Demand Defrost Benefits Disrupted By Well-Meaning Humans

by mmathews on 03/12 at 09:30 PM

Seems that interest in demand defrost is rising. FE&S magazine published an article by E Source analyst John Sustar, that suggests our practice of designing new refrigeration systems with demand defrost is good practice. Unfortunately, he also suggests that industry practice sometimes inadvertently the advantage of demand defrost.

Heatcraft, an Imperial strategic alliance, produces two versions of demand defrost, one for new installations (Beacon II) and one for retrofit or replacement installation (Smart Defrost Kit). We use the Beacon II product as often as possible because, as the FE&S article suggests, it pays back the initial cost in a couple of years and lowers costs in following years.

E Source, an energy industry research and advisory group with a 20-year history in addressing energy efficiency issues, looked into the energy usage and financial aspects of demand defrost and discovered that the benefits paid back quickly, indeed, but human intervention sometimes disrupted the effort. It seems that some refrigeration techs disable the demand defrost system if they make a service call to a malfunction report, this action defeats the design and eliminates any future savings.

Service techs should be aware of the proper process for handling service calls on demand defrost units.

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