The following remarks were made regarding the article “Let’s Worry More About Refrigerant Leaks, Less About Metrics” written by Joanna R. Turpin, senior editor for The NEWS, published Sept. 3.

Stop the Top Off

This is a very good article, and I could not agree more with the statement about designing and installing systems that do not leak. Let’s take it a step further, though. How about, as an industry, we find and repair existing leaks instead of just “topping off” the system? It is amazing what a tech can find using leak detectors/methods and actually looking for leaks.

For decades, our industry has just added refrigerant to systems, and this has impressed upon the customer that refrigerant needs to be added annually. This has even led to the scammers that charge the customer for refrigerant that was not added/needed.

More importantly, this practice is why we are losing R-22 and other excellent refrigerants. If our industry had been recovering refrigerant and repairing leaks all along, there would be little concern about refrigerants causing harm to the environment.

Larry Steffes
Technical analyst
Appliance Service Group
Melvindale, Michigan

The NEWS wants to hear your thoughts. If you have any comments concerning our articles or other topics related to the HVAC industry, submit them at www.achrnews.com/NEWS-letters for possible inclusion in the Letters: Feedback From Our Readers section of the magazine.

Publication date: 10/8/2018

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