Refrigeration gear?

Re: Refrigeration gear?

Hi Rob,

Talk to Ian Dales and Bryan Williams, both old fridge hands and both will, probably, tell you what I will here…

Refrigeration really isn’t that hard, once you get your head around it. At least so long as all you want to do is fix it when it breaks.

But what I and many others would suggest is to steer clear of Lockring. It’s expensive, prone to failure and an absolute b1tch of a thing to get right in the field. Personally, I’d never use them unless there was no other options available.

A good microflame and a bit of experience and you’re sorted. No buying stupidly expensive Lockrings.

However, to each their own as they say. I just don’t like the things, could never get the damnable stupid system to work properly so, gave up. Life’s too short.

Brazing works.

And, I can fix ten or more fridges easily with flux and brazing rods for the cost of a set of Lockrings to do one the last time I looked.

I’d steer clear of 134a unless you are qualified and have FGAS. Not that anyone’s ever liable to bother you about it but, it’s a hassle that’s being lessened by the day and, all R134a units will be banned from production next year IIRC so, a bit pointless in many ways.

Let me put it this way, once the FGAS interim certificate expires (kindly provided by the WTA for buttons) we won’t be touching any CFC gas as it’ll then be either commercially prohibitive or just plain outlawed.

HRP aren’t bad for kit, not the cheapest but they do stock or can get quickly a huge range of stuff from refrigeration work and they do tend to sell decent stuff too. There’s branches all over the place as well as online ordering…

http://www.fridgenius.co.uk/hrp.htm

http://www.hrponline.co.uk/

HTH

K.

Re: Refrigeration gear?

Disagree about the lockrings…… never ever had one fail or leak and fitted, literaly 1000’s. Way quicker than Brazing and less equipment to lug around. (you do need good eyesight though the read the sizes!) Qualtex currently cheapest supplier. The only rip off is the driers with tails on and if anyone can point me the way of a cheaper alternative…..
TrySRW for equipment although you will find most refirgeration suppliers are geared up for commercial work and have little domestic stuff.
R600A is now the most common refrigerent for domestic stuff and is basicly a hydrocarbon like Butane. Yes it is flamable under certain circumstances so you need to know what you are doing, but its a great gas to work with as you do not need to recover the old stuff and you are dealing with much smaller quantities then the older systems used.