An experiment is carried out here to investigate the characteristics of the evaporation heat transfer for refrigerants R-134a and R-407C flowing in horizontal small tubes having the same inside diameter of 0.83 or 2.0 mm. In the experiment for the 2.0-mm tubes, the refrigerant mass flux G is varied from 200 to 400 kg/m(2) s, imposed heat flux q from 5 to 15 kW/m(2), inlet vapor quality x(in) from 0.2 to 0.8 and refrigerant saturation temperature T-sat from 5 to 15 degrees C. While for the 0.83-mm tubes, G is varied from 800 to 1500 kg/m(2) S with the other parameters varied in the same ranges as those for D-i = 2.0 mm. In the study the effects of the refrigerant vapor quality, mass flux, saturation temperature and imposed heat flux on the measured evaporation heat transfer coefficient h, are examined in detail. The experimental data clearly show that both the R-134a and R-407C evaporation heat transfer coefficients increase almost linearly and significantly with the vapor quality of the refrigerant, except at low mass flux and high heat flux. Besides, the evaporation heat transfer coefficients also increase substantially with the rises in the imposed heat flux, refrigerant mass flux and saturation temperature. At low R-134a mass flux and high imposed heat flux the evaporation heat transfer coefficient in the smaller tubes (D-i = 0.83 mm) may decline at increasing vapor quality when the quality is high, due to the partial dryout of the refrigerant flow in the smaller tubes at these conditions. We also note that under the same x(in), T-sat, G, q and D-i, refrigerant R-407C has a higher h(r) when compared with that for R-134a. Finally, an empirical correlation for the R-134a and R-407C evaporation heat transfer coefficients in the small tubes is proposed. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.