does it save them money to just use new refrigerant.

[superfittertech]

It depends. on a large RTU or chiller with a semi hermetic compressor I re use the refrigerant, install an oil drain valve on the new compressor & after starting up the new compressor, pumping it down, then replacing the liquid line drier with HH style drier cores. I run the new compressor for 30 minutes to an hour, depending on the severity of the burnout, then I change the oil. all of the acid will end up in the oil. if you change it 2-3 times and then do an acid test, your refrigerant and system will be ok

[acjourneyman]

Never reuse it, even if you install good acid core filter driers it is going to degrade the windings before it gets cleaned up.

[Mikeylikesit]

I have several different recovery cylinders for my R-22. One of them carries large red tags and I use that one for ANY COMPRESSOR FAILURE. That R-22 always goes to the recycler. It just not worth the time and labor to chase down and repair all of the potential failures caused by contaminated refrigerant. Of course, this is purely for selfish reasons, as I operate a large facility and we do our own HVAC.

[kampkook]

I do believe that the refrigerant, depending on the type of refrigerant, does break down during a burnout as well as the oil, I also believe that anything I can do to prevent another catastrophic failure is what my customer expects of me.

Therefore I will use new refrigerant, fresh driers, suct. cleanup...and follow up, acid neutralizers, acid testing, anything I can do to get the system back to normal.

Scroll compressors seem to have a lot more oil in them, that oil gets trapped in the evaporator and condensor and it just takes a while to get it cleaned up.

But when I do get it cleaned up and working to my satisfaction... I can walk away clean.

[berg2666]

Just curious on the differing thoughts about re using refrigerant after a burnout. In our own shop, the views range from an absolute refusal to re-use the old refrigerant, to the opinion that, the refrigerant does not break down during a burnout and a proper clean up procedeure is all that is required.
Other thoughts?
Cheers
PaulJ



No, callbacks, infant mortality, change the driers

[pecmsg]

Just curious on the differing thoughts about re using refrigerant after a burnout.

In our own shop, the views range from an absolute refusal to re-use the old refrigerant

They’ve obviously never worked on a rack system.


to the opinion that, the refrigerant does not break down during a burnout and a proper clean up procedeure is all that is required.


A proper clean up procedure is all that’s required, but is it worth the time and trouble. Every job is different.

[jayguy]

has anybody thought about WHERE the acid comes from??? when the winding insulation breaks down and arcs to ground, the refrigerant and oil gets caught in the electrical path and chemically changes. if you reuse the refrigerant (even though you "clean" it up) you are still using an altered chemical since some of the refrigerant may not have completely changed.

new refrigerant is cheap insurance. we have replaced thousands of pounds of refrigerant in a single burned chiller. and that was still cheap.

good luck.

[superfittertech]

refrigerant and oil doesn't undergo a chemical change, nor does it break down. when windings short to ground it creates acid which is transported with the oil thru out the system. if you use good acid removing driers, you can clean up any system, no matter how severe the burnout.

[Randy S.]

In theory, distilling the refrigerant would clean it up.
Low pressure people do it all the time.

The average R-22 rooftop guy doesn't have the time or really the need to clean up refrigerant in the field.

[jayguy]

refrigerant and oil doesn't undergo a chemical change, nor does it break down. when windings short to ground it creates acid which is transported with the oil thru out the system. if you use good acid removing driers, you can clean up any system, no matter how severe the burnout.

i do not remember installing acid packets in motors that will break open if the motor shorts to ground. so the windings create acid out of what? out of nothing?

i am not saying that you can not clean up acid out of the system. i am not saying that every molecule of refrigerant gets turned into acid during a burn out (howver severe or mild). i am saying that i do not believe that when a motor shorts out, either acid OR refrigerant is all that is left. it is not that cut and dried...some of that chemical may not be either refrigerant or acid from a chemical standpoint. in the case of a "mild" burn out (however you define it in the field), changing the filter/driers AND the refrigerant and the oil may be all that you have to actually perform (other than 1 or 2 follow up trips to confirm). in the case of a "severe" burn out, several changes of filter/driers may be needed to completely remove all of the residual acid that may be floating around in the system...AFTER the oil and refrigerant are completely changed out.

from a performance standpoint, what little "not refrigerant, not acid" chemical that remains in your system after a burn out will probably not have any effect on your system, nor would you be able to tell in the field. however, what do you tell your customer if there is a "noticable" change in performance, extra required maintanance, more compresssor/component replacements than from before the burn out?

good luck.

[roadking44]

I always use new freon.