Arena refrigeration

Reliability, efficiency and peace of mind, season after season.

Angle noire

Much more than a refrigeration system

An arena performs at the meeting point of refrigeration, air, energy and controls. We handle all four.

Soteck Clauger designs, builds, maintains and optimizes your plant as a single system.

From ice quality and heat recovery to code compliance and 24/7 response, one team stays accountable for how it performs.

In short:

Arena refrigeration is the industrial system that makes and holds a sheet of ice. In Quebec it runs on ammonia, transcritical CO₂ or HFO. Soteck Clauger has designed, installed, serviced and decommissioned these systems since 2003, across Eastern Canada. 

2003 11 8 24/7

Our first arena service call

Arenas and sports centres under active service
Quebec administrative regions served
On-call coverage and emergency response

Behind those numbers is the Soteck Clauger service team. About 1,500 service calls a year and some forty specialists: 14 refrigeration technicians, 8 pipefitters, 6 sheet metal workers, 6 electricians, 4 engineers and 2 welders. We hold RBQ licence 8221-6458-2 and a CMEQ licence. A technician is on site in under 4 hours, 24 hours a day, and in under 3 hours with an on-call contract.

what you will find on this page

What is forcing arena refrigerationto change in Quebec

A manager who plans today is not replacing a piece of equipment. He is replacing a decision made forty years ago.

Quebec has roughly 395 arenas (source 1), and nobody knows exactly what condition their refrigeration is in. In 2022, Quebec’s hockey development committee called for a full audit of the stock. That audit was never published.

The most reliable numbers come from Natural Resources Canada. In 2013, 71 % of Quebec arenas were more than 30 years old and 62 % ran on R-22 (source 2). Thirteen years on, that same cohort is passing forty-five. An arena refrigeration system lasts 20 to 30 years depending on the refrigerant.

Three regulatory pressures are closing in on arena refrigeration in Quebec at the same time. None of the three is solved by a maintenance budget.

  • Refrigerant supply closed on January 1 , the date after which no virgin R-22 enters Canada (source 3). What still circulates is reclaimed gas, in shrinking volume and at rising prices. A major leak then becomes a supply problem, not just a repair.
  • The federal HFC schedule brings the consumption allowance down to 60% of baseline for 2024 to 2028, then 30% for 2029 to 2033 (source 4). Supply is therefore cut in half in 2029, while a system installed in 2026 will still be running.
  • The Quebec installation rule has barred, since January 1, 2021, any new unit of 20 kW or more designed for a halocarbon with a GWP above 1,500 (source 5). That rules out R-404A, R-507A and R-410A, and every arena refrigeration system falls into this category.

Règlement sur les halocarbures, RLRQ chapter Q-2, r. 29, section 19

“No one may manufacture, sell, distribute or install a unit covered by section 18 that is designed to operate with a CFC or an HCFC. Nor may anyone convert or modify such a unit to allow it to operate with a CFC or an HCFC.” (Our translation of the French original.)

In the version in force on April 1, 2026, this means no new R-22 system can be installed in Quebec and no existing system can be converted to another HCFC. Section 22 also requires an annual leak test, with no more than 15 months between tests.

Ammonia (R-717) and CO₂ (R-744) are not halocarbons. Their global warming potential, or GWP, is below 10: about 0 for ammonia and 1 for CO₂. They are therefore outside the federal HFC phase-down schedule. That is the underlying reason 75% of new arena refrigeration projects were already choosing ammonia as far back as 2008 (source 2).

The question is no longer whether your arena refrigeration will be replaced, but whether you will plan it or have it forced on you.

Six phases: one party accountable for your arena refrigeration

An arena refrigeration system changes contractor three or four times in its service life, and every change loses the history of the plant.

We take on all six phases in the life of an arena refrigeration system. We become your outsourced refrigeration department, without the fixed cost of an in-house team year-round.

Phase Descriptif Actions / Expertises / Livrables

Study and design

Before we propose a system, we measure the one already there.

Survey of the machine room and the actual load

Analysis of the slab, the rink floor piping and the insulation

Energy balance for ice, heating, ventilation and hot water

NH₃, CO₂ and hybrid compared over 20 years

Budget estimate and phased scenarios

Design-build

We bid under the BSDQ system on public tenders.

Drawings and specifications, approval by the Régie du bâtiment

Machine room, NH₃ and CO₂ piping, sheet metal

CSA certified electrical panels and automation

Air treatment, dehumidification, emergency ventilation

Coordination with the owner’s architect and engineer

Commissioning

Commissioning is a deliverable, not a formality at the end of the job.

Leak testing, evacuation, controlled charging

Verification of alarms and emergency ventilation

Tuning of sequences and setpoints

Operator training on their own equipment

Handover of the operator’s manual and as-built drawings

Operation and maintenance

This is where the real cost of your ice is decided.

Planned season start-up and shutdown

Preventive maintenance on an ammonia arena, under contract

Annual leak test as required by regulation

Compressor overhaul and reconditioning

24/7 on-call coverage and emergency leak response

Optimisation

An existing system can often be modernized without being replaced.

Flash energy audit, one day on site

Arena heat recovery to the stands and to hot water

Advanced control and continuous metering in MyPortal3E

Dehumidification and airflow rebalancing

Incentive application package and payback modelling

End of life

The phase nobody talks about, and the one that exposes the owner most.

Regulated refrigerant recovery by certified personnel

Decontamination and purging of the circuits

Dismantling of the machine room and the piping

Records and certificates for the building file

Recovery and reuse of salvageable components

That continuity changes everything the day an arena refrigeration system has to be replaced. We already know the slab, the rink floor piping and the full breakdown history. The preliminary survey then takes a few hours instead of several weeks.

One partner, one line of accountability, one number to call.

Ammonia, CO₂ or hybrid arena refrigeration: the decision plays out over 20 years

All three technologies are defensible. What separates them is your thermal load profile, the condition of your machine room and how much capital you can put in.

The CanmetENERGY Varennes study remains the only independent public model of arena refrigeration in Quebec. It covers the Camillien-Houde arena in Montreal, a 3,733 m² sheet operated nine months a year. Its figures date from 2013 and we present them as such. The gaps between technologies still hold; the absolute costs have moved.

Configuration Refrigeration (kWh) Chauffage (kWh) Total (kWh) Difference

CO₂ transcritique

291 100

90 500

381 600

-30 %

NH₃ monobloc

407 000

77 100

484 100

-11 %

Conventional NH₃ (reference)

383 400

159 000

542 400

0 %

R-22 existant

550 200

469 300

1 019 500

+88 %

Modelled annual consumption, refrigeration and heating combined. Reference single-sheet arena, nine-month operation. Source: Natural Resources Canada, CanmetENERGY Varennes, 2013.

Heating accounts for almost the entire gap between configurations. An R-22 system burns 469,300 kWh of heating, against 77,100 kWh for a well-designed packaged ammonia plant. The cost of arena refrigeration does not come from the compressor. It comes from the heat sent to the condenser while baseboard heaters warm the stands.

What really separates the three arena refrigeration technologies

Criterion Ammoniac (R-717) CO₂ transcritique (R-744) NH₃/CO₂

Global warming potential

0

1

0 and 1

Estimated service life

30 years

25 years

25 to 30 years

Toxicity

Toxic, with an odour detectable well below the danger threshold

Non-toxic, an asphyxiant in confined spaces

Ammonia confined to the machine room

Design pressure

Moderate, standard steel piping

High, up to 1,750 psi, stainless steel

High on the CO₂ side

Charge typique

Under 3 kg per ton of refrigeration in recent designs, against about 9 kg on older plants

Large charge in a direct system

About 350 lb of CO₂, against more than 1,000 lb in a direct system

Regulated attendance

Stationary engineer, standardized cost of $16,000 a year in 2013

No equivalent requirement for permanent attendance

Depends on the residual ammonia charge

Heat recovery

Good, excellent in a packaged plant

Excellent, high discharge temperature
Less effective than direct CO₂

Installed cost

Market benchmark

Higher, high-pressure components

Highest up front

Design benchmarks. GWP values, service lives and charges come from the 2013 CanmetENERGY study. Working pressures and operating constraints come from current practice and CSA B 52:23.

When we recommend ammonia

A compliant, well-ventilated machine room, trained staff, a large thermal load worth recovering, a 30-year horizon. A modern low-charge arena refrigeration system has nothing in common with a 1980s plant. Montreal proved it on its own stock, where the charge per plant fell from 5,000 lb in 2005 to about 170 lb in 2010 (source 6).

When we recommend CO₂

A building with no compliant machine room, close neighbours, a strong need for recovered heat, no stationary engineer on staff. CO₂ in arenas has been established in Quebec since 2011, the year of the first all-CO₂ rink (source 7). We already service transcritical CO₂ packages running on Quebec ice sheets.

When we recommend hybrid

When cutting the ammonia charge becomes the dominant political issue, without giving up heat recovery. Ammonia then stays confined to the machine room, and CO₂ alone circulates under the slab.

We do not sell a refrigerant, we make the case for a scenario

A contractor who shows up with the technology already chosen has not looked at your building. We hand over all three arena refrigeration scenarios costed over 20 years. Capital, operation, maintenance, regulated attendance and residual value are all in there.

You then choose, and council has what it needs to defend that choice to taxpayers.

We do not recommend a technology we have not modelled on your building.

An arena that has changed managers three times no longer has its as-built drawings

We see it regularly on machine room visits, in arenas and in sports centres alike. The emergency response plan points to an obsolete edition of the standard and the leak test log is incomplete.

Nobody on the current team was there for the last commissioning. The day a fire officer asks for the operator’s manual, the municipality finds the hole. 

Rebuilding that file is part of our maintenance mandates, not an extra billed on the side.

What compliance actually requires of an arena refrigeration system

  • CSA B 52:23 has been in force in Quebec since February 1, 2025  (source 10). A system designed under B52-13 or B52-18 therefore operates under a newer code. Every replacement project must meet the 2023 edition.
  • Continuous detection works on two thresholds : the CNESST sets the first alarm at 25 or 35 ppm and the second at 300 ppm maximum, the concentration immediately dangerous to life (source 11).
  • Mechanical ventilation independent of the machine room, running continuously if the room is below grade. Automatic start at 300 ppm at the latest, airflow rates calculated with the CSA B52 equations.
  • Respiratory protection follows CSA Z94.4, with a full-face cartridge respirator from 35 to 250 ppm and a self-contained breathing apparatus required above 300 ppm or at unknown concentration.
  • The emergency response plan must be documented and drilled, an obligation that flows from sections 51 and 56 of the Act respecting occupational health and safety and from sections 34 and 35 of the regulation (source 12). The Quebec response protocol calls the refrigeration technician at 25 ppm and 911 at 200 ppm.
  • Annual leak test on every component holding a halocarbon, with no more than 15 months between tests. A further test is required between the 30th and the 60th day after a leak is repaired (source 5).
  • An up-to-date operator’s manual, with drawings, technical data and service records, available to emergency responders.

Arena refrigeration takes up half of your electricity bill

A single-sheet arena operated nine months a year consumes up to 1,780 MWh a year, 50% of it for refrigeration and 30% for heating.

Those two line items are really one. The compressor makes high-temperature heat that a poorly configured arena refrigeration system dumps straight to the condenser. Meanwhile baseboard heaters warm the stands and a water heater prepares the resurfacing water. According to the 2013 study, 80% of Quebec arenas already have a recovery system (source 2). Many use it only to preheat domestic hot water.

 

Where recovered heat goes in a well-configured arena

  • Heating the stands and public areas, radiant or through the ventilation. The load profile matches ice production exactly.
  • Resurfacing water, an energy-hungry and recurring load, up to twelve times a day in peak season.
  • Under-slab heating, which prevents frost heave under a rink in continuous operation.
  • Domestic hot water for the dressing rooms, the easiest to connect and often the only one in service.
  • Dehumidifier regeneration, which closes the loop between the latent load in the arena and the refrigeration load.
  • Melting the resurfacing snow, replacing an electrically heated snow pit.

Arena heat recovery on its own cuts more than 40% of energy use and energy cost (source 2). At Hydro-Québec this measure is eligible for up to 75% of cost. A 10% bonus is added for two categories of measures combined, and 15% for three (source 13).

 

Humidity, the other half of the problem

Fog over the ice, sweating stands, a ceiling dripping onto the surface. These are symptoms of latent load, not of insufficient refrigeration capacity. The usual reflex is to lower the slab setpoint. That raises the power bill without ever correcting the cause.

So we treat the air before touching the refrigeration. Latent load pulled out of the arena is load the compressor no longer has to fight. This is the exact meeting point of our two trades. Air treatment and arena refrigeration belong to the same team and the same machine room here. 

Few firms cover both, and yet that is where the easiest gains hide.

What an efficiency project returns to a Quebec municipality

At the Complexe Sportif Candiac, studies funded by the Green Municipal Fund put annual savings at up to $41,000, or $620,400 over 20 years, with an 84% cut in GHG. At the Complexe Roméo-V.-Patenaude in the same city, the calculation gives up to $17,231 a year and an 82% cut (source 14).

Figures taken from the City of Candiac feasibility studies published by FCM in 2024. They do not transfer as-is to your building. They give the order of magnitude a serious study can document.

 

Our ground in arena refrigeration is the existing stock

We are not new to arenas. We bring new thinking and we are a dependable player on your team. Here is exactly what our own systems show.

The Quebec stock is ageing, and that is exactly where we are at our best. Designing a new arena refrigeration system on an empty lot is an engineering exercise. Giving thirty more years to a machine room in service, between two hockey seasons, without cancelling a single hour of ice, is another thing entirely. That second exercise has been ours for twenty-three years.

Our oldest arena refrigeration service relationship runs to 61 service calls and 267 hours of work. It has never missed a season since 2011. The technician who shows up therefore knows the plant before he opens the machine room door.

On the technical side, we recondition Mycom ammonia compressors in our shop and on site. The N4WA, N6WA, N8WA and C5-W06A models are documented across five different arenas in our portfolio. We also work on screw compressors and on transcritical CO₂ packages in service. And we bid under the BSDQ system on public tenders for arena and rink refrigeration.

Three things a general contractor cannot offer you

  1. Refrigeration and air in the same team. Fog over the ice is fixed by air treatment, never by the compressor. Nobody points at the other contractor, because there is only one.
  2. Compressor overhaul in our own shop. We strip, recondition and rebuild the ammonia Mycoms ourselves. An overhauled compressor costs a fraction of a new one and goes back out for several more years of service.
  3. A written commitment on performance. Our standing as a qualified energy services company (ESCO) contractually binds us to the savings we file with the incentive application.

Ask us for references by project phase and we will give you phone numbers.

Frequently asked questions aboutarena refrigeration

These arena refrigeration questions come from recreation directors, public works managers and ice resurfacer operators. The answers are exactly the ones we give on site.

No. The Règlement sur les halocarbures bars manufacturing, selling, installing or converting an HCFC unit, but it does not bar operating an existing system or recharging it. You are not breaking the law with your current plant.

Your real constraint is elsewhere, and it is commercial rather than legal. Since January 1, 2020, no virgin R-22 enters Canada. What is still available is reclaimed or reprocessed gas, in falling quantity and at rising prices. The day you have a major leak, the real question becomes supply, not the cost of the repair. And if the system fails, the law forces you to change technology, in a hurry and with no incentive money.

Yes, and it is often the best value of all. An arena refrigeration system with a sound machine room, slab and rink floor piping gains a great deal without changing refrigerant. Reworking the heat recovery, advanced controls, variable speed drives, replacing the condenser, correcting the dehumidification, overhauling the compressors.

The decision rests on the condition of the slab and the rink floor piping, never on the age of the compressor. A compressor can be reconditioned; a cracked slab with corroded piping cannot be saved. So that is the first thing we look at on a machine room visit.

We then document both scenarios side by side over a 20-year horizon, maintenance and regulated attendance included. In many cases, modernizing pushes the replacement out ten years at a fifth of the cost.

On a reciprocating compressor, a full mechanical overhaul on a fixed-price basis generally falls between $10,000 and $30,000 as an estimate. The price varies with the extent of the reconditioning and the condition of the components. The work takes 3 to 6 days depending on the model and the number of technicians.

The interval depends on running hours, never on the calendar. An arena refrigeration compressor that runs nine months racks up far more hours than a seasonal industrial unit. Hour tracking and oil analysis are what let us schedule the overhaul off-season, once the ice is already out.

A full replacement with a new compressor runs into tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars depending on capacity. That is precisely why a planned overhaul costs less than a breakdown.

The window is short and contractors compete hard for it. The ice comes out between late April and mid-May, then goes back in around mid-August. A major arena refrigeration job has to fit entirely inside that gap. Yet compressor and heat exchanger manufacturers often quote more than three months for delivery.

In practice, a replacement to be built next summer is decided the previous fall. Survey and scenarios in the fall, drawings and specifications and the incentive application in the winter, tender in early spring. Long-lead equipment is ordered immediately after the tender result. Projects that overrun the window almost all started in February.

For routine maintenance, season start-up and shutdown are the two dates to plan. We put them in the contract rather than treating them as service calls.

In Quebec this requirement comes from the Loi sur les mécaniciens de machines fixes and the Règlement sur les installations sous pression. The threshold and the certificate class depend on the capacity and the configuration of your plant. Answering it means having seen the nameplate and the approved drawings.

What we can say is that this attendance has a cost that belongs in the technology comparison. The 2013 CanmetENERGY study standardized it at $16,000 a year. For a municipality that struggles to recruit, the dollar figure matters less than whether the person is available at all.

It is one of the arguments that tips some files toward CO₂, and we cost this line explicitly in our comparative scenarios.

Shutdown is the least covered phase in contracts and the one that exposes the owner most. A system left in place with its charge is still a pressure installation. It holds a toxic substance or a regulated halocarbon, in a building nobody watches the same way any more.

The work covers regulated refrigerant recovery by certified personnel, with the matching records. Then come purging and decontaminating the circuits, dismantling the machine room and the piping, and handing over the certificates. Some components have a resale value that reduces the net bill.

We take these mandates, including on plants we did not build.

Almost never. Fog over the ice and condensation on the structure are symptoms of latent load. It is moisture the ventilation lets in and nothing takes out. Lowering the slab setpoint makes it worse while raising the bill.

The fix runs entirely through air treatment rather than refrigeration capacity. Dehumidification capacity and sequences, airflow matched to actual occupancy instead of running flat out, a tight envelope and tight doors. Tournaments also have to be managed, when the crowd multiplies the human load.

This is the exact interface where our two trades meet, in an arena as in a multi-pad sports centre. See our ventilation and air treatment expertise.

Soteck Clauger is a Quebec company founded in 1993 in Victoriaville. Offices in Victoriaville, Montreal and Trois-Rivières, a subsidiary of the French group Clauger since 2019. More than 110 specialists in hygienic air treatment, NH₃ and CO₂ industrial refrigeration, piping, electrical, automation and energy efficiency.

We have been billing arena refrigeration work in Quebec since 2003, across eight administrative regions. From Centre-du-Québec to Abitibi-Témiscamingue, from Capitale-Nationale to Bas-Saint-Laurent, by way of Montérégie, Laval, Mauricie and Estrie.

A technician is on site in under 4 hours, 24 hours a day, and in under 3 hours with an on-call contract. Reach out to us for a visit to your machine room, with no obligation.

Arena refrigeration in Quebec in 8 facts

  1. Quebec has roughly 395 arenas, 71% of which were already more than 30 years old in 2013. Sources: ministère de l’Éducation du Québec, 2022, and Natural Resources Canada, 2013.
  2. No new R-22 system can be installed in Quebec. The Règlement sur les halocarbures bars it in section 19, and it also bars conversion to another HCFC.
  3. Since January 1, 2021, new equipment of 20 kW or more cannot be designed for a halocarbon with a GWP above 1,500.  That rules out R-404A, R-507A and R-410A.
  4. Ammonia and CO₂ fall entirely outside the regulatory schedule, because they are not halocarbons, and their global warming potential is 0 and 1.
  5. Arena refrigeration accounts for 50% of the building’s electricity use, and heating for 30%. Heat recovery on its own cuts more than 40% of the bill.
  6. CSA B 52:23 has been in force in Quebec since February 1, 2025 , and every project to replace an ice system must now meet it.
  7. An ammonia arena refrigeration system requires two-threshold detection, independent emergency ventilation and a documented emergency response plan. The duty falls on the building owner as much as on the employer.
  8. Four funding programs were still open in August 2026 : Solutions efficaces and the Hydro-Québec energy analysis, the Green Municipal Fund and ÉcoPerformance.

 

Content reviewed by:

Picture of jonathan desmars

Jonathan Desmars

Sales and Business Development Manager
Industrial refrigeration / HVAC

See his full profile

Nearly twenty years in industrial refrigeration, from commercial installation to agri-food, pharmaceutical and marine processes. At Soteck Clauger he led the first planned shutdown on an ammonia condenser and the first full in-shop compressor overhaul. He personally follows arena refrigeration files, from the first machine room visit through to commissioning.

Page written on August 18, 2026, with regulatory data and funding programs verified as of that date.

Contact Jonathan

Conclusion and sources

For an arena, a rink or a multi-pad sports centre, the choice between ammonia NH₃ and carbon dioxide CO₂ has to start from the real needs of the plant, its energy profile and the level of risk management you are aiming for. These natural refrigerants each bring advantages, but also distinct issues in safety, operation, efficiency and compliance.

Choosing the refrigerant therefore calls for a rigorous analysis of the risks tied to the building, the equipment, the operations and the skills available to handle their management. Every refrigerant brings its own requirements: pressure, ventilation, detection, maintenance, training and emergency procedures. Reducing risk depends as much on design as on the quality of operating practice.

For a municipality as for other industrial or recreational plants, comparing the technology options also helps anticipate regulatory change, operating costs and the shift toward refrigerants with lower environmental impact. Before you choose, weigh the expected performance, the technical constraints, the risks and the long-term needs.

This approach leads to a decision better matched to the current realities of NH₃ and CO₂ arena refrigeration systems.

Soteck Clauger has designed, installed, serviced and decommissioned arena refrigeration systems in Quebec and Eastern Canada since 2003. On site in under 4 hours, service 24 hours a day, RBQ licence 8221-6458-2 and CMEQ licence.

  1. Ministère de l’Éducation du Québec, Le hockey, notre passion. Rapport du comité québécois sur le développement du hockey, 2022, p. 37. View the report
  2. Natural Resources Canada, CanmetENERGY Varennes, Étude comparative de systèmes de réfrigération pour les arénas, 2013. View the study
  3. Government of Canada, Ozone-depleting Substances and Halocarbon Alternatives Regulations, SOR/2016-137, section 38. Current to June 17, 2026. View the regulation
  4. Same source, section 65.06, HFC phase-down schedule.
  5. Gouvernement du Québec, Règlement sur les halocarbures, RLRQ chapter Q-2, r. 29, sections 18, 19, 21.2 and 22. In force as of April 1, 2026. View the regulation
  6. Colleen O’Shea, How Montreal Made Ammonia Safe for Its Rinks, HPAC Magazine, June 8, 2021. Read the article
  7. First CO₂ System for Ice Rinks Installed in Quebec, Contracting Business, May 19, 2011. Read the article
  8. Technical Safety BC, Fernie Investigation Report, Findings and Recommendations, July 25, 2018. View the report
  9. WorkSafeBC, investigation report summary, reference 2017160530032, August 2018. View the summary. Technical Safety BC Safety Order SO-BP 2017-02, December 22, 2017.
  10. CETAF, Quand l’édition 2023 du Code sur la réfrigération mécanique entrera-t-elle en vigueur ?, November 5, 2024. Read the notice. Régie du bâtiment du Québec, Règlement sur les installations sous pression, section 6.
  11. CNESST, Systèmes de réfrigération fonctionnant à l’ammoniac. Mesures de prévention, 2nd edition. View the guide. The ppm thresholds and ventilation principles remain valid. The normative references in the guide predate the editions now in force.
  12. APSAM, Établir un plan de mesures d’urgence pour les arénas à l’ammoniac, published April 27, 2015, updated July 8, 2026. View the fact sheet
  13. Hydro-Québec, Solutions efficaces, guide de participation, volet moyennes et grandes entreprises, March 2026. View the guide. Offres pour les municipalités
  14. Green Municipal Fund, Federation of Canadian Municipalities, Fiche d’information : l’électrification dans le contexte de la rénovation des bâtiments municipaux au Québec, 2024. View the fact sheet
  15. Fédération québécoise des municipalités, Constat du rapport sur les infrastructures municipales, March 3, 2026, citing the Ordre des ingénieurs du Québec report Agir maintenant pour éviter la f(r)acture de demain, January 29, 2026. Read the findings
  16. Funding programs: PAFIRSPA, page updated July 9, 2026. View. ÉcoPerformance, normative framework dated July 7, 2026. View. Green Municipal Fund. View

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