new career in refrigeration..all tips and advice welcome

[yeehaa]

Hi everyone im new to the forum so hers abit of my background,

I have an electrical trade with 10 yrs experience and electrical related degree.

With work being scarce with the recession etc. ive decided to take an apprentiship as a
refrigeration engineer to get a mix of electrical and mechanical skills and hopefully a more sustainable career.

I have been offered a job with a Reefer tech company in Ireland who touch on work in Air-con, cold room installation , blast room installation and general all round maintenance commissioning etc.

I was hoping some1 can help me by sharing some of the ins and outs of the industry.

Is reefer tech a good area to train in??
I have heard i can look forward to long unsociable hours??
Is the sector a sustainable area of employment (at the minute anyway)???
What sort of wage should a qualified engineer be expecting??
Is there room for career advancement Etc etc. ??

Any and all helful advice and/or tips are welcome and will be appreciated

[cadwaladr]

welcome,its a minefield but your new job seems to cover all aspects so should be interesting and varied shave your head now before you pull it out!

[rasper]

The hours are unsociable but you get over it. Never heard of that crowd so dont know.
Just make sure that you are signed up to fas as you know and that they dont hold you back.
Im in OZ at the moment i left the company in ireland because of the recession. But everyone needs there fridges working so there is allways work in the refrigeration game i think.

Best of luck with the new job

[RefrigNoob]

I'm not all too long in the game either. Just about 4 years or so...

My only bit of advice would be to understand the following 2 concepts thoroughly...
Superheat
Sub-cooling

In all honesty, don't even believe old techs at your company. Hell, don't even trust a hvac teaching institution. I've even heard the weirdest things from them.

Ask around here on the forum, or get a good book on the subject. The answers you get from the guys here on the forum, are worth their weight in gold.

[clivemtk]

hi cad just read what refrignoob has to say in his post that puts me and you in our place

[cadwaladr]

yeah sometimes just smile its easier,off to the meadow to eat some grass!

[RefrigNoob]

hi cad just read what refrignoob has to say in his post that puts me and you in our place
Sorry, I meant that he should rather ask here about it. The answers found here are accurate and correct. The answers I've heard here by us, from the field has been crazy.
I've had a tech, with over 30 years experience tell me that superheat is the difference between the air-on and air-off temps. He always sets the expansion valve to give 7 degrees difference between air-on and air-off temps. Or was it 7 degrees between the coil and air-off, or -on, or something like that.
I've had a professional refrigeration trainer tell one of our guys, sent on a refrigeration course, that superheat is the temperature difference between the tails coming out of the distributor and the suction line temp, and that both temps are measured with a digital thermometer.