609 Liscense ?

[dosh8er]

I heard a lot about being able to get this over the web? IS this true? Where should I go to read or get this liscense? What's the skinny? Anyone who has a liscense, how?

[Lester Lugnut]

There are numerous places to obtain a 609 certification. One of the better known sites is:

http://www.macsw.org

Mobile Air Conditioning Society.

There are a few things you should know before bothering to obtain one:

- A 609 certification by itself in many cases is not enough to secure purchase of fluorocarbon based refrigerants such as R-12, Freeze-12, and other R-12 wanna-bees. Some areas of the country to include Wisconsin, southern California and Austin, Tx. require certification beyond 609. These are but a few. There are more. In these places, you generally need to actually be employed in the auto service industry and have credentials to prove it.

- If you decide to pursue obtaining a 609, go to a local auto parts store and ask to look at the manual they keep that shows the valid certifications they accept. The various providers of 609 certificates will provide you with a wallet sized card. Each card has a unqique design, etc. The parts counter guy will sometimes take your card and open the aforementioned manual to see if it's been provided by a know certifier. This is why I went with the MACS certificate. They are well know.

- You will receive a booklet(self-study) in the mail. You take a 25 question test and send it back in. You must answer 21 of 25 correctly. Interestingly enough, when I took the test, 4 of the questions were tricky and required a more thorough search of the 53 page booklet. If you pass, they'll send you a paper certificate and the wallet sized card.

[Lester Lugnut]

Correction....

Chlorofluorocarbons....left out the CHLORO as is CHLORINE. This is what the EPA is up in arms about. They claim it ascends to the upper levels of the atmosphere and depletes the ozone layer, thereby allowing more damaging rays in from the sun and contributing to global warming.

A group of German scientists did their own study on this and claimed the EPAs charge was pure bunk. Would the gov't lie to us? Of course not.

By the way, this test has absolutely nothing to do with A/C tech skills. You can pass this test without knowing a receiver-dryer from a snow cone, which to me, gives it no validity whatsoever.

[DBMaster]

Good point, Lester. I have heard rumors to the effect that manufacturers of R12 were perpetuating the ozone depletion story so they could artifically boost sales of R134a, which still has the patent in effect.

I obtained my certification from an organization called IMACA about 8 years ago. I watched a video and took a test at a local community college. I knew the HVAC instructor who let me pay the $15 and take the test without enrolling at the school.

I have never had a problem using it to purchase R12 or R22 (for home A/C) at auto parts places. Why they sell R22 at auto parts stores I don't know.

At $30 a can I am not about to put it into a leaky system, but it is still readily available. Manufacturers worldwide stockpiled the stuff like crazy as they were given several years notice of the impending ban in the U.S. After the stockpile of new R12 runs out there will still be recycled product out there. If you consider that fewer and fewer vehicles on the road use R12 (Thanks in part to those of you retrofitting to 134a) the existing supplies will most likely outlast all of our cars!

If I were retrofitting, I would switch to barrier hoses, purchase a cross flow condenser with larger surface area, and replace the expansion valve. That's just me because I don't even think my air is cold enough at 45 degrees as it is. My old Pontiac would put out air as cold as 31 degrees with its old A-6 Delco compressor. It also did not cycle the clutch in and out as cars started doing in the 80's so the compressor was still functional on it when I sold the car (18 years old).

I guess comfort just costs money.

[Bobs89LXi]

The ozone depletion theory is just that........A THEORY, and one full of BS at that. There are three main producers of ozone on this planet, one of which is man-made. The man made source is the burning of fossil fuels along with the generation and use of electricity. As anyone in smog-prone areas, such as the Los Angeles Basin can tell you, one of the published sources of pollution is OZONE. Yes, that's right, we humans are producing the stuff with our cars and by using our appliances. The other two natural sources are thunderstorms and the sun itself. Have you folks in the midwest and other areas that produce severe thunderstorms ever wonder what gives the most intense ones their green hue, and that "electrical" smell? You guessed it, the culprit is OZONE, produced when the electrical charges in lightning rip the two atoms of O2 apart producing 2 O1 (ozone) atoms. The sun does the same thing in the upper atmosphere during times of maximum sunspot activity. During this time, massive solar flares send out charged particles, which the solar wind carries to the earth. These particales are captured by the earth's magnetic fields and are funneled toward the poles. This is why you get the Northern Lights, and their counterpart in the south. These particles do the same thing to O2 in the upper atmosphere as the lightning charges do on the surface. It produces OZONE. The times that these ozone "holes" have shown up on the poles, more prominently over Antarctica, was during times of minimal sunspot activity. Whether you believe in a God or not, isn't it a strange coincidence that at the time there is the most ozone in the upper levels of the atmoshpere is when it's protective properties are needed the most, when solar radiation is at it's highest.

Now, another bit of information that I find quite curious. Why wouldn't this hole be over the north pole instead of the south if our refrigerants are the cause? Think about this: In which hemisphere are most of the industrialized nations, such as the Unites States, who use CFCs the most, located, hmmmm? The upper air currents would take more of them up north than they would to the south. It makes sense, since the north pole is CLOSER. It is pure arrogance on man's part to think that he is powerful enough to destroy the ozone layer or to raise the level of CO2 on this entire planet significantly enough to have any effect. It is the same logic the serpent used with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. "God knows that if you eat the fruit of this tree, you will be like him." Man has been thinking that way ever since.

[87DXHatch]

Originally posted by Bobs89LXi
...producing 2 O1 (ozone) atoms....

Whoa, back the train up a second here. Ozone is O3 not 01, which is otherwise know as monoxide (1 = mono). I do know what you're talking about when you say "...that electricty smell..." , though, because my science teacher whipped out a tesla coil and zapped the sink, letting us sniff the ozone and pass out in ecstasy.:)

Peace

[DBMaster]

I don't disagree with you Bob. In another thread I posted that if we could figure out a way to get the ozone from smog off the ground (where it is definitely NOT good) into the upper atmosphere we'd have it made.

The theory about chloroflourocarbons (CFC's) is that they are so stable that they do not break down from solar radiation until reaching the upper atmosphere where the chlorine combines with the oxygen in the ozone layer.

What you are saying about the ozone "hole" shrinking and expanding I have heard before, too. Seems to lend more credence to the theory that the R12 (and other CFC's) stigmatization was based more upon commercial interests than environmental. Some of you older guys may remember the big deal made about taking CFC's out of aerosol cans and styrofoam about 20 years ago.

This topic could take on a whole board of its own!