Contractor praises copper-iron pipes as ‘breakthrough’ for transcritical

Contractor Climate Pros, which this month has been installing a transcritical CO₂ system for a Mariano’s supermarket in the Chicago area, is eager to start using copper-iron piping from Mueller Industries for its transcritical installations, said Richard Adkins, vice-president of sales for Climate Pros.

In an interview at Climate Pros’ table at the Food Marketing Institute’s Energy & Store Development Conference, Adkins lauded Mueller’s Streamline XHP copper-iron piping as a “breakthrough” for transcritical systems because it allows installers to avoid using stainless steel piping for connecting the transcritical rack to the gas cooler.

“With stainless steel, you have to ‘TIG weld’ it and you need a certified welder to do that,” he said. “With the new copper-iron, the techs who braze copper in DX systems can braze it and it’ll hold the pressure. That’s a simpler process and it cuts costs and saves labour.”

Climate Pros, based in Glendale Heights, Illinois, did not use the copper-iron pipes in its current installation, but expects to do so in future jobs, Adkins said.

At Mueller’s FMI Energy table, John Hughes, product manager for Mueller subsidiary Mueller Refrigeration, Hartsville, Tennessee, said the XHP copper-iron pipes are “fairly new to the U.S.,” but have long been marketed in Europe as K65 piping.

The XHP pipes, available in either 90 Bar (1,300 psi) or 130 Bar (1,885 psi), are “designed for transcritical pressures,” he said. “There’s a lot of interest.”