After the 1987 Montreal Protocol, appliance technicians had to buy duplicate equipment, recover every charge and move to R134a, which was not a drop-in replacement, so sealed-system repair costs rose sharply. Fewer fridges were repaired and more were scrapped early, and shredding releases the CFCs in the foam insulation, which hold far more than the small charge technicians recover. Doug Major argues a small-charge carve-out would have served customers and the environment better, and that nobody was speaking for consumers or service providers when the rules were set.
Way back in 1987, the Montreal Protocol was signed, and I was on board. It worked. But the way the rules landed on domestic refrigeration drove repair costs up, sent fridges to the shredder early and released more CFCs than technicians could ever recover. And there was nobody in the room speaking for the people who fix appliances or the people who own them.
What did the Montreal Protocol ask of appliance technicians?
As a technician watching from the margins, I was on board. In hindsight it was one of the most successful environmental protocols ever. It lowered emissions, especially from CFCs. There is some debate about the projections versus today’s reality, but there is consensus that it had an effect.
I have said before that I was all in on doing my part. At the time, I saw a pie chart that put domestic refrigeration somewhere between 3 and 6% of the global problem. For a second I questioned the cost-to-benefit for our tiny corner of a global problem. But I went along. We all did.
Just think for a minute about what we were being told. You must have two sets of equipment, because R134a should not be run through the same equipment as R12, which was on its way out. We must recapture all refrigerant, store it, and return it for disposal in containers filled to no more than 80% of their rated capacity. Not a drop over. The additional equipment costs and extra service time were not trivial.
Why did repair costs go up so fast?
That’s before you get to the refrigerant itself. R134a is a smaller molecule than R12, which means it is more prone to leaks. And R134a was not a drop-in replacement for R12. Capillary lines had to be sized correctly to meter the new refrigerant. The compressor oil in an R12 system is not compatible with R134a. R134a systems are less tolerant of moisture, so vacuums had to be better.
New cap tubes, new oils, better vacuums. The short version of all that: repair costs went up dramatically, and quickly.
What did everyone miss?
To my shame, I never saw it coming. I went with it. Here is what everyone, including me, missed.
There are far more CFCs in the foam insulation of a fridge than the tiny bit we recapture with any sealed-system service.
To be clear, there was zero chance the domestic industry would have been allowed to continue using R12. Zero. Black-market R12 caused a real problem until it was tracked down. Keeping it in production for fridges would have kept it flowing everywhere, and the large emitters would never have switched. I understand that.
What could have happened was a carve-out on the recapture and disposal of small charges, say under 20 ounces. The whole “you need two sets of equipment” rule also proved to be overkill. Our industry could have avoided needless costs and kept those costs from being passed on to the consumer.
How did the rule end up adding to emissions?
The chain reaction is huge. Higher costs for servicers. Higher costs for consumers. Fewer servicers investing in sealed-system repairs, and more of them condemning any fridge that needs one. Customers opting out of repairs because of the cost.
That leads to the premature death of appliances. And as soon as a fridge is crushed and shredded, more CFCs are released than were ever recoverable by technicians. Much higher emissions.
To be clear, the CFCs in the foam would eventually have been released anyway. The difference is that with proper repairs, the releases would have been gradual, and at the natural end of an appliance’s life. The way it worked was bad for the customer and bad for the environment.
As I said, I wasn’t informed enough to see what was coming. That is totally on me, because in Europe they knew. They built facilities to handle the foam insulation. The knowledge was available.
Who speaks for the people who fix and own appliances?
That is exactly what this rant is all about.
There is no voice in the appliance world looking out for consumers or for service providers.
Today there is Right to Repair, which lumps appliances in with electronics. Similar, but not the same. Consumer reporting is too shallow, and too focused on one product versus another, to look out for industry trends.
We servicers, and the public, would have been so much better off if some group with a voice had just said: “Hey, wait a minute. This is taking a shotgun to kill a fly.” A shotgun likely misses the target, and it does so much more damage.