Question from a beginner. R12 in a R22 system - http://www.hvacmechanic.com/ Forums

Original message

lomotil

67.168.212.180

"Question from a beginner. R12 in a R22 system" , posted Fri 29 Jul 19:49

I am a building maintenance technician and only know the basics of this field.

I am repairing a refrigerator reach-in for a restaurant. This unit has been out of order longer than any of the employees have been there. The manufacturer’s plate says it’s an R12 system. So I recovered, swept with nitrogen, put in a TXV for R12 and new dryer filters and put R12 into it. Long story short, turns out it was changed over to R22 but that person didn’t bother to write that on the unit anywhere. I ran the unit for 24hrs before I noticed that it was actually a R22 system. It was working fine.

So my question is, is this OK? If I recall correctly R12 and R22 use the same oil. R12 works at a lower pressure than R22 so everything should be OK mechanically right?

Will this unit be OK like this or should I put it back to R22?

Thanks for the help.

Replies:

beginner

24.239.130.187

"Re(1):Question from a beginner. R12 in a R22 " , posted Sun 31 Jul 22:20

What make is the compressor and model #?

Xenos
Webmaster

69.156.2.92

"Re(1):Question from a beginner. R12 in a R22" , posted Fri 29 Jul 22:10

I don’t work in refrigeration so I may be way off base here but I can’t see you even getting close to the capacity of the refrigerator with R-22. Now since their make up is almost the same I doubt any damage will occur (chemically anyway). I would leave it with 12 then switch to a 12 drop in when there is none left.

Xenos.

The best way to escape a problem is to solve it.