R22 replacement - plan to fail or fail to plan

I have been slightly surprised in the last few months of speaking to Facility Managers and Building or Estate Managers. Whilst its fair to say some have embraced the R22 legislation (and I am making the assumption you know what this is, if you don't please check out our website, which will explain) and have planned the removal of R22 and sometimes replacement equipment, many have not.

I have watched the price of recycled R22 skyrocket as the phase out began and virgin R22 was banned from introduction into air conditioning systems. Wholesalers and re-sellers clearly seeing an opportunity and who can blame them?

I imagine the projected expense and associated dent in the FM budget has made people reticent about committing to how they are going to tackle the issue. The problem is, it won't go away and the clock is ticking. Right now there is a case study on our website that covers how to deal with large scale replacement without impacting business as usual and without having to rip out all the exisiting pipework. So it can be done and without costing the earth, in any sense of the expression.

I wonder how many FMs, BMs and EMs will take this opportunity to find clever ways of saving money and energy. Making the most of legislation change by grasping the opportunity for improvement makes it feel less of a cost and more of an investment.
Air con is such a hot topic, for want of a better phrase. Few things apart from air travel, have come in for such critisism when it comes to green credentials. Data centres in particular are coming under a lot of pressure to green up, improve or even innovate new design solutions, as the world grows its online life via a dazzling array of devices and data storage becomes a commodity.However, the data centre community is in constant conversation about energy management, CO2 reduction, efficient cooling systems and generally working smarter when it comes to energy, cooling and green issues. It is the offices, shops, banks and other places that need to plan for the ban.


I am looking forward to asking some of these questions to Facilities professionals at the Facilities Show at the NEC in May.
In the meantime, if you have anything you want to ask on this or related topics please contact me at Holborn Group.Or you can post a comment here, find me on Twitter or Linkedin.
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