Recovery Best Practices w/ NAVAC
HVAC School - For Techs, By Techs
Bryan Orr
4.9 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 11 April 2019
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In today's podcast, Kevan Mayer from NAVAC comes talks about recovery and ways to make it work better and more safely for you.
Recovering refrigerant is better for the environment and safer for us. When designing recovery equipment, NAVAC's goal is to limit the gases we put into the atmosphere and leave the planet in better shape than we gound it. Recovery also ensures that refrigerants for phased-out refrigerants remain available.
Tanks require vacuums of at least 1000 microns, if not deeper. We also need to remember what the previous tank contents were to make sure that we only fill the tank with those refrigerants and oils. You absolutely DO NOT want to mix refrigerants. Tanks should always be up-to-date and must be certified every 5 years.
When recovering refrigerant, one of the best practices is to use a filter-drier to filter out moisture and contaminants. Reducing moisture and contamination will increase the life of your recovery machine. However, a filter-drier will not restore refrigerant back to the highest purity standards.
The speed of your recovery will depend on your vacuum, recovery machine, hose sizing, and core removal. You can also raise pressure by turning the fan on. The goal to produce speedy recoveries is to reduce tank pressure and increase system pressure.
When it comes to filling the tanks, we must pay attention to the tare weight and water capacity. However, we must understand that the water capacity is NOT the same as refrigerant capacity. We need to do a little bit of math to fill our tanks safely.
Kevan and Bryan also discuss:
- Evacuation vs. recovery
- Reclaim company tank-handling protocols
- Refrigerant mixing costs/consequences
- Using recovered refrigerant legally
- Compression ratio
- Hose sizing and manifolds
- Push-pull method
- The 80% rule
- NRDD recovery machine
Learn more about NAVAC tools at navacglobal.com.
Learn more about Refrigeration Technologies HERE.
If you have an iPhone, subscribe to the podcast HERE, and if you have an Android phone, subscribe HERE.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | and This episode of the HVAC School Podcast is made possible by our sponsors and our main sponsor |
| 0:21.6 | for this episode is Navac and Navac Global. |
| 0:23.4 | Navac makes recovery machines, vacuum pumps, flaring tools, swedging tools, |
| 0:28.8 | all kinds of other stuff, tubing cutters, so on and so forth. |
| 0:31.8 | You can find out more at Navac global.com, or looking up navac at truetech tools. |
| 0:37.0 | Use the offer code get schooled for a great discount. |
| 0:40.0 | Also want to thank carrier and carrier.com. |
| 0:42.0 | carrier's been a long time sponsor they are the |
| 0:43.8 | equipment that we sell in my company here in central Florida commercial and |
| 0:47.0 | residential also want to thank refrigeration technologies refrigeration |
| 0:52.1 | technologies makes nylog. |
| 0:53.7 | Nylog is a really nice assembly lubricant and we use it when we're pulling |
| 0:58.3 | vacuums in order to get a nice seal on our vacuum hoses. We use it when we're |
| 1:02.2 | making flares. We use it when we are assembling threaded |
| 1:05.4 | connectors inside of refrigeration systems. We use it all the time. There are some |
| 1:09.8 | manufacturers that will tell you that you shouldn't use Nylog when making |
| 1:12.2 | flares and let me tell you what you shouldn't use Nylog when making flares and let me |
| 1:13.1 | tell you what we've had no problems with Nylog, we've had no problems with electronic |
| 1:17.7 | expansion valves gumbing or any of that sort of thing in fact I can tell you we've |
| 1:21.4 | installed thousands of ductless systems and we have yet to install a single electronic expansion valve and we've always used Nylog. |
| 1:28.0 | Now the key is just use a couple drops on the mating surfaces, just a little bit on the thread so that way it goes together |
| 1:33.0 | nice and smooth and it works great refrigeration technologies refriggedec.com and then |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Bryan Orr, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Bryan Orr and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.