BSRIA is delighted to announce the publication of a new topic guide: Refrigerants in Building Services (TG 21/2022), published in partnership with the Building Services Engineering Association (BESA).
Authored by Graeme Fox, BESA Technical Director, the topic guide is available now for free from the BSRIA Bookshop.
Refrigerants in Building Services (TG 21/2022)
Refrigerants are used in the working cycle of virtually all air conditioning systems and heat pumps. The increased use of both comes at a time when the legislative landscape is looking evermore to restrict or limit the use of refrigerants that have a direct environmental impact. This places additional considerations on the building services designer with regard to which refrigerants can be used and what the likelihood is of restrictions on their use over time.
The new topic guide covers:
- Current environmental and health and safety legislation affecting refrigerants.
- Forthcoming changes to legislation.
- Efficiency considerations.
- An overview of commonly used refrigerants.
- Applications, including DX coils, chillers, split systems, VRF/VRV systems and heat pumps.
- Sources of further information.
The choice of refrigerants affects many people in the building services industry; hence this is a valuable guide for designers, installers, project managers, building owner/operators and maintenance staff.
Spirit of collaboration at a crucial time of industry change
BSRIA has a long history of collaboration with other industry authorities and experts, like the BESA, who share BSRIA’s passion for improving the economic, social, and environmental impact of the built environment.
Here, the two bodies were keen to work together to promote best practice across the sector and to fully explain the implications of stringent cuts to the use of HFCs and other bans as part of proposals to strengthen the European F-Gas regulation.
Graeme Fox, BESA Technical Director, said, “The timing of this guide is crucial. There is so much change going on in the industry and there is a danger that people will be bamboozled by all the current and proposed legislative changes. If people are confused, they can end up simply ignoring their obligations with extremely unfortunate consequences.”
Fox added that the new guide reinforced the importance of people being properly trained and holding up-to-date technical and health & safety qualifications to work with both traditional and alternative refrigerants. This is particularly important because many HFC replacement refrigerants are mildly flammable, he pointed out.