News about HVAC/R is not always right
Ted Atwood
Investing, building, founding, and advising across 30 years in refrigerant management, advancing hardware and software tech to reduce leaks and enhance performance on the front lines of the industry.
Bad data (fake news) is everywhere including in reports used inside your company
Three interesting stories came across my desk last week, but not all of them were accurate, reminding me that the information that filters through the internet and comes across our desks is not helping us to make better decisions - in some cases it causes more confusion than it solves. One story claimed Armageddon (new laws will require you to change everything and replace all your refrigerants), another story was letting the world know that California had enacted stricter regulations fast-tracking the phase-out of another generation of refrigerants & another story was about an NY municipality that had refrigerant in their aquifer (this story was true) and they had no idea why the refrigerant was there or where it came from.
When the refrigerant world transitioned from Ozone depleting gasses (1990's) to high Global warming gasses (the 2000's), no one missed out on any ice cream or had to work in a warm building, in fact, the industry grew significantly from $10BN (1994) to more than $140BN (2017) fueled by a need to remain comfortable, speed data to its required destination & ensure safety to our food. During this time, a significant lack of awareness at the system owner level created disadvantages for you the owner. For instance, a significant portion (more than 25% of all equipment sales in 2013) were based on R-22 refrigerant a material that will no longer be in production in 2020. There will not be enough gas to service these systems and they will still have more than 15 years of allowable depreciation remaining in 2020.
Examples of external fake news are easy to spot to the trained eye, but what about the Fake news that is circulating side your company or organization, how do you spot that? After 25 years of work, we have reviewed hundreds of thousands of appliances across tens of thousands of locations and noticed a lot of fake news: missing serial or model numbers, improperly developed leak rates, persistent leaks, incorrectly selected systems, systems listed with the wrong refrigerant material or systems listed on an inventory sheet that doesn't even exist or was salvaged years ago. Fake data is being used every day to guide managers and operations teams as they invest in new equipment or plan budgets that are expected to keep workspaces comfortable, hospitals healthy, data centers online and food safe.
The downward pressure on budgets means that cutting corners in the maintenance world now has a nicer sounding term - deferred maintenance. So we rely on already taxed maintenance teams and their spreadsheets to let us know what is a safe allowable amount of maintenance. Compromises made in the maintenance department have a significant impact on energy use and as energy prices continue to climb, the results of bad data can lead not to a reduction in costs, but instead a shifting from one cost center to another.
Getting the facts about your tier 1 assets (HVAC/R) does not have to be complicated or expensive. A simple place to start is here gain awareness and end the cycle of fake news inside your organization.