Type I - Small Appliances
What Type I covers
Type I applies to small appliances: equipment that is fully manufactured, charged, and hermetically sealed in a factory with five pounds or less of refrigerant. Household refrigerators and freezers, window and PTAC air conditioners, dehumidifiers, under-counter ice machines, water coolers, and vending machines are the classic examples. The five-pound figure is the factory nameplate charge, not a gauge reading taken today. Motor-vehicle air conditioners are excluded (that is Section 609), and any appliance holding more than five pounds falls to Type II or Type III.
Numbers to know
- Recovery efficiency: 90% of the charge when the compressor is operating, 80% when it is not, using equipment certified to AHRI 740.
- System-dependent (passive) recovery devices are permitted only on small appliances, and only while the appliance compressor is running. If the compressor is dead, use a self-contained recovery machine.
- Never fill a recovery cylinder past 80% of its capacity by weight. Use a scale every time.
Traps the exam sets
- Micron answers. Deep-vacuum evacuation targets are not the Type I rule; small appliances are governed by recovery efficiency, so do not pick 500 microns on a Type I question.
- It is only five pounds, so I can vent it. Venting is prohibited; refrigerant must be recovered even from a scrap refrigerator.
- Scope creep. Type I does not authorize work on a rooftop unit or a chiller.
- Refrigerant mixing. Never blend two refrigerants into one recovery cylinder.
Rule of thumb: five pounds or less and factory-sealed means Type I; if the question asks for a percentage, remember 80 off, 90 running.