News from The Northwest HVAC/R Association & Training Center

Effective January 1, 2019 new regulations impacting the way refrigerants are handled and sold go into effect. This is the third, and final stage, of the three-year phase-in of regulations passed in November of 2016.

The New Regulations for 2019 Include
Section 608 regulations include new leak inspection and verification test requirements for owners/operators. Leak inspections are required for appliances that have exceeded the applicable leak rate, per the information below. All visible and accessible components of an appliance must be inspected, using a method or methods that are appropriate for that appliance.

Comfort Cooling with a charge of 50 or more pounds must have a leak inspection once per calendar year until the owner/operator can demonstrate through the leak rate calculations that the leak rate has not exceeded 10% for one year.

Commercial Refrigeration and Industrial Process Refrigeration (IPR) with a charge of 50 to 500 pounds must have a leak inspection once per calendar year until the owner / operator can demonstrate through the leak rate calculations that the leak rate has not exceeded 20% commercial refrigeration or 30% IPR for one year.

Commercial Refrigeration and IPR with a charge of over 500 pounds must have a leak inspection conducted once every three months until the owner/operator can demonstrate through leak rate calculations that the leak rate has not exceeded 20% for commercial refrigeration or 30% IPR for four quarters in a row.

All records for leak inspections, initial verification, verification tests and records of recovered refrigerant from equipment with 5 to 50 lbs. must be kept for 3 years by the owner or operator of the equipment.

Free Presentation
The ESCO Institute wants to make it easy for registered proctors (test administrators) to navigate the regulatory changes to incorporate into their training. As such we have posted a free presentation of the changes in the proctor login area of our website. Registered proctors visit escogroup.org, click proctor login, once logged in, they will see the free presentation.

Further Changes
While the EPA has proposed another rule that could revise the regulations again, rest assured that ESCO Institute will continue to keep you apprised of changes.