In the world of commercial HVAC-R systems, energy efficiency is paramount – whether your goal is to satisfy industry-mandated efficiency ratings or win customers by saving them money on their electric bill. Overall unit/system efficiency is what end users are after, but if you’re an OEM of commercial RTUs, AHUs, etc., and don’t have a deep understanding of how subcomponents - especially coils - impact unit efficiency, you could be costing your customers money – a lot of money.

Based on the experiment outlined in this article, poor coil design can lead to more than a 100% increase in annual fan electricity usage per coil per year.

To start, I’d like to say that this article is not intended to be political. I feel there are certain issues that transcend politics, and regardless of where you may fall on the political spectrum, some challenges can’t be met without cooperation. And I think one such challenge is ensuring our environment is healthy and sustainable for future generations.

Earlier this month, Congress passed the Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed into law by President Biden on August 16^th. The legislation, which is designed to – among other goals – help relieve Americans of rising healthcare, energy, and consumer costs, also includes $386 billion aimed at combatting climate change at several levels. As the leader of a manufacturing company, I’m excited to see that this investment in our climate is also an investment in American jobs, innovation, and engineering excellence.

At Super Radiator, some of our favorite projects are those that have a positive impact on the world around us. Take applications like economizers or waste heat recovery, for example. Coils designed for such purposes perform functions like harnessing otherwise wasted heat to reduce fuel costs or power other functions like heating water.

But, with some of these sorts of applications come some unique challenges. Since these applications often involve combustion – the fuel for which can take a variety of forms – accurately modeling the heat transfer properties of the resulting gas mixture (known as flue gas) requires extra care.

Studying the performance of refrigerants is of our passions at SRC and we've invested heavily in learning as much as we can about them. Last week, ATMOsphere held their annual natural refrigerants conference in Washington D.C. The conference took place on June 7th and 8th and Super Radiator Coils sent three engineers to learn about the natural refrigerant market, emerging applications, new technologies, and more. Read below to hear what SRC's Ken Allen, Will Klick, and Gail Miller took away from the conference and their thoughts on the future of natural refrigerants. 

 Our Refrigerant Focus series delves into the history, properties, suitable applications, and pros and cons of some of today’s popular or otherwise noteworthy refrigerants. This installment will focus on R-744 (CO2).

Check out some of our refrigerant focus posts below.

• Refrigerant Focus #1: R-32
• Refrigerant Focus #2: R-410A
• Refrigerant Focus #3: R-1234ze
• Refrigerant Focus #4: R-407A
• Refrigerant Focus #5: R-290
• Refrigerant Focus #7: R-448A
• Refrigerant Focus #8: R-454B

History of CO2 as a Refrigerant

Note: the following is a transcript of a podcast. To listen, check out the SRC Podcast here or wherever you get your podcasts. 

Nate Budryk: Hello and welcome to another SRC podcast. Today, we’re talking about one of the poster children of the natural refrigerant push, which is CO2, also known as R744 or carbon dioxide. Today’s conversation will include a brief overview of CO2, some specifics of the refrigerant & CO2 systems, and some industry general best practices. To help us do that today are two CO2 experts: Will Klick, who serves as sales application engineer for SRC, and Wynand Groenewald, a director at Future Green Now, which is a CO2 consultancy based in South Africa. Will and Wynand, how are you doing, guys?

Are you getting the most out of your steam system investment? Steam has been used as a heat transfer medium for centuries. Today, it remains a popular option for commercial heating and a multitude of industrial applications. But, in our experience, the industry’s understanding of steam and steam equipment is inconsistent, and we’re hoping to help make things a little clearer as it relates to the following areas.

Our Refrigerant Focus series delves into the history, properties, suitable applications, and pros and cons of some of today’s popular or otherwise noteworthy refrigerants. This installment will focus on R-290 (propane).

Check out some of our refrigerant focus posts below.

• Refrigerant Focus #1: R-32
• Refrigerant Focus #2: R-410A
• Refrigerant Focus #3: R-1234ze
• Refrigerant Focus #4: R-407A
• Refrigerant Focus #6: CO2
• Refrigerant Focus #7: R-448A
• Refrigerant Focus #8: R-454B

Super Radiator has served the food manufacturing sector for decades. It’s one of our bedrock industries and over the years, we’ve come to learn quite a bit about food production facilities, their environments, and coil designs that work well there.

Note: the following is a transcript of a podcast recorded on November 8, 2021. To listen, check out the SRC Podcast here or wherever you get your podcasts. 

Hello and welcome to another SRC podcast. On today's episode, we'll be talking about a new EPA rule regarding the phasedown of hydrofluorocarbons. We touched on this in our last recording, and since, there has been developments in terms of at that time, it was a proposed rule. It has now progressed to the point where it is a final rule. Since that development, we thought it'd be a good time to revisit this topic. Today, we're going to be talking about exactly what the implementation of that rule will look like, and then we'll also quickly review the contents of the rule.