Did anyone else notice the news story (Daily Mail 19th August) about the exploding fridge freezer? The fact that this isn't the first instance seems to have gone unnoticed and the story had a non-committal conclusion regarding the cause.
We don't know the cause of this particular incident as yet, but earlier examples of exploding fridges have pointed to the pitting or corroded pipes at joints in the evaporator circuit, which resulted in refrigerant leaking at a slow rate through the insulation and into the fridge itself.
During the day, when the door is frequently opened allowing the leaked flammable hydrocarbons to exit the fridge and be diluted into the kitchen, this isn't really a problem.
But at night, when everyone is sleeping and the door remains firmly shut, this leaked highly flammable gas can build up in the fridge cabinet. As the cooling load reduces, so the thermostat switches off creating a spark and....kaboom!
An open front, dairy deck style fridge freezer is left in the corner of your kitchen.
Now I'm not suggesting that every domestic fridge freezer is in imminent danger of exploding but it does highlight a real issue with using hydrocarbon refrigerants. Let's not forget that certain people in our industry, and many green lobbyists with no specialist knowledge of our industry, are actively lobbying government to rapidly phase out HFCs completely. They are telling civil servants that it is perfectly safe to use hydrocarbons in split system air conditioners.
Can you imagine the potential if these were used widely and suffered a similar leakage issue? Picture an office with a split system that has been slowly leaking away while the normal occupant has been away over the weekend. The amount of refrigerant involved could easily build up above the explosive limit threshold. When the unlucky office worker arrives on Monday morning, full of the joys of another working week ahead of them, they open the door, the automatic occupancy sensor switches on and....kaboom! Only this time the potential for large-scale damage is far more serious.
As yet we don't know the cause of this most recent incident but if hydrocarbons are found to be the cause, let us hope that those politicians and civil servants looking to legislate against HFCs will pay heed before there are deaths to contend with.