Received the design review comments back for EAp3 and EAc4 regarding refrigerants. The comments said, "...all equipment with one half pound or more of refrigerant must be listed in the form. Provide a revised form that includes all of the equipment with at least one-half pound of refrigerant and a narrative to describe the equipment included in the form to confirm that all equipment with at least one-half pound of refrigerant has been included. Demonstrate that the equipment includes no CFC-based refrigerants, or that a CFC phase-out plan (including specific information regarding the equipment utilizing CFC-based refrigerants, leakage rates, and refrigerant quantities..." I have FINALLY got the refrigerant type from the manufacturers and was told to wait until the refrigerators and freezers arrived on site and look at the plates inside of the units to confirm quantities of refrigerants, which I did. I was surprised to find out that many "compact" refrigerators and "under counter" refrigerators had 0.5 lbs. of refrigerants or more. Ice makers and cold pan serving counters also contain more than 0.5 lbs. Where can I find the Rc (lb/ton)? The refrigerant charge is not in the spec/cut sheets, service manuals, or identified on the plates. Do I have to use the Life as the default of 15 years. BTW, being that this is a "Design" prerequisite and credit, and having to wait for construction to be complete and the owner purchased kitchen equipment to arrive on site to confirm quantities of refrigerants really delays the whole "design" split-submittal.
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Dave Hubka
Practice Leader - SustainabilityEUA
LEEDuser Expert
530 thumbs up
August 16, 2016 - 5:40 pm
Hi Theresa,
That is surprising, most refrigerators I have come across are less than 8 ounces (0.5 lbs.) of refrigerant AND unfortunate that you needed to wait until they arrived onsite to track down the information. ugh.
You'll likely need to perform a conversion to determine 'tons' based on the information provided on the refrigerant containing equipment.
1 ton = 12,000 btuh
1 hp = 2,545 btuh
1 kw = 3,413 btuh
GBCI will most likely require you to use the default life of 10-years in your calculations.
Hope this helps!