How many countrys are tough of Refrigerant handling laws

[Simeonx1]

I was just wondering what is the situation in other country's other than Australia and uk with refrigerant laws.

I see videos from America and people show you how to go down to walmart buy a bottle of 134a and charge your car DIY style .

I also feels like a lost course sometimes when your trying to be super carefully about letting gas out . When there are people in poor countrys like bali just letting out gas when ever they have a chance .

Also what happens to all the old fridges and cars with gas in them in Australia or uk , im sure there are not tough rules about this yet and people just pretend there is no gas in the system when they crush it up into a cube.

[doormaster2008]

Simeonx1.i was in halfords in blackpool last week and guess what,yep you can buy a kit with a small bottle to charge your car air con and not long ago i reported to defra about r134a being sold by the bottle by a leading motor parts company and they did'nt want to know so why do we have these regulations.

[spimps]

Loads for sale on flea bay,anyone can buy it,even seem 410a on there.

[install monkey]

im waiting for the call up to be a member of the fridge police!!

[cadwaladr]

its a joke,i went to a national company who sell parts etc to trade+public on show a 13kg bottle of 134a,i asked ;do i have to show any certs etc to buy this;hang on said the guy i will ask 2minutes later no anyone can purchase it ,2079 etc etc a load of bo***cks

Edited by Frank - Com'n....it's a family forum

[Graham Kimber]

Sorry to spoil the thead with bad news, you can go to Halfords and buy a Kilo of 134a and do the same here in england, I beleive they will sell you an adapter for the canister,

Graham Kimber

[RickSter]

We have to decommision our fridges and AC's here in Aus and recover the refrigerant.
It goes back to our suppliers in reclaim bottles.
We also have to have Artick licence before you can purchase or handle refrigerant.

[HelpCoolIt]

getting on soap box..... Licensing here in aus sucks I have to pay for a NSW Government for a a/c and refrigeration license then I have to pay arctic for a handleing license.
I did A full 4 year apprenticeship and according to my license Im not allowed to work on automotive airconditining yet an auto electrician or car mechanic can do a course that only takes a couple of days and he can. I have also had to fix many a refrigerated van because some auto elec thought he could fix it.
We have a reclaim units, reclaim bottles and vacuum pumps in every car but to comply a company can have several mechanics and can have only needs one of each sitting in the workshop. where is the insentive to do the right thing. getting off soap box.....

Oh and the company I work for has the local contract to reclaim every fridge at the local rubish tips before they are crushed.

[kiwi]

New Zealand is fairly lax at present but we will soon be on a par with Australia. We probably will also be in the same boat as our emissions trading scheme (ETS) will be implemented this coming Jan 2013. We are looking at something like 30NZD per kilo carbon tax on 404a that is expected to double in the preceding 2 years. I guess these two will go hand in glove. Glad I deal mostly with ammonia!

[dddon]

g'day mates! I was under the impression that 134a was not a problem for the atmosphere (?) but R12 ,R22, etc were VERY bad. and I got my license just 3 years ago and there were several places in the quiz about that.
dddon (wrong ones ... but how do you remove em?)

[mimifrigo]

hello,


in France we have reglementation on refrigerants to protect the environment.
for to buy refrigerant, each company must have a certificate proving that capacity has well all necessary equipment, gauges, vacuum pump, recovery unit, leak detector, we declare each year the amount of gas purchased sold, recovered, recycled and all tools necessary
To intervene in a system, each technician must also have a certificate of personal fitness after an exam
All these certificates are paying well over

bonjour ,

en France nous avons une réglementation sur les fluides frigorigènes pour protéger l'environnement .
Pour acheter du fluide frigorigène , chaque société doit posséder une attestation de capacité en prouvant qu'elle possède bien tout les matériel nécessaire : manomètres , pompe à vide , station de récupération , détecteur de fuites , Chaque année nous déclarons la quantité de gaz achetée , vendue , récupérée , recyclée
Pour intervenir sur une installation ,chaque technicien doit aussi posséder une attestation d'aptitude personnelle après avoir passé un examen
Tous ces certificats sont payant bien sur

[HiltonMeatHead]

g'day mates! I was under the impression that 134a was not a problem for the atmosphere (?) but R12 ,R22, etc were VERY bad. and I got my license just 3 years ago and there were several places in the quiz about that.
dddon (wrong ones ... but how do you remove em?)

I hope you are joking!

[daddym]

Here in Russia this laws just provide a stop of the local production. So now we have only expensive and low quality contra-fact China R22.
Nobody especially care about release in the air of course.

PS: From my point of view, we are the engineers here, not the customers. So we should understand at least for ourselves that all this "ozone lair", "peak oil" and "global warming" is a complete marketing bull****. Just for make few hundreds trillions on another refrigerant change. And we also will get a piece of pie as the customers are so stupid.

[Frikkie]

The situation in South Africa;

• Regulated sale of refrigerants - No, all gasses available over the counter in any quantities to anyone.
• Phasing out of CFC gasses - Officially R12 is no longer available but I managed to source a disposable can a few weeks ago, they also still had stock of F11 commonly used for flushing. New R22 equipment is still being sold everywhere because R22 compressors are the cheapest option.
• Recycling/recovery of old gasses - Not required. All gasses are generally dumped to atmosphere bacause it's the cheapest way.
• Controlled disposal of old refrigerators and unit - No, any dump site will take them where any copper parts will be quickly removed by the first person that sees it for scrap value.
• Any regulations for transporting gasses in vehicles - No, you can transport any gas in any vehicle, no signage or ventilation required.
• Any trade registration or minimum qualification required to work on refrigeration equipment - No, none, only a driving license if you're mobile.
• Any registration requirements to start operating a refrigeration business - No
• Any insurance requirements - No, none, not even car insurance of any kind is required here.

[oztech]

Hi guy's, Sydney based commercial fridgie here. Last October i payed around $260.00 for a ten kilo bottle of 134, bought another can one month ago --------- $670.00.
Are they taklin th p** or what.
As a gridgie for over 45 years, we've had the occational increase here and their, but this sux like a hoover guys.
Where i was charging $85.00/kg before, i'm now required to charge a recommended per kilo price of $177.00.
Not happening, it's just b.s............................ I charge $145.00.

All to do with the dollar by the bloody capitalists, making shi* loads of dollars at the expense of the poor shop keeper who struggles week to week.

Question: I pull up to a new client (from the internet or something like that), i dump 20kg into his coolroom, the bill comes to $3000, then he sais he cant pay now - just an example guy's, but it WILL happen.

I'm stuck worrying whether this prix gunna pay, or pay it off in dribs and drabs, leaving me to sweat it out with my supplyers cause the account has run over 40 day's etc, and i still have to trade through them.

Sorry to be negative, but this will happen i believe.
Stay focussed guy's, this WAS a great industry once, nice and profitable, not a hell of a lot doing it, no regulations to cost us greatly, and now this !!!!

Cheers.

[oztech]

Oops type their - in the industry for 35 years, lol. I would have been about 5 at 45 years - hehehe. DOH !!!

[SeanB]

Frikkie, the drivers license is optional too....... just need a couple of buffaloes for the Boytjies if they stop you, that is all.

Where did you get a can of R12, I have been scrapping fridges because it is not worth converting them to 134A. Then again, most of them are Indesit anyway, and need new aluminium evaporators as well.

As for the controlled disposal, most of the time it is stolen before it goes to the dump, last month saw 2 "gents" with a Checkers trolley moving 3 brand new outdoor units towards the scrapyard, still venting gas. Somebody had 3 new installed the Friday, gone Monday.

[davey1000]

I was just wondering what is the situation in other country's other than Australia and uk with refrigerant laws.

I see videos from America and people show you how to go down to walmart buy a bottle of 134a and charge your car DIY style .

I also feels like a lost course sometimes when your trying to be super carefully about letting gas out . When there are people in poor countrys like bali just letting out gas when ever they have a chance .

Also what happens to all the old fridges and cars with gas in them in Australia or uk , im sure there are not tough rules about this yet and people just pretend there is no gas in the system when they crush it up into a cube.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

I live in the UK and unfortunately those handy cans of CFCs that used to be six dollars at Walmart (complete with bicycle pump style adapter) don't seem to be available over here! This seems to be a rather naive government move because no matter how new or how expensive the car it will still leak refrigerant from the shaft seal on the non-hermetic compressor. Typically the air-con will need a top-up of ***** every couple of years (I am using the terms "*****" and "CFC" generically here in much the same way that vacuum cleaners are often referred to as a Hoover) Note that in the USA, R12 is still legal to use (AFAIK) in maintenance of legacy equipment. R12 is NOT banned it is just illegal to make new plant that uses R12. Things such as domestic refrigerators have been hermetic for more than fifty years and normally a lifespan of forty years is easily possible (LEC refrigerators made in Scotland used to last extremely well) Often fridges are thrown away because someone has let fish rot in them and it is impossible to eliminate the smell even though they still work. Nowadays the old fridges go to council depots and the refrigerant is reclaimed. No exotic equipment is needed just Mole grips that have a fang and a rubber O ring, a fridge compressor and a cylinder plus some flexible hose. The gas is sucked out and compressed into the cylinder and as the fridges are all marked with the type of refrigerant used, identifying the refrigerant is easy. That stuff is worth money! For example at the MOT test station where they also service car air conditioning, it won't be a $6 job!
Don't worry too much about emissions of anything. The reason is that this planet has numerous volcanoes that spew out all kinds of rubbish. One can presume that all this vulcanism, the movement of continents and the building of mountain ranges is in fact driven by the nuclear reactor at the centre of the earth. Compared to this mans efforts are puny.

[davey1000]

A big problem in some countries is stupid officialdom. A classic example in the UK was the "Part P Domestic Wiring Regulations". In spite of the UK having an Institution Of Electrical Engineers the government chose to bypass them and railroad through their own agenda. This created the absolute farce that technicians and engineers who had heavy duty qualifications, apprenticeships and long industrial experience were debarred from doing "Mickey Mouse" domestic wiring. House wiring had been made into a building trade! Now when some people have routinely worked with 11,000 volt three phase equipment and have done a full apprenticeship its a bit much when some plonker of a politician dictates that they aren't qualified to wire up a house. Of course this probably got quite a lot of votes from the guys whose technical reading ends at the Sun page three. Admittedly quite a few people in the UK have been electrocuted but in a great many cases this has been due to some bozo driving a screw into the live conductor. As the stupid bozos typically use a double insulated power screwdriver (often with over-length screws) they are not the ones who get electrocuted. Unfortunately there are no government regulations for stupid bozos. Ground Fault Circuit Interupters also known as Earth Leakage Circuit Breakers will of course help and in some cirumstances they might prevent fires caused by gnawing rodents (there are still no government rules for rodents unfortunately not even the two legged ones) Anyhow IMHO fortunes are being made out of the qualifications fiascos by claiming that ones examinations and course numbers were not the right ones. They then want one to do yet more courses at vast expense! By the way one facet of my career involved Helium refrigerators that cooled things down to 7 or 8 degrees Kelvin and another aspect involved Mercury Arc Rectifiers and high vacuum using a mercury vapour pump. Unless the vacuum was extremely hard, unpleasant "arc backs" would occur which were bad for ones nerves! Looking back on it all its a bit like climbing Everest and then being told that one isn't qualified to go up a ten foot ladder.

[gwynn jones]

SNIP.....
As for the controlled disposal, most of the time it is stolen before it goes to the dump, last month saw 2 "gents" with a Checkers trolley moving 3 brand new outdoor units towards the scrapyard, still venting gas. Somebody had 3 new installed the Friday, gone Monday.

Damn, I miss Africa!

[spider]

hi,
Glad to see its not just us brits that have to jump through the hoops, imposed by the beaurocratic idiots, im interested would you please elaborate upon the certificate of personal fitness each technician after an exam

Many thanks

[Frikkie]

Frikkie, the drivers license is optional too....... just need a couple of buffaloes for the Boytjies if they stop you, that is all.

Where did you get a can of R12, I have been scrapping fridges because it is not worth converting them to 134A. Then again, most of them are Indesit anyway, and need new aluminium evaporators as well.

As for the controlled disposal, most of the time it is stolen before it goes to the dump, last month saw 2 "gents" with a Checkers trolley moving 3 brand new outdoor units towards the scrapyard, still venting gas. Somebody had 3 new installed the Friday, gone Monday.

Hi Seanb, you're right, the driving license is kind of optional, I was desperately trying to think of a qualification that might be required so it didn't sound as bad to the others from more first world places
There are plenty of entrepreneurs bringing in R12 I think from Mozambique and other neighboring countries, I bought a disposable can from some lets say informal local guys who repair and regas car airconditioners. It cost me ZAR 450.00. They also have brand new R12 domestic compressors as well which I assume are from the same place. Wherever they were purchased I guarantee they were dumped there by a US or EU manufacturer who was happy to sell them at a reduced price rather than scrap them because of tighter controls elsewhere. It's the usual hypocritical 'so long as it's not in my back yard' thing.

[SeanB]

Frikkie, last time I was dealing with the Kwerre Kwerre we were doing a trade of maize meal, 50kg bag for metal objects. Where in sunny SA are you, I am in Durban.

[Frikkie]

I'm in the Swartland about one and a half hours North of not very sunny Cape Town, not far from Moorreesburg. It's mostly farms where I am but they make it sound very interesting in Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moorreesburg. I usually need to travel to Cape Town if I need refrigeration spares.

[Aquahort]

Hi all, I export special water temperature control heatpumps world wide from NZ.
I've got heatpumps in UK, France, Spain, Sth Africa, Canada, Pacific Island Sth America, HongKong, China, and all over Australia & New Zealand.
Australia would be the toughest ( regulations ) most expensive place in the world, all the other countries including NZ. The rest of the world wouldn't come to within 20% of the cost of compliance in Australia.
Yes I saw cans of 134a sold in the car accessory shops in the UK. Saw Sth Africans & Chinese just vent to the air refrigerant, some didn't even know what a recovery unit was.
The department of Heritage & Environment of Australia is ripping Australians off, A$3000 licence to deal in refrigeration products, no matter if it's a non ozone damaging product like R410a. The license only lasts for 2 years only, and it comes due to renew same date for every one in Australia, and if you bought a license 1 week before due date, no refunds or discount pay the $3000, then pay again in 1 week. When you apply you pay in advance, if for some reason they turn you down (Like nonresident) you loose your $3000. I got the New Zealand government to investigate it as anti free trade agreement. Australia has an out of complying to the trade agreement if it concerns biosecurity, national security,or Ecology.I've seen 2 @ $400K farm tractors seized on the wharf in South Australia, because of the aircondition in the cab, was not imported by a licensed refrigeration engineer. They sat on the wharf for a month till customs allowed a licensed refrigeration engineer recover the 30 grams of 410a and then put it back in again!

[Jerrylemco]

Being originally out of Canada, we were developing some handling laws there that had a few teeth. To purchase refrigerants (or Ozone depleting substances and greenhouse gasses) you needed a license. Unfortunately there are a number of loopholes (hydrocarbons among them) that cause all kinds of grief. Thankfully they can't buy the normal refrigerants over the counter at Wally Mart.
Now in the great state of TX. Open season down here for automotive refrigerant (R-134a, Freeze-12 and all kinds of other Cr*p) over the counter at your local parts stores and anywhere else. Problem is that the idiots doing their own don't have a clue, or even a vacuum pump. Lots of fun explaining to them that the compressor is not under warranty because they didn't know what the heck they were doing!

[Frikkie]

Now in the great state of TX. Open season down here for automotive refrigerant (R-134a, Freeze-12 and all kinds of other Cr*p) over the counter at your local parts stores and anywhere else.

Hi Jerry, is freeze-12 the same as ***** 12? I heard they had banned it in the US a while ago but maybe I was given wrong information.

Thanks
Frikkie

[Dr. Frio]

I´m quite new in the refrigeration busines. I got my licence 2 years ago, and I can assure you that here in Argentina, where I live, you can purchase refrigerants very easy in any Refrigeration store. Regards.

[coolincab]

Repair mainly vehicle air con here in the uk only been asked for my licence twice next time someone asks for it i am going to change the numbers around just to see if any come back.

As far as i am aware only the vehicle dismantlers have been quizzed about recovering gas from vehicles before breaking as S E P A reguraly check them to see that they dispose of the oils properly.

Do any of the supermarkets get checked on there records for inspecting the larger systems every quarter or 6 month ?

does any one know if any company or individual has been found guilty of breaching the rules

[Luke.G]

I haven't heard nothing as yet regarding the ''FGAS Police'' Fining any major company
Even places like Local councils and goverment buildings dont even know about these laws in certain parts
Its ridiculous!.
Soon they'll have to make a example out of a big company to show customers who have ACR Equipment that it's the law for a reason, until then the 2079 was one big money spinner for a few people!
This industry needs a good kick start, but this doesn't help.


Thanks,
Luke

[sarmisak]

In Turkey, R-12[1] is prohibited and R-22 is strictly[2] under control of the government. You cannot buy R-22 directly from a reseller, you have to register with the ministry of environment and urban development, but first you have to declare that you are a producer.

[1] Even though R-12 is prohibited, and UN is trying to collect all there is and destroy it, it is still in the market and can be found by metric tons around Turkey. Also I don't think UN will succeed in this collection and disposal policy, because they are thinking of paying 2-3$ per kg for disposal, and the real market value is around 20-25$ per kg in the black market.

[2] See [1] for explanation. The only difference is that the government is not after R-22, they just regulate it, but there is too much illegal border activity between Syria, Iran, and Iraq, you can obtain any gas you want at any price.

[DRISCOLLS]

Went to Halfords recently and saw canisters of R134a. for sale together with charging hose and gauge.l asked the girl serving me how you gas a cars a/c . " Don't worry l wll do it for you " she said it's easy , just connect till the set pressure shows and thats it. When l said it was illegal for non qualfied people to do this , she said see my manager. It was ok he said....Quick fit do it as well. .....

[theonlyiceman53]

Went to Halfords recently and saw canisters of R134a. for sale together with charging hose and gauge.l asked the girl serving me how you gas a cars a/c . " Don't worry l wll do it for you " she said it's easy , just connect till the set pressure shows and thats it. When l said it was illegal for non qualfied people to do this , she said see my manager. It was ok he said....Quick fit do it as well. .....

Take a look at the periodic table and see what the atomic weight is of all the ingredients in ***** 12. Sure, I’ve read the theories on how ***** grows wings. I just don’t believe it just like I don’t believe in Santa Claus. Like they say, follow the money. R22 is over the counter in Indonesia. I couldn't believe the price of R404A in Oz. Crazy! Bring back R717 for home use!

[THE DUDE]

Ive seen people buy 30# tanks of R134A at Sams Club. I dont like the idea of people bypasing the wholesalers. The wholesale pricing helps keep contractors in business.