INTRO
0:00-0:30
ON-SCREEN: C14-recovery-vacuum-table.svg, full frame
This is the table that decides whether you pass Type II. Twenty-five questions per section, eighteen to pass, and on a typical Type II section several questions come straight off this chart, plus the traps built around it. In ten minutes you will build the table from logic instead of memorizing it cold, lock in the Type I percentages, and then work the six hardest question patterns in the pool, out loud, the way you will work them in the exam room.
MAIN
[0:30-2:00] Build the table: the two thresholds
ON-SCREEN: blank grid, then the column headers animate in: BEFORE Nov 15 1993, AFTER Nov 15 1993
Every cell in this table is picked by three questions. Question one: what refrigerant class? Question two: is the normal charge under 200 pounds, or 200 and over? Question three: was the recovery machine built before or after November 15, 1993?
Why that date? After November 15, 1993, recovery equipment had to be certified to ARI 740 and carry low-loss fittings. Certified machines pull deeper, so the law demands deeper. Old machines get the shallow column. On the exam, any year in the question is doing work. "A recovery device manufactured in 1989" is not flavor text; it is the answer key pointing left.
Why 200 pounds? Because leaving 5 percent behind in a 10 pound system is ounces, and leaving it in a 500 pound rack is real tonnage of refrigerant. Bigger charge, deeper pull.
[2:00-4:00] Build the table: row by row
ON-SCREEN: C14-recovery-vacuum-table.svg, each row highlighted as narrated
Row one. R-22, under 200 pounds: zero inches of mercury, both columns. Atmospheric. The easiest row, and it belongs to R-22 alone.
Row two. R-22, 200 pounds or more: 4 inches with an old machine, 10 with a modern one.
Row three. Other high-pressure refrigerants under 200 pounds, and the regulation names R-12, R-500, R-502, R-114: 4 old, 10 modern. Notice the rhyme: a small CFC appliance has the same requirement as a big R-22 appliance. The CFCs are the heavier ozone destroyers, so they got stricter numbers. And here is the modern punchline: R-410A and R-404A are non-exempt substitutes, not R-22, so they live on these "other high-pressure" rows. Your everyday residential R-410A split is a 10 inch recovery with your modern machine.
Row four. Other high-pressure, 200 pounds or more: 4 old, 15 modern. Deepest high-pressure cell on the chart.
Row five. Very high pressure, R-13 and R-503: zero, both columns. These boil so hard at room temperature that atmospheric is the requirement.
Row six. Low pressure, R-11, R-113, R-123: 25 inches of mercury with an old machine. With a modern machine, 25 millimeters of mercury ABSOLUTE. Different scale. Absolute is measured up from a perfect vacuum, so 25 mm Hg absolute is nearly a total evacuation, roughly 29 inches on your gauge. The numbers 25 and 25 are a coincidence the test writers exploit every single year.
ON-SCREEN: text overlay: Same digits. Different scales. in Hg = down from atmosphere. mm Hg absolute = up from perfect vacuum.
[4:00-5:00] The exceptions: leaky appliances and non-major repairs
ON-SCREEN: leaky system graphic: vacuum arrow reversing, air entering through a leak
Vacuum pulls both ways. If the appliance leaks, the vacuum you are pulling drags outside air and moisture in through the hole. So the regulation allows exactly one early stop: when evacuation would draw air into a leaking appliance, stop at 0 psig. Zero. Not one or two psi positive for comfort. There is no above-atmospheric stopping point anywhere in the rule, and the exam offers one as a choice because half the field believes in it.
Second relief: opening for a non-major repair that will not be followed by deep evacuation also allows 0 psig. Major repair has a fixed definition: removing the compressor, condenser, evaporator, or auxiliary heat exchanger coil. Swapping a pressure switch is non-major. Swapping the compressor is major, full table applies.
[5:00-6:00] Type I percentages, locked in
ON-SCREEN: C14-system-dependent-vs-self-contained.svg, then the 90/80/4 overlay
Small appliance: factory sealed, 5 pounds or less. Recovery is percentage based. Modern certified machine: 90 percent if the compressor runs, 80 if it is dead, or 4 inches of mercury. Pre-1993 machine: 80 percent, or the same 4 inches. The logic: a running compressor helps push refrigerant out of the oil, so the bar is higher. Dead compressor, pierce high AND low side, because nothing inside is moving the charge to you.
And the threshold ladder, say it with me: 5 pounds defines a small appliance. 15 pounds is the ceiling for system-dependent, passive recovery equipment. 50 pounds triggers leak repair rules. 200 pounds deepens the vacuum. Four numbers, four different jobs, and the exam shuffles them like a card trick.
[6:00-9:30] The six hardest question patterns, worked aloud
ON-SCREEN: each question appears styled like the exam, answer revealed after the reasoning
Question pattern one. "A recovery unit manufactured in 2005 is used to evacuate an appliance that normally contains 250 pounds of R-404A. Required level?" Work it: R-404A, high pressure, not R-22. 250 is 200 or more. Machine is modern. Other high-pressure, big, modern: 15 inches of mercury. Lock it.
Pattern two. "A recovery device built in 1990 recovers from a 300 pound R-12 system. Required level?" The year is the trap disarmed: old machine, left column. Other high-pressure, 200 or more, old machine: 4 inches. Anyone who ignores the date answers 15 and donates the point.
Pattern three. "An appliance containing R-123 must be evacuated to what level using equipment manufactured after November 15, 1993?" R-123, low pressure. Modern machine: 25 millimeters of mercury absolute. The wrong answer sitting next to it will say 25 inches of mercury. Read the units before the digits.
Pattern four. "Technicians may stop recovery when system pressure has been reduced to 1 to 2 psig if the appliance has a leak. True or false?" False. The leaky appliance exception stops at 0 psig, not above it. If the choice says anything above zero, it is wrong.
Pattern five. "A household refrigerator with an inoperative compressor is recovered using certified equipment built after November 15, 1993. What must be achieved?" Small appliance, dead compressor, modern machine: 80 percent of the charge, or 4 inches of mercury. The 90 percent answer is there for people who forgot the compressor died.
Pattern six. "A comfort cooling chiller with a 100 pound charge of R-22 has leaked 12 percent in the past 12 months. What is required?" Fifty pounds or more, ODS refrigerant, comfort cooling threshold is 10 percent, current rule. Twelve exceeds ten: repair within 30 days, initial verification test before recharge, follow-up verification at normal operating conditions, or a retrofit/retire plan within 30 days completed within 1 year. If an old practice test says 15 percent is the threshold, that is the pre-2019 legacy number. Current is 30 IPR, 20 commercial, 10 comfort cooling.
[9:30-10:00] Type III in sixty seconds
ON-SCREEN: C14-type3-overview.svg
Low-pressure chillers run in a vacuum, so leaks pull air IN, the purge unit throws the air out, and a purge unit running constantly means there is a leak. The vessels are vacuum-rated, so the rupture disk relieves at 15 psig and leak testing never exceeds 10. Recovery is the deep row you already know. Charge vapor first so the boiling refrigerant cannot freeze the water in the tubes. That logic plus the practice bank clears the Type III section, and Universal is the card Island Breeze expects you to carry.
OUTRO
10:00-10:30
ON-SCREEN: C14-recovery-vacuum-table.svg one final time, then quiz call-to-action card
Draw the table from memory tomorrow morning, blank paper, both columns, all six rows. If you can do that twice on two different days, the Type II section cannot touch you. Take the C14 quiz, miss nothing on the table questions, and move on to C15 where the legal minimums end and the Island Breeze standard begins.