Post #9072

Learned something today. We have a commercial double sized fridge in our kitchen. Got it about 3 years ago and last week on Thanksgiving day it stopped reaching setpoint. I never heard of R290 refrigerant and could not find any HVAC guys to work on it. I assumed it had a slow leak. Called a commercial fridge place and they said they might get to me by this Friday. On a lark I called another commercial fridge place and the guy said he was out in my area anyway and he stopped by 45 minutes later. He installed a service port on the plumbing and refilled it and it works. He couldn't find a leak so it might have been in the crimped over stub of tubing he cut off to install the service port. Now on to the good stuff. R290 is simply a very pure propane. That's it. Friggin propane. It's not a controlled substance like other refrigerants. You can buy three 8oz cans of it on amazon with a fill kit for $60. My fridge holds 3.6oz of it... Turns out that propane is a very good refrigerant but R12 replaced it because it was flammable. But improvements in compressors mean it is not a fire hazard so it's making a comeback. Goodwe and Gee are making minisplit systems that use it. Apparently it's all the rage in EU and China.