The Refrigerant Compliance Glossary

The event of an appliance’s calculated leak rate crossing its regulatory threshold. It starts every downstream clock — repair, verification, follow-up verification, and, if repair fails, a retrofit or retirement plan.

A leak-rate calculation that sums all refrigerant added over the prior 365 days — or since the last successful follow-up verification test — and divides by full charge. It is the method most equipment owners choose.

A leak-rate calculation that projects a single refrigerant addition across a full year, dividing the amount added by full charge and scaling by the days elapsed since the previous addition, capped at 365. It answers “if this loss rate continued for a year, how much would we lose?”

The leak-rate percentage that triggers mandatory repair, set by regulatory class: 10% for comfort cooling and most other equipment, 20% for commercial refrigeration, and 30% for industrial process refrigeration under federal rules. Washington uses stricter figures of 8%, 16%, and 24%.

The percentage of an appliance’s full charge lost over a year, calculated from the refrigerant added to it. EPA permits two methods — annualizing and rolling average — and requires the same method for every appliance at a facility.

The refrigerant quantity printed on the equipment data plate by the manufacturer. It is a common starting point for establishing full charge but is not automatically the same number.

The amount of refrigerant an appliance holds when it is operating normally with all components at their designed capacity. EPA accepts four ways to establish it: the manufacturer’s determination, calculation from component and piping volumes, actual measurement of refrigerant added and evacuated, or a documented range using its midpoint.