KEEPING YOUR COOLANT

CHRIS O'LEARY

With the cost of coolants headed sky high, plugging refrigerant leaks is emerging as a top priority at many chains.

"No matter if it's a new or an old refrigerant, or if you're converting from one [coolant] to another, the No. 1 thing is to check for leaks," said John Seaberg, vice president of engineering and construction at Shaw's Supermarkets, East Bridgewater, Mass. "And after you do that, No. 2 is to check for leaks."

Steve Jenkins, director of engineering and store development at Harvest Foods, Little Rock, Ark., agreed. "In the past, with refrigerant at 40 cents a pound, people were not as conscientious about stopping the leaks. Today, at $12 a pound, they are. It gets your attention in a hurry," he said.

Retailers are responding to the problem in several ways. Among them:

Intensified Maintenance: Retailers are instructing employees to conduct much more extensive tests, often on a daily basis, to detect any leaks. In addition, more responsibility is being put on installers, with retailers demanding thorough system checks whenever coolant is refueled.

Technology Investment: New leak detection systems that can find

even minute traces of gas are being used to stop leaks before they become a serious financial drain.

Systems Redesign: Some retailers see overhauling the entire cooler system as the only permanent way to stop widescale leaks.

Perhaps the simplest way retailers are trying to stop leakage is by having store employees routinely conduct checks on the store systems, making sure temperature levels are constant and no gas is escaping.

"The best bet is to do preventive maintenance and check the system on a regular basis," said John Mench, vice president of construction and engineering at Big V Supermarkets, Florida, N.Y. "It's not anything new. It's something we've known all our careers. It's just that now the economics are such that we're all forced to be better at it."

Quality Food Centers, Bellevue, Wash., for its part has hired an outside inspection firm to conduct extensive checks on the chain's refrigerant systems every two months.

"We've stepped up the leak detection part of our maintenance. We used to do a leak check every six months, but it wasn't comprehensive enough. The [contractors] weren't focusing on it. Now they are," said Greg Jones, facility manager.

"They check the whole store, including all the racks, all the cases and the rooftop condensers. The contractors now dig into the cases and the walk-in freezers and coolers. They go into the machine rooms and take time to go around and check all the fittings," he said.

One discovery the maintenance crews made at QFC was that many of the hoses connected to pressure switches were leaking extensively. "If each hose leaked 12 ounces of coolant a year, it could add up -- just that alone," Jones said. To fix the situation, QFC replaced the hoses with stainless steel tubing.

Eagle Food Centers, Milan, Ill., now has each store manager visit the compressor room daily and check on coolant levels. "They make a notation of the liquid level gauges and call the contractor if there's a problem," said Duane Chambers, maintenance and equipment manager.

Chambers said the new system has led to several leaks being discovered and repaired. "The store manager check has been a significant factor. There have been times when they came up and said, 'I just noticed Freon blowing in the air,' and we took steps to stop it. It could have been a catastrophe."

Harvest Foods, which gradually is replacing its chlorofluorocarbons with R-22 and 134-A coolants, needs to preserve its remaining CFC gases to proceed with its conversion plans at an economically feasible pace. To help stop leakage, the retailer has turned to the company that installs and refuels the refrigerant.

"We're a lot stricter on our installation process," said Harvest's Jenkins. "We make sure that when new systems are put in, they are tested and that we don't have any leaks right off the bat. We have our own installers, and we're adamant that they check for leaks right from the get-go."

Harvest's contract with its refrigerant supplier calls for the retailer to pay an annual fee for refrigerant, while 75% of the cost of any additional gas used is paid by the supplier, thus motivating the supplier to ensure a low leakage rate. "This contract has helped us in that now our refrigerant supplier checks the entire system out. Before, we would call them on an individual basis and say, 'This unit's running hot' or 'Something's wrong here,' and they would go in and do a service call on one unit and leave," Jenkins said.

"Now if the [repairman] goes into a store, it's to his advantage not to have to go back later and check something else out," he added. "I think they're a lot more conscientious about the overall system." The contract, in its second year, has substantially reduced leakage, Jenkins said. "Our overall costs are lower," he said, compared with previous years. Technological innovations also are being used to stop leakage. Retailers are purchasing leak detection systems that trace even the most minute traces of gas escaping. As coolant prices rise, the initial cost of investing in such systems can be justified by saving in refrigerant costs.

At QFC, where either R-12 or R-502 is used in 40% of its stores, several leak detectors have been installed to help detect any escaping gases.

QFC's leak detector serves as "a fluorocarbon sensor or sniffer," said Jones. Among the places where detectors have been installed are near air ducts and in store compressor rooms.

"The detector will trigger an alarm at very small parts per million. If it sounds, store officials are instructed to call the refrigeration contractor to investigate it. When they do go off, we're finding small leaks that, if it hadn't been for the detector, could have escalated into large ones," Jones said. At Shaw's, leak detectors, along with intensive manual checks, have led to a rapid reduction in average store leakage, Seaberg said.

"The leakage rate has been going down steadily for the last three years. Initially, the average store was losing 25% of its charge annually. If you looked at us chainwide now, we have that down to 15% to 18%, and our goal is to get it to 10%," he said.

Seaberg said key areas retailers should install detection systems are near case connections and expansion valves. He also stressed the importance of proper maintenance. "I think a lot depends on the quality of the installation and the care that's taken," he said. Some retailers also are trying to reduce the possibility of leakage by restructuring their current cooler systems.

Eagle, which has been converting to hydrofluorocarbons during the past two years, still has R-502 in 40 stores. To preserve the remaining CFCs and stop HCFC leakage, the retailer has begun revamping its cooler system. "It's become a top priority for us, basically because it's money going up in the atmosphere," said Chambers.

Eagle is creating "loop systems," which are intended to reduce the amount of tubing through which Freon gases flow. "Loop systems cut down the amount of tubing in the store and the amount of brace joints" that connect the tubes, Chambers said. "We expect that will help us out in the long run." If there are five coolers at one end of a store, retailers have traditionally run out five sets of pipes. With Eagle's system, there will be only one common set of pipes run out to the coolers, where tubes then will be separated for each cooler.