A/C Refrigeration Engineer

[Biddy]

hello, could anyone please explain to me the difference between a refrigeration engineer or an A/C engineer with regards to both installation and maintenance, it is something which has just come up in my new job and thought this would be the best place to ask!
thank you

[The Viking]

If you are in a new occupation, isn't it a bit early to decide whether your kid should be an A/C or Fridge engineer?

But better to plan a head, I suppose..
:D

On a (ever so slightly) more serious note;

There really isn't much in it.
It's all down to what kit we work on, a bit like if your Auto mechanic works on cars or lorries I suppose.

Myself, I'm a Fridge engineer by training (working on industrial chillers, supermarket units and the likes) but when I moved over to UK, I found that I got more money and cleaner hands working on A/C stuff.

:cool:

The best way to get your kid in to it would be to get him/her a Meccano set and after that has been mastered, all the electronic build it yourself kits sold by Maplin.
;)

[Biddy]

ahh sorry! misleading, no the question is to help me at work, not define a creer path for my little ones.....i have just joined a team where speak to people about a/c abit but not knowing the technoilogy i feel i could do a much better job if i knew what bits of kit indicated what kind of engineer you need, are there any other website which might have an idiots guide to A/C and refrigeration.... do you need to be a refrigeration engineer to look after the a/c for a massive building? of is a/c just a/c ? what do chillers do...is there cold water circulating pipes...like an exact opposite to how much central heating is at home but with fans to blow the cold air? so many questions , i hope you dont mind??

[The Viking]

Short answer then;
If you are looking at climate control in a building, you would normally use an A/C engineer, even for the chillers.

As to what the kit is:
There are 3 main options to sort the climate control out,
1. Chilled water. A chiller somewhere outside and pipework filled with water running to fan coils (radiators with fans). The fan coils can either be cooling only (2-pipe) or cooling / heating (4-pipe), if they are cooling/heating type the second coil would be feed from the boiler.
2. Individual DX (Direct Expansion) Splits. This is where you got one box with a fan on the front outside and pipework with refrigerant in it running to a indoor unit (different units can be wall/ceiling/floor/under ceiling mounted or ducted). These machines can also be cooling only or heatpumps. If they are heatpumps then they reverse the refrigerant flow and utilise the outdoor temperature to provide heating in the room they serve.
3. Multi systems, basically the same as option 2 but one (or more) outdoor unit is serving several indoor units. Theses systems are normally referred to as something like VRV or VRF.

There are other options as well but the ones above are the most common ones (at least in UK)

:cool: