Scrapping air conditioner units and furnaces

Hello Fellow Scrappers. I have a question about scrapping a/c units and furnaces. I have quite a few of them to break down. I have never broke these down before but it seems pretty easy but I'm just concerned about the Freon/refrigerant. Is there anything to worry about? Any Tips/ advice. Thanks.

It really depends on who took the old A/C unit out (a furnace will not have any refrigerant). If someone was going to keep an A/C and use it somewhere else, a tech could "pump down" the system and leave a lot of refrigerant in the condenser. The easy way to tell is start to open the valve and see if you get any gas coming out. I doubt you have one with a charge, the proper thing to do is to just recover the refrigerant, most of the time a pump down is just used for repairs, but it is quite possible depending on where you got the system. Most companies would WANT to recover the refrigerant because it has a significant value, but I have see homeowners with AC units for sale that had a charge in them (despite being used).

I Figured the furnace didn't have any. The a/c unit and furnace are from my girlfriends mom and stepdads house. They had a family friend who owns his own business replace both the a/c unit and furnace this past spring. I'm not sure if he recovered it or not because I haven't scrapped them yet. Plan on doing it tomorrow morning.

If its an central air type a/c, the freon will be removed from it when they disconect it. Watch when turning it and laying it on the sides, Moving the compressor, Cutting the copper lines and rads off cause the oil will run out.
Wear gloves, They can get dirty in there

Depending on how they was disconnected the tech can easily close the liquid line(smaller line) and run the compressor for a short time. Doing this while watching the gages,if the line is short enough,the refrigerant can be pumped back into the outdoor unit. Again while reading the gages the suction line will then be closed and the refrigerant will be captured in the unit. If the valves are on the unit then the only way to tell if unit has juice is to crack a valve quickly and make a determination .