Repairs Won't Fix It? The Retrofit-or-Retirement Plan § 84.106(h) Requires — 30 Days to Write, One Year to Finish

Last week we covered the repair-deadline extension — the EPA filing that buys you time when a repair you can make is stuck behind a backordered part. We ended it with a fork: an extension is for a repair you can make but can't make in time. It does nothing for a leak you can't make stop.

This is the other side of that fork.

Sometimes the part isn't the problem — the system is. The coil's been patched twice, the verification test held for six weeks and then the unit started losing charge again, and your honest read is that no repair is going to bring this appliance back under threshold and keep it there. That's not an extension situation. Under Subpart C, the moment you and the building owner decide you're going to retrofit or retire the appliance instead of repairing it, a different obligation switches on — a written retrofit-or-retirement plan — signed, dated, and kept at the appliance for EPA inspection — with two hard deadlines of its own.

And here's the part that catches people: the deadline to write that plan is the same 30-day window you've been counting against the repair. The clock doesn't reset because you switched strategies — it resets only if you completed the repairs and the verification tests and the appliance still leaks over the rate.

Two Doors Out of an Exceedance, Not One

Start with the rule that frames everything. When refrigerant is added to a covered appliance and the calculated leak rate comes back over the applicable threshold — 10% comfort cooling, 20% commercial refrigeration, 30% industrial process — § 84.106 gives the owner or operator two ways to comply, not one.

Read that as a fork in the road, because that's what it is. Door one is repair — diagnose it, fix it, run verification tests, document, done. Door two is retrofit or retire — convert the appliance to a different refrigerant, or take it out of service entirely. The repair door lives in paragraphs (d) through (f). The retrofit/retire door lives in (h) and (i). They are different obligations with different paperwork.

The repair-or-retrofit-or-retire decision framework post walks the economics of which door to pick — the five-year math, the R-410A vs. R-454B numbers, the Section 179 tax angle for the building owner. This post is about what door two requires of you on paper once the decision is made. The decision is a business call. The plan is a federal record with federal deadlines.

The 30-Day Clock Doesn't Reset — Except in One Case

This is the single most misunderstood thing about the retrofit/retirement path, so it goes first.

The instinct is to read it as a sequence: you get 30 days to try the repair, the repair fails, then a fresh 30-day clock starts to write the plan. That is true in only one situation — when you actually finished the repairs and the verification tests and the appliance is still over the rate. Paragraph (h)(1) names three triggers, and the 30 days run from whichever one you hit:

• (h)(1)(i) — you choose retrofit or retire instead of repair. The 30 days run from the appliance exceeding the applicable leak rate — the same clock that was running against the repair.
• (h)(1)(ii) — you take no action to identify or repair the leaks. Same clock. Doing nothing does not buy time.
• (h)(1)(iii) — you did the required repairs and verification tests under paragraphs (d) and (e), and the appliance still leaks above the rate. Paragraph (c)(1) says the same thing from the other direction: if you elect to repair but fail to bring the leak rate below the applicable leak rate, you must create and implement a plan. Here the 30 days run from that post-repair exceedance, not from the original one.

So for the contractor who concludes on day two that the unit isn't worth chasing, or whose customer never authorizes the repair, there is one 30-day window with two exits: repair the unit, or have a signed retrofit/retirement plan in hand. What you cannot do is stop repairing partway through — without the verification tests — and claim a second month. The second clock exists only for the owner who did the work, tested it, and still could not get the appliance under the rate.

Unless you finished the repairs and the verification tests, the clock to write the retrofit-or-retirement plan is the same 30-day clock you've been running against the repair. Decide early — because the day you conclude the unit can't be fixed, you may have far less than 30 days left to get the plan signed.

Practically, that means the retrofit/retire call is an early call. The shops that handle this cleanly don't wait for a failed repair to prove the system is done. The moment a chronic system's history says "this one isn't coming back," they start the plan in parallel — so the signed document exists well inside the window, not in a panic on day 29.

What the Plan Has to Contain

A plan isn't a sentence on the work order that says "we're replacing it." Paragraph (h)(2) says the plan must, at a minimum, contain seven things — and paragraph (h)(3) says where it lives: signed by an authorized company official, dated, kept at the site of the appliance in paper or electronic form, and available for EPA inspection on request. It is not mailed to the EPA. Paragraph (l)(8) makes it one of the records you keep for at least three years.

The plan must include:

1. Identification and location of the appliance
2. Type and full charge of the refrigerant the appliance uses now
3. Type and full charge of the new refrigerant, if retrofitting
4. An itemized conversion procedure, including the changes required for compatibility with the new refrigerant (lubricants, gaskets, filters, driers, valves, o-rings, components), if retrofitting
5. A plan for the disposition of the recovered refrigerant
6. A plan for the disposition of the appliance, if retiring
7. A schedule, not to exceed one year, for completing the retrofit or retirement

Two things on that list trip people up. First, the signature belongs to an authorized company official — for a building's HVAC system, that's the owner or operator of the appliance, the regulated party, not the contractor. Your job is to draft the technical sections; the signature belongs to the customer. Second, paragraph (h)(4): all identified leaks must be repaired as part of any retrofit. "Retrofit" is not a license to leave a leaking component leaking — it means changing the refrigerant the appliance runs on, with the leaks fixed in the process. Retiring the unit is the only path that ends the repair obligation, because the appliance leaves service.

The one optional submission: asking the EPA to drop the retrofit-or-retire obligation

One submission on this path does go to the EPA — and only if you want it to. Under § 84.106(h)(5)(ii), if within 180 days of the plan's date the owner or operator can establish that the appliance no longer exceeds the applicable leak rate, and agrees in writing to repair all identified leaks within one year of the plan's date, they may ask the EPA to relieve them of the obligation to retrofit or retire. That request is submitted electronically on the EPA's reporting platform (paragraph (m)(2)) and must include the plan itself plus:

1. The date the requirement to develop the plan was triggered
2. The leak rate
3. The method used to determine the leak rate and the full charge
4. The location of the leak(s) identified in the leak inspection
5. A description of the repairs that have been completed
6. A description of the repairs that have not been completed
7. A description of why repairs were not conducted within the paragraph (d) and (f) time frames
8. A statement signed by an authorized company official that all identified leaks will be repaired, with an estimate of when — not to exceed one year from the plan date

It's considered approved unless the EPA notifies you within 60 days of receipt that it isn't. Keep a copy of the submission and any EPA response (paragraph (l)(13)).

The One-Year Clock Starts the Day You Sign

The second deadline is the completion deadline, and it's a hard ceiling, not a target.

That one year is generous compared to the 30-day repair clock — which is the point. The EPA gives you room to do a capital project right: spec the equipment, get the building owner's budget approval, order the unit, schedule the crane, pull permits. But the clock runs from the plan date, not from when the customer finally cuts the check. If the building owner stalls for ten months on approving the replacement, you've got two months left to complete a job that takes longer than that to source. The plan date is the start gun.

One mercy in the rule: if the appliance is mothballed — taken out of operation with the refrigerant evacuated — the retrofit/retirement timeframes are suspended. They resume when refrigerant is added back to the appliance. Mothballing is a legitimate pause, not a loophole; it means the system genuinely isn't running and isn't leaking. Don't reach for it to dodge a deadline on a unit that's still cooling the building.

The Extension That Lives Inside the One Year (and Who Actually Gets It)

Here's a distinction that matters, because it's easy to assume the one-year clock has the same flexible extension the 30-day repair clock has. For most contractors, it doesn't.

The additional-time provision in paragraph (i) is limited to industrial process refrigeration appliances. If you service rooftop units, walk-in coolers, and small commercial comfort cooling — the bread and butter of most small HVAC shops — this provision is not for you. Your one year is your one year.

For the IPR appliances that do qualify, the grounds are narrow:

• Regulatory conflict — another federal, state, local, or Tribal regulation makes retrofit or retirement within one year genuinely impossible. Additional time is allowed only to the extent needed to comply with that other regulation.
• Custom-built equipment — the new or retrofitted equipment is custom-built (as defined in the subpart) and the supplier has quoted a delivery time of more than 30 weeks from when the order is placed. The equipment then has to be installed within 120 days of receiving the parts.
• Radiological contamination — the equipment sits in an area subject to radiological contamination and making it safe to work in will take more than 30 weeks.
• A second request after a custom-build extension — an owner who received the custom-built-equipment extension may ask for more time again if necessary to finish; that follow-on request must be submitted before the end of the ninth month of the initial extension, with the same information as the first request plus any revisions ((i)(1)(iv)).

And the timing on the request is unforgiving in a familiar way: it goes to the EPA electronically, on the Agency's reporting platform, within seven months of discovering the appliance exceeded the applicable leak rate — measured from the discovery of the exceedance, not from the plan date, so it lands roughly six to seven months into the one-year period, not nine. It's considered approved unless the EPA notifies the owner within 60 days of receipt that it isn't, and a dated copy of the request has to stay on site. If the estimated completion date later slips, the new date and the reason for the change go to the EPA within 30 days. Wait until month eight and there's no mechanism to extend — same trap as the repair extension, where the request is due inside the very window it's trying to stretch. The only later deadline in the paragraph is the follow-on request above, due before the end of the ninth month of the initial extension.

For the comfort-cooling and commercial-refrigeration systems most readers service: plan around one year, full stop.

Don't Confuse This With the March 1 Chronic-Leaker Report

A quick but important point of order, because the paragraph letters are close enough to cause real mistakes.

The retrofit-or-retirement plan lives in § 84.106(h) and (i). It is a forward-looking document — "here's how and when we'll fix this appliance for good." It has nothing to do with the chronic-leaker report, which is a separate, backward-looking annual filing in a different paragraph entirely: appliances that leak 125% or more of their full charge in a calendar year get reported to the EPA by March 1 of the following year.

You can owe both. A chronic system that you've decided to replace can be over 125% for the calendar year (triggering the March 1 report) and under a signed retrofit/retirement plan (triggering the one-year completion clock) at the same time. They're independent obligations with independent deadlines. Don't let one stand in for the other.

The Operational Habit That Makes This Routine

Like the extension, none of this is hard once it's built into your process. The shops that handle the retrofit/retire path cleanly do four things:

They decide door one vs. door two early. A chronic system's service history usually tells you by the second or third event whether repair is realistic. Make the call while there's runway left in the 30-day window — not on day 28.

They reuse the numbers they already have. Identification, location, refrigerant type and full charge — the plan's first two elements — are already in your per-appliance records. So are the leak rate, calculation method, exceedance date, leak locations and repair history you'd need if you ever file the (h)(5)(ii) relief request or an IPR extension. What's new in the plan is the conversion procedure and the disposition of the refrigerant and the appliance — that's the engineering, not the paperwork.

They put the signature on the right person. The plan is signed by the owner/operator of the appliance, because they're the regulated party. The contractor drafts; the customer signs. Build that handoff into the conversation so it isn't a scramble at the end of the window.

They calendar the one-year date the day the plan is signed. Plan date plus 365 is the install-and-commission deadline. Put it on the schedule immediately, work backward from it for equipment lead time and crane availability, and don't let the building owner's slow approval eat the runway.

The contractor who knows this cold turns a dead system into a clean handoff. You tell the building owner on day two that this unit isn't worth chasing, you draft the plan, they sign it, and the replacement gets done inside the year with the signed plan sitting at the site if an inspector ever asks. That's not a compliance emergency — that's the contractor they keep.

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An extension holds a repair you can make. A retrofit/retirement plan governs a system you've decided to replace. Between them, every leak-rate exceedance has a documented, on-time exit — if you start the clock the day the system goes over threshold instead of the day you panic.