Refrigerant Detectors

According to the manufacturer's regulations, the detector must be checked annually, and recalibration may also be required. If the heat pump contains a sufficient amount of refrigerant from the F-gas group, there is a legal obligation to check for leaks. The inspection is carried out by a technician certified for F-gases, who is responsible for the mandatory leak check regime.

Managing refrigerants in grocery stores is important from an ecological, legal, and financial perspective. In an average grocery store, there is a leakage of approximately 25% of refrigerant annually. For a single store, the loss of R-404A refrigerant (a commonly used refrigerant) can mean significant annual costs. By multiplying the cost of the leaked refrigerant by the number of stores in the chain, we obtain a substantial amount, to which must be added inefficiently incurred labor costs and costs due to operational interruptions.

A hermetically sealed (monoblock) heat pump must be checked for leaks every year if it contains at least 10 tons of CO₂ equivalent. This rarely occurs with domestic heat pumps – it would require, for example, 4.8 kg of R410A refrigerant. A monoblock heat pump containing less refrigerant does not require a leak check, but any refrigerant leak could cost households several thousand. The cost of acquiring a detector is thus recouped with the first refrigerant leak. A non-hermetically sealed (split) heat pump must be checked for leaks every year if it contains at least 5 tons of CO₂ equivalent. This applies, for example, to a split heat pump containing at least 2.4 kg of R410A refrigerant. A split heat pump containing less refrigerant does not require a leak check.