All right, we are live. We are live at the 2024 Ahr uh expo at the Parker Sportland Booth today I have David and Joe here from Uh Parker Sportland and we're GNA continue a discussion that we were having yesterday talking about Atls. I You know what I'm struggling with guys is that the A2l refrigerants. they don't seem like that big of a deal to me and I'm I'm starting to reflect as as I'm hearing from you guys the new safety regulations and different things that we're doing with them.

There actually is some complexities and some some safety things that we do have to be concerned about. The reason why I'm having a little bit of a hard time relating to everybody. Being concerned about working with A2s is because I work with a lot of A3 refrigerants. I'm already dealing with a lot of safety precautions so at first I was kind of like this isn't a big deal but then it's like oh wait, but these people aren't working with A3s a lot of them yet so it's like oh okay yeah, I got to step back and remember that like I've been dealing with flammable refrigerants, right? And Hls to me again I'm probably being a jerk, but Hls to me are not a big deal because they're only mildly flamor.

It's not like they're gonna go boom and even with an A3, it's not going to go boom unless something catastrophic happens, right? Sure, but with the A2l refrigerants, you guys are having to and kind of covered this a little bit yesterday. but you guys were kind of telling me a little bit about some of the complexities and David kind of give me an idea what it is that you guys are having to consider when it comes to these Hall refrigerants that we're having to deal with. Yeah, uh thanks Chris Yeah and so I think we have to take a step back and understand how we got here and uh, how we got here is uh, the EPA um which is the Environmental Protection Agency of the US government said that? Um, you know we are uh, kind of on a bad course towards uh, global warming and um, the you know the effects that that can cause. And so we have to start restricting a lot of the emissions of different Industries Yeah, and for the Hvacr industry, it's refrigerant-based So the buzzword is Gwp which is global warming potential.

And so what the EPA has started to do is, uh, essentially restrict the Gwp. Um, like Li they've limited the Gwp numbers for refrigerants for different applications. So for refrigeration, Um, you know, the date that we've kind of been um given is 2027 2028. Uh, of when we have to start implementing these low Gwp refrigerants.

And one way to get low Gwp is by um, having the flammability of refrigerants. But okay, so as an outsider looking in, why and I'm not I'm GNA generalize you guys. But why does a valve manufacturer have to worry about regulations when it comes to H refrigerates? So with that the the safety. Um, manfa, compon, manufa, manufa.

So um, the UL is the big safety compliance agency in our industry and uh, they've had to revamp their safety standards. Um, to essentially accommodate the widespread use of flammable refrigerat. Flam concerns about our safety. And this isn't just a regulation that's being pushed out without thinking about, you know, Hazard or anything.

so they're actually concerned about us. Is the reason why we're having to deal with this? Yeah, and I think it's just the the widespread use of it going from A1. You know, practically every home uses an A1 refrigerant today, and in the future, practically every home will be using a flambo refrigerate. so every home does have an A3 in it right now in their domestic refrigerator.

Isane is in every refrigerator manufactured for the last at least what five to 10 years, but the charge is a lot smaller. We are talking 150 g charge and most of them don't even have that because they're tiny little refrigerators, right? So so so how we got here is that UL actually revamped their standards Um, the common ones are UL 60335, D2 D89, and 2-4 Hell do you have that number in your head? Oh, we talk about it almost on a daily basis at Parker Sportland And so actually that that standard has created an opportunity for Sportland Um, with safety shut off valves and I know Joe you talk more about that? Um, but that's how kind of how we got here. Is the -2- 89 standard Kind of created this new opportunity for for these valves? Okay, so safety shut off valve can I I've heard that they have to have, um, some sort of leaked detection system. So yeah, yeah.

so for A2l systems, you need to be able to detect if there is a leak. So especially like an enclosed phas like a walking this is like a leak detector. kind of like a a Carbon monoxide detector or a CO2 Le smoke detector. Anything like that.

It registers a certain uh, uh amount of A2l flamable refrigerant in the location in a closed space. If it reads over that allowable limit, it will activate this valve to close it and basically isolate that portion of the system from the rest of the system which contains the remaining part of the refrigerant. So so what kind of valve are we talking about? Uh, so the one that we're developing. We're developing two different valves.

We're developing more of a solid type valve for the liquid line and then a check valve for the suction line. So basically what would happen is if you have that inside of a room, you have your leak detector inside the room. It senses uh, increased amount due to the leak of the A2l refrigerant. It will signal the solenoid about to close and uh, that will isolate that portion of the room from the rest of the system.

So if you think about a big refrigeration system in the supermarket right, there's pounds and pounds of charge in the rack and all the other cases. So if you have one case where there's leak inside a closed door case or side of a small cold room or something like that where that all want to prevent all that refrigerator from leaking into that enclosed space. So this sounds um I work at what the the actions that are happening and everything I Do a lot of work with duct detectors and Rtu units that when a duct detector senses smoke, we have actions that happen. Yes, uh Fire Systems will.

If we have a fire suppression system that goes off, we're going to turn on exhaust fans in the building. We're going to shut down air sources to the building so it seems like a very similar C that's being taken where we have an action happen that triggers a reaction which is going to be a let's call a liquid line solenoid valve that shuts down and then you're saying that you're going to have a suction check valve which makes sense. So that way they realize that they're going to dump some charge, but they're going to mitigate that. Yeah, right.

And it's all about charge limits. Like you can in a certain size room, There's allowed to be certain amount of refrigerant charge because it won't meet that lower flam ability limit of the refrigerant. so you could have open flame and does spark. doesn't do anything but after it gets a certain concentration inside of room becomes hazardous.

potentially. uh, bad situation. So this is to limit the amount that be escaped into a roof. So these these valves that you guys are developing I mean you guys already have Sol Vals.

What's the difference between one of these H2l compliant Bels? So so there's a lot more lot string more stringent regulations on these Vals: A lot tighter leak, uh, internal leak requirements. Uh, it needs to be able to close in any situation. So even so, our current Vals tend to need like a one. PS Pressure drop need flow in order to close? These do not require that flow.

Um, so and there's a lot more additional Uh testing regulation within the build. and Manufacturing process those. There's a lot higher bar to entry. Is that So okay.

I Mean you know my general understanding is it's just another solenoid valve, but it's not I There's more complexity to it so we're gonna have uh, you know, some sort of a device. Now this leak detection system I'm I would imagine that it's not just going to be installed in the equipment. There's probably going to be regulations like if the equipment's in the mechanical room, it probably has to be installed in the mechanical room, right? Are they Do you know? Are they going to have devices in other rooms or just in rooms where there's potential for a problem like if you have a coil in a room or something like that or in a confined space maybe the the Le you know the the detector's got to be in there I mean so uh I mean usually the leak detector would have to be with with inside that uh, enclosed space mean that's all based on that UL standard that David reference earlier today. So there's tons of rules regulations about certain size room needs certain amount of detectors or they need to be so far apart so especially in the refrigeration side.

It gets very complicated and also on the AC side, you know they might they might be using Shadow valves, but they also might do other mitigation factors kind of what you listed before turn fans on. So every HL system will have mitigation factors in case there's a high concentration of as we're discussing this. and as I listen to everything that David said too like I can't help but think about something. It seems like we have more regulations and more restrictions on the Atls than we do the A3s.

Yes, is that bizarre? Yeah. So yeah, as we're getting our components to be a Uh UL compliant for these A2l, there were some products of ours that we were able to get A3 compliance easier than A2l compliance. They don't care about his Refrigeration guys, but they sure care about the guys that are doing Comfort Cool, No. I'm just kidding.

but I mean that's interesting. That's very so. I'm actually impressed I mean as much as I'm not a huge fan of regulations I am impressed with the fact that they do seem like they're trying to make sure this doesn't you know, end epically B right? So um, you know another thing too. H We have people that watch all around the world and I know that a lot of my viewers that are in European countries and other countries that are outside the United States already have to deal with this kind of stuff.

and it's they probably have same mentality that I have because I'm already working with A3 So like you guys, it's not even that big of a deal. but you have to understand the United States There's some things that we haven't implemented yet. we're implementing it and we're trying to do our best to make sure that we're being safe about it. And the cool thing is that the European countries have already done this.

so we get to look at them as a case study and say hey, how can we improve or they did this great Let's use that method that they followed and I'm sure that their methods are being studied to adopt our standards too. I would imagine yeah I say so yeah. So that's definitely cool. Well that's awesome and you know again, the more I Talk about it.

In the very beginning when everybody started talking about the Atls, I Just didn't understand the hype. but I'm starting to get it I Really am I'm starting to understand that it's really just about safety. And yeah, it may be more components that we add to our typical residential air conditioning system, but it is all about safety. We got to make sure that Mom and Dad's home air conditioner safe Grandma and Grandpa's air conditioner are safe.

You know the technicians that are working on them are safe, right? Exactly. and that's that's cool. Well guys, I Really appreciate talking about this. Is there anything else that you guys want to cover that we didn't cover at this point right now? No, No.

I think we're good. We're gonna wrap this up. Um, this is really cool. Thank you guys very much and uh, thanks for being here.

Thanks for having us! Thanks for having us.