Equipping Techs for the Shift to A2L
Tony Gonzales, director of training at Fieldpiece Instruments, says the most common question HVAC professionals ask him about the A2L transition is, “Do I have to throw away all my tools and buy new ones?”
They’re stressed out. Buying that many tools would be tens of thousands of dollars. So he likes to have a little fun with them to break the ice.
“I say, ‘All right, I’m gonna put my salesman’s cap on, you guys. You gotta buy all new tools, even the hammers, even the pliers — even your pens. Because you have to make sure your click is not sparking, right? It’s got to be a spark-proof click.’”
That gets everybody laughing, which lightens the situation a bit.
At the AHR Expo, The ACHR NEWS asked five tool companies and one refrigerant company to share their top-selling A2L-compatible tools, as well as FAQs about working with A2L refrigerants and setting the record straight on some common A2L myths. Here is what they had to say.
“When it comes to A2L refrigerants, the media, I’ll be honest, is blowing this up to make it sound a little scary,” said Brad Adcox, national sales manager at Navac Inc. “It’s not scary. It’s almost an identical cocktail to what the guys are working with today. Just do common procedure — what you learned in school.”
If a tech just bought tools last year, chances are they’re already A2L ready, he said, so no one needs to freak out and spend another $15,000 on tools right away.
“Start with kind of your nitty gritty,” he suggested. “You’ve got to have core tools. Start with a recovery machine. That’s something you use every day. Then go to a vacuum pump. This year, every tech is going to be looking to swap out the recovery unit, vacuum pump, and set of gauges.”
Which tools to pick, in particular?
“It comes down to the tech,” he said. “Am I going to be an analog tech? Am I going to be a digital tech? Do I want them both? Am I a little more of a residential guy, or am I a commercial guy? Because this buyout really is going to make these guys look at, ‘What am I using every day?’ A lot of these techs are not just staying in one sector anymore. Most of these HVAC guys you see now are doing HVAC and plumbing and electrical, so now they’re buying one big tool for that crew to share.”
TOP TOOLS
-FLEX-X Manifold
This tool accommodates 72 refrigerants, eliminating the need for multiple gauges.
“So you can take the three, four gauges that are on your van right now, swap it to that one gauge that’s ready for A2L, and now you’ve got less clutter, less mess in the truck.”
-NR7 (residential) and NRDD (light commercial) recovery machines
“Most of the time, these will all be needing some type of like an ice bath,” he said. Navac’s machines, however, have a built-in interior fan. “Most of the competition doesn’t have a dual style coil. This one, you have an oversized fan that’s going to move all the air over all the electrical components, so anything that’s heating up in here is now getting cooled off by that oversized fan. It’s just like your car.” It cools fast enough, he said, that users don’t have to worry about the cylinder ever getting hot.
-Hoses
“We have A2L hoses that are specifically made for recovering or the vacuum process,” said Adcox. We have an adapter for the cylinder, so you can have your left-handed thread, but we also have a full hose that is already the left-handed thread, so that way you can have your separate hose setup. We keep them orange. That way, when you look in your truck, you’re just grabbing for your orange hoses, and you know you’re not going to contaminate your other hoses.”
