Welcome to the Windshield Chronicles, a mental sequence operation.
This episode brought to you by Hudson Technologies, improving
environmental quality and promoting a healthier planet to the sustainable
recovery and reuse of natural sources.
Learn more at HudsonTech.com.
All right, everyone.
Thank you for joining us once again on Did You Know the Esco HVAC podcast.
So we are hanging out at the 2024 National HVACR Education Conference.
So you'll hear a little background noise.
That's just because we have 1200 educators.
No way.
1200, Kate.
That's fabulous.
Hanging out with Kate Houghton from Hudson Technologies.
And we always have some amazing conversations.
It's always so much fun.
Never know where it's going to start or end, but it's a great time.
Absolutely.
I mean, we're sitting here, we're sitting down, we're going, okay, I think we know
what we want to talk about, is there anything different that we want to cover?
Anything you want to throw in?
Because there's just so much to talk about.
And right now Hudson is at the forefront of helping us understand refrigerant
transition, so Kate and I have done some really, really wonderful discussions on
what the industry looks like when this whole HFC phase down and what we're
doing for recovery and reclamation.
But we want to start painting a picture that doesn't always get thought of.
Especially from the technician side.
So let's just, let's just backtrack a couple of decades.
I'm dating myself again.
Oh my gosh.
You've not made.
So as a technician out in the field, we were, we were very strict on
recovering of refrigerant and every refrigerant had it.
Now we did commercial refrigeration, so we had a lot of refrigerants.
We did residential, light commercial, uh, AC.
So, you know, there were many a times that, you know, I can have a dozen
different refrigerants in our shop.
And so we had clean cylinders of refrigerant.
We had cylinders that had, you know, burnout compressors that were labeled.
So we would accumulate a variety of different recovery cylinders.
And then we would go to our local supply house and then we would, you know,
bring them in for reclamation, but we did, that was really all that we seen
of that side of the industry.
And it wasn't until, until I got into working with educators and talking
about the whole life cycle of our industry and Kate and I were talking about,
have you ever thought about what that cylinder does, like from its beginning
of its life to its end.
And I thought that'd be a wonderful conversation to have, if you don't mind.
Absolutely.
I'm all in.
Okay.
All right, let's do it.
So, so let's start out.
How about we start as a fresh brand new recovery cylinder?
Just came out of the manufacturing facility.
What happens with that thing?
Yeah.
So that can go in a couple of different directions, but really it's useful.
Life is getting into service.
So generally those brand new recovery cylinders will go out
through the wholesale channel.
They're available for contractors to go pick up, purchase rent deposit.
Every contractor and every wholesale relationship is slightly different.
So you can kind of see that a couple of different ways, but that contractor
is going to obtain that cylinder from a wholesaler.
They might obtain it from their reclaimed partner if they're not reclaiming.
So for example, they were reclaiming directly with something like a Hudson.
You'll also be able to get that, that cylinder directly from your reclaimed
partner and take that and put that out on the truck.
So at that point, you've got the ability to start to do your first recovery.
Yes.
Okay.
All right.
So let's just lay like we were in my scenario.
So I've got my 50 pound recovery cylinder.
I have now gotten enough clean refrigerant in this particular one.
I put it in my van, I transport it to my local distributor and I don't
know what happens from there.
Yeah.
It's like a big mystery, right?
They, they just, the cylinders disappear and a little bit later on you find out what
you had.
So what that, what that local wholesaler will do will consolidate all of those
recovery cylinders, the thirties, the fifties, sometimes the 125s and thousands even.
And they'll consolidate all those cylinders.
They'll get a pallet full generally.
Sometimes they'll use less, but sometimes it generally they'll get a pallet full of
cylinders.
So 40 recovery cylinders and they'll go back to their reclaimed partner.
So they'll go back to the factory.
Every single cylinder tagged labeled with who the contractor was, what the wholesaler
was, and that'll come back in and be received into a, into a reclaimer's facility.
Really?
Okay.
So we're doing, so we're already doing a lot of tracking of those cylinders.
A lot of people talk about, you know, the potential of the
requirements for cylinder tracking going forward.
Well, it's actually already being done in some ways.
It really is.
And so it's, it's really for us as industry to figure out how do we make it easy and
accessible down to a technician level, but there's an awful lot of documentation
going on right now about cylinders and about refrigerant and recovery.
So once that cylinder gets to your facility, how are we going to know what's in that?
Cause we, I mean, I would label my own system, my own system, my own system,
mine, like on my label for my cylinder, I had every job, what refrigerant, what date,
but once it gets to you, how do you know what's actually there?
Yeah, absolutely.
So we test every single cylinder every single time.
So each cylinder gets a small sample drawn off that cylinder.
We test for refrigerant type.
We test for purity and ultimately we weigh the cylinder to test for weight.
And we track all of that by cylinder serial number.
So we have a database that goes back probably close to 30 years.
And the key, and the key that we trigger off is the cylinder serial number, because
although there's multiple manufacturers of recovery cylinders or products,
and there's even for that matter, their unique serial number never once have we
seen the same serial number from different manufacturers.
So the serial number really is a unique identifier to that cylinder for its entire life.
So even if a cylinder has been retested and recertified, it's still the
same serial number?
The serial number never changes.
The test date changes and you'll see that stamping and you can see cylinders that
have been retested over and over again.
But the serial number is a constant throughout that cylinder's life.
I never realized that.
I always assumed that once a cylinder was retested, it got re-serialized.
So we've been tracking cylinders for their entire lifespan.
Exactly.
Yep.
And we can go back in our database and actually see the same cylinder come back
over and over.
We can tell you what refrigerant was in it last time we got it and the time before that.
Oh, funny.
Wow.
The analytical nerd in me would be, okay, where have you been in your life?
Trust me.
There's rabbit holes I go down as well.
I can, yeah, I bet.
I can see that, especially if one comes back and something's questionable about
it and go, hmm, might have to see where you actually have been on your journey
here recently.
Yep.
Exactly.
All right.
So we'll get our cylinder in.
We will test it.
We'll analyze, see what we actually have and then what's going to be next step.
Yeah.
So then what, depending on the purity in the refrigerant, it's going to go in
different directions in the plant, left, right, straight ahead.
Those cylinders will be emptied.
So we'll recover all the refrigerant out of that.
We're going to pull that down to vacuum.
So we're going to get every ounce of everything out of that cylinder.
And then depending, it's going to go one of two ways.
That's one is going to one of two ways.
So if it needs hydro certification.
Yeah.
And so we re-certify every cylinder within a certain period of time.
So it goes, it has some useful life.
So if it needs hydro research, it's going to go to the left, let's say, and
go down the hydro path.
If the hydro date is fine and it can be put back into circulation, it's going
to go right and go to the paint, paint line.
We're going to repaint every single cylinder, fresh coat of paint.
Now, what about the insides of them?
Are they cleaned in that process or?
Yes.
So that's a great question.
We get it a lot.
So in through the recovery process, we're going to pull down vacuum
vacuum, but because the, the contaminants, like a little bit of oil, a little bit of
moisture, a little bit of particulate aren't going to affect the purity of the
refrigerant, the recovery cylinder doesn't have to be pristine.
So it's not re-certified to brand new conditions, but here's the catch.
You can't use that cylinder to re-inject refrigerant because you can inject
contaminants.
So a recovery cylinder is literally for the recovery refrigerant and
transfer to a reclaimer.
It's not for recovery and re-inject.
True.
Absolutely.
Definitely not for resell, which is part of the reason we've had a lot of
concerns in industry.
When we start talking about refillable cylinders, you have people going, Oh, we
can just re, you know, we can take the supply of existing recovery cylinders.
Well, that's not true because then every single one of those would have to be
almost recreated.
They would have to be run to completely different process.
Okay.
All right.
So, so now we've, we've got through, we've verified our test date.
So if it is expired, we're going to get re-certified.
If it is not, we're going to be ready to send back out into the industry.
And how do they get distributed?
Yeah, absolutely.
So hydro tested, painted, palletized, under vacuum, and then sent back out to
where they came from.
So we do a like for like swap and that would be pretty typical in most of the
industry.
So we've got, depending on how much cylinder the wholesaler sent in, we're
going to send back like for like cylinders.
So a pallet of 40 comes in, a pallet of 40 goes back out.
So there's a very good chance I could actually end up back with a cylinder
that I have sent in.
It's possible.
What happens though for the technician, when they drop that cylinder off at the
wholesaler, they're going to walk out with a fresh cylinder.
So they're going to keep swapping so that they can go to that next recovery job.
So the cylinder is likely, could likely go back to that wholesaler, but you may
not get it back to the same technician.
Okay.
All right.
And the cylinder fleet, just to put in perspective is hundreds of at Hudson,
hundreds of thousands of cylinders.
So it doesn't necessarily go back to the same wholesaler.
It's going to go back to a wholesaler.
I gotcha.
Okay.
All right.
Yeah, that's very interesting.
So, you know, a lot of times we just don't think about that entire
journey of that cylinder.
So going forward, we have a huge emphasis on reclamation.
Is our industry prepared?
Do you think we have enough cylinders in supply to do a continual recirculation
of our HFCs and particularly that's out in industry?
So that's a great question.
If you had to ask me that question two or three years ago, I would say no, because
there was a steel shortage, COVID pandemic.
It was really, people were getting turned away.
They couldn't get cylinders.
All of that has come back around.
There's ample cylinders in the marketplace.
Nice.
Okay.
It's not, it's not an impediment at this point.
Cylinders are not an impediment.
I have, I have had a very interesting topic come up here internally, particularly
about our A2L recovery cylinders.
So some manufacturers saying that they're going left-handed thread for sure.
Some saying it's undetermined yet.
So we're not making a statement on that.
Are you seeing A2L recovery cylinders coming back in yet?
Yeah.
Also a great question.
So we are seeing A2Ls come back in, but a dedicated design, a
designed A2L cylinder not yet.
Yes.
So we're, we're recommending anyone who has A2Ls cause they are in circulation
and they are coming back.
So we have flammable tags.
We asked anybody returning cylinders to make sure that we know that there's
flammable refrigerants on the shipment and to designate, to call out that
cylinder on the pallet, but so far we have not seen A2L recovery cylinders
become available in the marketplace.
Yeah.
That's, we're kind of the same way.
We've had, we've found some available, but we've also seen some, what I
would call counterfeit recovery cylinders.
And we have to.
Have you really?
It's a real problem because they don't meet DOT.
They're undersized.
So if you use the 80% fill ratio, you're overfilling them and they
are very dangerous to transport.
Cause they're, they claim that there are 30 pound cylinder, but when you put them
side by side, the water capacity in the cylinder size, they're much smaller.
So if you, if you filled it to your 80% rule, you are overfilling that cylinder
and it could potentially become a missile.
It's very dangerous.
Oh, that's boy.
Ty Brandeman is going to love to know that because he's actually been running
down that rabbit hole, trying to see what is coming to the industry and making
sure to point out the, what we are going to call counterfeit cylinders.
I mean, we've, we've found recovery cylinders that have like shutoff valves on them.
Correct.
Yeah.
Yeah, we're actually issuing some, uh, some updates this week in
terms of what to look out for.
There's a lot of information coming out in the industry very, very quickly, but
I suffice to say, if somebody's offering you a recovery cylinder and it seems
like a really great deal, it's probably too good to be true.
Like everything in life.
If it sounds too good to be true, it's probably because it's
probably because it is.
Yeah.
No, that's really cool.
I'm so glad that you clarified that because we're all going to spend a lot
more time focusing on recovering reclamation and understanding our role in
that process, and I think it helps paint a better picture and hopefully in the
future, we're going to do a road show or we're going to actually show what some
of those processes look like.
I can't wait to have you at our champagne plant and, uh, and show the
world how we actually handle those cylinders and then how we go about it.
I love it.
You know, we keep talking about this evolution of education right now.
And I know you in particular, very, very forefront in education.
What educational resources do we have to, uh, to connect with Hudson and to
learn about where our industry is right now?
Absolutely.
We have a lot of information on our website, HudsonTech.com in terms of
sustainability, reclaim, um, handling H2L.
So there's a wealth of information on our website.
Check it out.
All right.
Fantastic.
Any other things you'd like to cover while we're here today?
Well, I'm really excited to talk about, uh, HFCs in the face down later on
this afternoon here.
And, uh, you know, it's great.
It's a great turnout, Clifton.
It's a really great turnout.
Yeah.
There's so many people here and you that are joining us today.
We're so glad that you're spending some time hanging out.
I wish you were here with us and we hope that you're here next year to spend
some time one-on-one with every educator from the industry that is putting their
heart and soul into keeping all this information forefront, just like you are, Kate.
It's, I would say it's one of my favorite conferences.
I wouldn't miss it every year.
It's great.
Yeah, it's what got me hooked in doing the things that I do now when I keep 2019.
So it looks like it's getting pretty crazy out there.
I think we're heading right into another session.
So I think we are.
So that's wonderful.
I sure appreciate you joining us and look forward to, uh, see what the class is.
And I encourage everyone to reach out to your local distributors, see if you're
using Hudson, learn a little bit more about Hudson and find them at Hudson.
HudsonTech.com.
All right.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.