An interesting read on something I was not aware of...
Thought I would post this as we have a lot of guys on
the forums doing fabrication -

http://www.brewracingframes.com/id75.htm

good to know, but what kind of moron goes through all that and doesn't go to the hospital?!?

The minute I read about the dangers and my "whole left side started shaking" I would have been on the phone to 911.

Wow!

Refrigerant (R-22) does the exact same thing. You can inhale R-22 as much as you can endure, and you woudn't experience any adverse effects (other than getting cancer in 10-20 years).
However, if you take R-22 and present a flame to it, it does react and converts to a phosgene gas. When I braze in new compressors or do any refrigerant work, I often get a wiff of this phosgene gas from lingering refrigerant vapors. The smell is enough to put you on your back, but nothing like that guy in the article experienced. I think this guy has some underline existing problems before the incident, or he inhaled more than he claimed. Phosgene gas is a very distintive smell, that no-one will ever forget, once you have it stored in your memory banks. They used to use this as a weapon back in WWI. This article was designed to put the fear of god in people using brake cleaner. Brake cleaner is safe to use, as long as you use a common sense approach.

Click to view attachment

That would be the Common Moron Brett. You would do well to learn to recognize them on sight as they are becoming more common by the day.

R-135 is even worse, A known carcinogenic, directly attacks the ozone, and spontaneously can combust. Wes

Since we are on this subject, there is a much greater threat to all of us. Every home that has a central AC installed, has a copper line set that connects the indoor evaporator coil to the outside condenser unit. This line set has 2 copper pipes, usually 3/8" and 3/4" in diameter. Many installers all over the country uses soft solder (lead) to sweat these connections. This is against code for many reasons, but primarily lead has a low melting point (around 350F). These connections should be brazed with silver brazing alloy, which has a much higher melting point. However, the costs involved with brazing usually deters the fly by night company's from using this technique.
There was a home fire, a couple years back, that started in the mechanical room. The family was sound asleep and was unaware that the furnace had a delayed ingition, which started a small fire. The heat of the flame melted the lead and unsweated the joint on the line set. This in turn caused the pipe to pop out of its joint, this is due to the refrigerant always being under pressure, typically around 100psi on a off cycle. As this connection failed, due to the presense of the flame, 8 pounds of refrigerant (R-22) leached out in a furry in this mechanical room. The burst of refrigerant did happen to extinguish all the flames, and the fire went out. However, the R-22 wasn't R-22 anymore, it was converted to a phosgene gas. Later the next day, the police found everyone dead laying in their beds from this mustard gas (phosgene) poisoning.
7 out of 10 houses I service has soft solder joints. This was not a isolated case, as this happens all of the time. Typically, you would find 4 joints in a typical AC installation job. 2 joints inside, and 2 joints outside. You can easily spot soft solder joints, by looking at the shiny metallic joint. Brazing, usually leaves a much darker, harder look to the joint.
Soft solder is meant to be used when sweating copper water plumbing pipes together, not refrigerant lines. Water pipes run around 60 psi, and lead has no problem sealing against this pressure. Refrigerant lines can get as high as 350psi, and the soft solder over time, can't hold this. You start to see oil residue leaching thru the joint. This is another reason to why it is not code to soft solder refrigerant lines. I would recommend spending 5 minutes of your time, and check to see if your have soft soldered joints. If you do find them, get it fixed now. Your just playing Russian roulette otherwise. Plus, after you fix these joints, you can experience an AC unit that doesn't leak anymore! R-22 is starting to get expensive.

Click to view attachment
left pic is soft soldered
right pic is brazed

Never heard of R-135, did you mean to say R-134? All refrigerants are known carcinogens, with the exception of ammonia. Also, most refrigerants we use in America are incombustible and nonflammable. Some odd countries had used hydrcarbons such as ethane,or propane mixed compositions for refrigeration, but it's not allowed in our neck of the woods.

That is one reason why I use non-chlorinated brake cleaner.

The Phosgene gas conversion and zinc fumes from zinc plating/coating was some of the stuff covered in my community college welding class a number of years ago.

Richard

The exact same thing happened to me one time.
We kept smelling what smelled like chlorine while welding after installing a new bottle of Argon.

So we assumed that the tank was contaminated.
We went back to the welding store, told the whole story and they gave us a new tank.
As we were walking out the old fart got back from lunch, and the guy that helped us said "Hey joe, you ever heard of smelling chlorine while welding?", He said " Well only if you are welding around trichloroethane.... makes Phosgene Gas!".

Well we HAD been using 'trike' right near where we were welding.
We didnt get nearly as sick as the guy in the story, but i have always wondered how many years that took off my life.

Stu