REFRIGERANT RECOVERY OR RECLAIM

Refrigerant Recovery or Reclaim

WARNING.  Refrigerants are associated with high and potentially dangerous pressures. Refrigerant recovery should only be performed by a licensed HVAC Technician. In most countries including New Zealand and Australia, it is illegal to use or otherwise work with refrigerants unless a handling licence is obtained, usually through attending a course at a technical college or similar institute.  The following is a guide to recovery only and does not include recycling and/or charging. Be especially familiar with the equipment to be used.
 
To recover refrigerant, the following equipment is required.

1) Standard set of Manifold, Hoses & Gauges sufficient to handle the characteristics, pressures and type of refrigerant being recovered.

2) Additional hose to be used between recovery unit discharge and recovery cylinder.

3) Any specific adaptors, pipe valves, accessories needed or valves in the case of vehicles, suitable to attached to the LP and HP unions on the condensing unit or receiver.

4) Refrigerant Recovery Unit like the Javac EVO-HP or similar

5) CERTIFIED Refrigerant Recovery Cylinder (Note must be a two valve certified cylinder and have sufficient space to receive the volume/weight of refrigerant being recovered)

6) Personal Protection Equipment ( PPE) (Gloves, Safety Glasses, etc...)

PROCEDURE

1) Locate the technical information of the unit or vehicle you are working on and identify which type of refrigerant it uses. The most common types for residential hear pumps or air-conditioning are either R-22 or R410a. For vehicle systems, usually R12 (old) or R134a (new). Note in all cases, manufacturers are moving to natural refrigerants at higher pressures and with lower (ATEX) explosion ratings. New recovery equipment is also coming onto the market at the same time so it is very important that the equipment matches the refrigerant rating.

2) Connect up your gauges to the low side then the high side. The low pressure is most commonly found on the larger pipe and the high side on the smaller pipe.  

3) Purge your hoses for a short burst at low pressure to remove any “non-condensables”, closing the valves afterwards.

4) Attached the common or yellow hose to the "IN" side of your recovery unit.

5) Attach the additional yellow hose up to the "OUT" port of your recovery unit and with the recovery valve on “purge”, carry out the same function as in (3).

7.Attach the other end of the second yellow hose to the low pressure (BLUE) side of your recovery cylinder if the cylinder is standing in a normal upright orientation. On your recovery cylinder, you should have two ports one blue, one red. Blue and red on your gauges represents low and high sides respectively. Your recovery cylinder is the same so you want to hook up to the BLUE port when transferring refrigerant into the cylinder.

8) Carefully open the related high and/or low side of your gauges. Make sure the discharge port on your recovery unit is open and the rotary valve selected on “recover”, and then open the appropriate valve on the recovery cylinder.

9) Turn on the recovery unit and slowly open the suction port on the recovery unit to prevent liquid surging into the recovery unit compressor. Leave the valve in such a position as to allow sufficient gas pressure through without liquid and wait for your gauges to drop to zero. When you’re finished recovering close your gauges, close the recovery cylinder valve(s) and turn the recovery machine off.

10) Carefully release pressure in the hoses and remove if no further functions are required.