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HVACR316 - Piping

Safety and Overview

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Safety - General

• Air conditioning system installers and technicians are faced with a number of possible hazards on a daily basis. Working with open flames, electricity, and pressurized vessels creates the potential for serious injury and equipment damage.

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Safety – Confined Spaces

• Service technicians work in confined spaces, which increases the chances of sustaining injuries through inhaling fumes and gases from refrigerants, adhesives and acetylene.

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Safety - Behavior

• When working on the job site, you must behave in a safe and professional manner. Running or horseplay in the workplace can result in slipping and falling accidents that might lead to severe personal injury.

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Safety - Clothing

• Never wear clothing that is baggy or loose, as it can get caught in machinery. Wear long-sleeved shirts (and tuck them in) to protect yourself from burns or sharp objects. Never wear shorts when working in the field.

• Tie back long hair or place it inside your shirt to prevent it from getting caught in rotating parts or getting burned while soldering or brazing.

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Safety - Jewelry

• If at all possible, do not wear jewelry while working. Metallic watches, rings, and other jewelry items are good conductors of electricity and can result in electrical shock.

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Safety - Equipment

• Wear safety glasses at all times while on the job, to prevent eye injury or blindness resulting from airborne particles.

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Safety - Equipment

• Wear work boots to protect your feet from falling objects. Rubber-soled work boots made of heavy leather provide ample protection from electric shock and many falling objects.

• When working around heavy equipment, steel-toed work boots often prevent toe or foot injuries should a heavy object fall on them.

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Overview - Piping

• To complete any air conditioning and refrigeration system installation project, a number of system components need to be connected to each other via piping.

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Overview - Piping

• With a split type refrigeration system, the suction and liquid lines need to be run between the condensing unit and the evaporator.

• The system also includes a drain pan, and drain line piping that will remove the ice that has melted when the system goes into defrost. The refrigerant trap is used to facilitate oil return to the compressor.

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Overview – Piping Materials

• Piping materials used when connecting the refrigeration system include:−Soft drawn copper tubing−Hard drawn copper pipe−ACR tubing−Polyvinyl Chloride tubing (PVC)

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Copper Tubing

• Soft drawn copper tubing – Piping material that has the ability to bend into the desired configuration.

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Copper Tubing

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Pipe

• Hard drawn pipe – Piping material that is not intended to be bent.

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ACR

• ACR tubing – Nitrogen charged piping used in air conditioning applications.

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PVC

• Polyvinyl Chloride Pipe (PVC) – Rigid plastic material commonly used for drain lines.