How many are actually 'qualified' to work on AC units (UK)??

[Gary]

I have purchased several cars over the years and an odd thing happens each time. I start seeing the same make and model car as mine everywhere I go. I suspect they were there all along, but I just didn't notice them until I had a reason to notice them.

That's how experience works. You learn to notice the symptoms that you have previously been given reason to notice. The symptoms jump right out at you.

[Gary]

I can't count the number of times a dispatcher has sent me on a service call saying "It's probably ________", based on their conversations with the customers.

They are almost always wrong.

You can't tell what the problem is before you see what the machine is doing/not doing. Nobody can.

Guessing is unprofessional. It's what parts changers do.

[mad fridgie]

I can't count the number of times a dispatcher has sent me on a service call saying "It's probably ________", based on their conversations with the customers.

They are almost always wrong.

You can't tell what the problem is before you see what the machine is doing/not doing. Nobody can.

Guessing is unprofessional. It's what parts changers do.

If you had the same dispatcher as me the propably was always "short of gas"

[Gary]

If you had the same dispatcher as me the propably was always "short of gas"

Always a favorite... lol

I kept track for a while... and found that I was removing more refrigerant from systems than I was adding to systems. Everyone overcharges. It is by far the most common service error.

[mad fridgie]

Slightly off subject, I do remember in the Good Old Bad Days, that my Boss said if the Halide Leak lamp did not burn purple, then do not fix the leak. As we would be back in 6 months to recharge. "A good little earner" We did not worry about the enviroment, we cleaned the condensers by blowing through with R12.
Blame me for the ozone hole, I have big shoulders!!!!!

[cadillackid]

and wasnt the old way of flushing by using R-11??

or sometimes just charge and release.. charge and release...

I remember as a kid we had this Big old Janitrol Central air conditioner.. actually had a squirrel cage condensor fan...

the copeland compressor ate it. burnt out.. and being at 11 years old and totally "digging" anything air-conditioning I followed and watched that service guy all day... first thing he did was hook up his gauges and said "watch this you will like".. and he started letting the ***** out and freezing ants, spiders, leaves etc right on the spot... did that several times to "flush the system" as he explained it...

yep the good old days.....

that was a deathly hot summer.. none of the family had ever lived a lick without A/C in many years.. dad sent my mom out to "fill the back of the K-5 Blazer with fans".. the fans we got were real metal bladed box fans and window fans.. fans that were still around until about 2 years ago when a raccoon got into my parents current garage and ate the wiring in them...

oh and i drove by that old house the other day and that Janitrol unit is still out back of the house and presumably still works since it was 86 degrees out and their windows were closed..

my how quality is changed since 1967 when it was installed and 1980 when I watched the compressor replacement..

might have something to do with the perception of service techs these days.. people are quick to blame the equipment if it has never been worked on and fails pre-mature.. but people are sure to blame the tech if it has been repaired and something totally different breaks on it soon after...
-Christopher

[mad fridgie]

Equipment made in the USA was certainly built like a "Brick s**t house" (a compliment) it lasted for years, not to good on the old back if you had to move it.
Yes R11 for flushing, plenty of purging the system, they were always clean.
Freezing ants "how cruel", we all did it!! lol

[Trainer]

I work in technical support department for an AC manufacturer in the UK. When we get technical calls it amazes us how poor (in general) the 'engineers' on site trying to fix the problems are. I'm not suggesting for a moment that it is always entirely their fault, in many cases their employers just cannot be bothered to get them fully trained. However it does make us wonder what the percentage of 'qualified' engineers is compared to those who just decided to get into the industry because 'the money is better' than what they did before. I regularly take calls where the 'engineer' has not even bothered to remove the covers on the unit before calling us for assistance!! And if they do actually get to that stage, half of them don't know what they are looking at anyway.

Being as I come across this poor level of service engineer almost on a day to day basis, I wondered how any of you perceives the state of our industry in this regard, particularly if you work in technical support...?

Additionally I just love the way the equipment carrying the manufacturers' badge always seems to get the blame for the service engineer's incompetence!

I doTechnical Support and training for a major frozen beverage company in the USA. You are correct with your statement, I come into contact with techs on a daily basis who have been repairing refrigeration equipment for years and truly do not understand how a system works.

[Gary]

I doTechnical Support and training for a major frozen beverage company in the USA. You are correct with your statement, I come into contact with techs on a daily basis who have been repairing refrigeration equipment for years and truly do not understand how a system works.

Presumably before you train them?

[cadillackid]

I dont know about europe but in the USA there are a lot of "techs" out there working on stuff that just go buy some gauges a few hand tools and go at it...

considering anyone on ebay will sell anyone refrigerants and the economy the way it is.. just look at craigs list sometime...

there are still a lot of "gas-n-Go" techs out there... put ***** in it collect the check from the consumer and never to be seen again...

or now with all the Obama energy credits there is a lot of used HVAC equipment on the market now... so the craigslist ads read.. "Get Central Air CHEAP.. summer is coming.. Central Air installed for $1000, replace existing for less"..

these guys are buying up all the used equipment and then going around and installing it...

a buddy of mine ran across one such guy this week.. my buddy was putting a mini in his friend's house.. next door 2 guys showed up did a hack electrical job, set a condensor on 4 bricks (no pad), slammed in a line-set, hooked it up turned it on.. charged till the suction line was cold.. no vac. and gone...

the unit looked brand new.. turned out the installer had simply bought 15 year old equipment.. re-painted the cabinet, and installed it.. soft soldered the pipes.. never vacc'd it down and charged the lady $1000. she never had central air in her life before so she was happy just to have it.. wonder if it will last through the summer??

-Christopher

[cool runings]

Slightly off subject, I do remember in the Good Old Bad Days, that my Boss said if the Halide Leak lamp did not burn purple, then do not fix the leak. As we would be back in 6 months to recharge. "A good little earner" We did not worry about the enviroment, we cleaned the condensers by blowing through with R12.
Blame me for the ozone hole, I have big shoulders!!!!!

Well I'm going to have to pull you up on what you say.

You obviously know nothing about refrigeration.

R12 is usless for blowing condensers clean (too low a pressure).

R22 is what you use ..

Coolrunnings

.

[eggs]

Well I'm going to have to pull you up on what you say.

You obviously know nothing about refrigeration.

R12 is usless for blowing condensers clean (too low a pressure).

R22 is what you use ..

Coolrunnings

.

Being a Ducter, I just sell them a new one, far less dirty, better for the environment......and more profitable

Eggs

[mad fridgie]

Well I'm going to have to pull you up on what you say.

You obviously know nothing about refrigeration.

R12 is usless for blowing condensers clean (too low a pressure).

R22 is what you use ..

Coolrunnings

.

Always had good pressure with R12, used heat transfer properties, to raise the pressure.
I Pissed on the bottle lol

[cool runings]

Always had good pressure with R12, used heat transfer properties, to raise the pressure.
I Pissed on the bottle lol

In the UK the ambiant temp must be lower than the temp in NZ .

As for your method of warming the bottle I choose not to coment

coolrunnings

.

[mad fridgie]

In the UK the ambiant temp must be lower than the temp in NZ .

As for your method of warming the bottle I choose not to coment

coolrunnings

.

That was in the UK, part of the Prestcold training method.

[nevgee]

Having poked a very big stick into the Hornets nest. Mr. Memory quickly lost the will to fight his corner ...

He's probably sulked away with his tail between his legs to hide behind his safe and secure little desk not to re appear I hope.

[eggs]

Having poked a very big stick into the Hornets nest. Mr. Memory quickly lost the will to fight his corner ...

He's probably sulked away with his tail between his legs to hide behind his safe and secure little desk not to re appear I hope.

Secure in the knowledge that he gets paid weather he actually helps repair a system or not.

So far I have invoices on my desk for replacement parts suggested by a tech help "engineer" that amount to four times the cost of the replacement condensing unit I bought out of my own pocket to get my customer up and running again.
The thing will not run and I don't know why, nor do they. Everything has been changed except the compressor (which checks out ok, windings balance and insulation resistance is perfect). The inverter checker said everything was fine but still their "best guess" was a new power module, then a new board, then a new diode bridge.......eventually they suggest a new compressor......even though that test out fine as well.

Hydraulic lock anyone?.......on a small split?

Tossers

Eggs

[nevgee]

Put your gauges on open the manifold so the compressor can pump across it, connect an alternaive electrical supply via a starter and turn it on ... if it doesn't run then yes .. compressor may be locked up. At least that way you'll have elliminated every thing from the compressor.

[eggs]

Trouble is it is a small split, with only a suction service port.
It's a little inverter system so I'm not sure how i would juice it up with an alternative power source.

I asked them a specific question to which they could not provide an answer, so the system is now on a work bench in a corner of the lock up, and it will be repaired at my leisure at maximum cost to them. .

On this occasion their flow charts didn't work.

Eggs

[nike123]

Trouble is it is a small split, with only a suction service port.
It's a little inverter system so I'm not sure how i would juice it up with an alternative power source.

I asked them a specific question to which they could not provide an answer, so the system is now on a work bench in a corner of the lock up, and it will be repaired at my leisure at maximum cost to them. .

On this occasion their flow charts didn't work.

Eggs

Now you are blaming help desk because you don't know how to test inverter compressor or you dont have required equipment to do that.
If it is AC compressor it could be simply connected to 3 phase power supply.
If it is DC compressor, than you need to troubleshoot everything else, and if everything else is OK than your compressor must be faulty.

[eggs]

If it is AC compressor it could be simply connected to 3 phase power supply.

I don't know about Croatia, but in the UK not many houses have 3 phase and I don't have a 3 phase power supply in the van.

If it is DC compressor, than you need to troubleshoot everything else, and if everything else is OK than your compressor must be faulty.

But I did trouble shoot everything else and it checked out OK, including the compressor.

My point is, that even though it must be the the compressor that is faulty, the muppet in tech help wants to make me change 3 components before he suggest the obvious and sends me a new compressor. Based on his "educated guess"
I had already told him that the inverter side of the system was fine.

He knew better.

Eggs

[cadillackid]

I think itsa time for the manufacturer to step up and just fork over the cost of the new outdoor unit... and let you keep the old so you have a full arsenal of spare parts....

and I agree about no 3 phase.. heck most small shops in the USA dont have 3 phase at their disposal... there may be 3 phase in the building but many HVAC / R companies work out of office parks and you just have a standard 220 volt panel and thats it...

after all it usually just a warehouse and then an office area... the office area usually handled by a couple 3 ton split systems..
the warehouse unconditioned cept maybe for a REZNOR gas heater hanging from the rafters...
-Christopher

[slowhandpuke]

ive just returned from spain where ive been installing domestic and small commercial AC. Ive been doing this with my father who is time served electrical engineer with ICI. He could take a machine apart and find the fault and fix it. However we didnt do this because all spare parts were only sold to the sevice engineer of that particular company. So if the faults werent on our installation then we called the sales office and let them fix it.
So its definitely the manufacturers who are de-skilling the workforce.

[install monkey]

the term engineer covers a broad spectrum from those with vast experience to the 1 eyed mutants and management offsprings!not all install engineers can faultfind also service engineers will query the integrity of an install like condenser spacing and additional charge so be greatfull that us cavemen working on systems req technical assistance thus keeping techies in work otherwise stacking shelves in asda whilst technical support will be outsourced to a call centre in india!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[The Red Krawler]

There is no such thing as 6th sence.

When you arrive at site you get a description of the problem from the customer & perhaps some other information like fault codes or system history.
If you have seen this description of problems many times before then you already have a good idea what the possible cause could be. Maybe a short list of 3 or 4 most likely causes are already forming in you mind as the customer describes the problems.
Then without even looking at the system you judge which is the most likely cause based on the many times you have resolved this type of problem before & you mentally make a short list of possible causes & decide on a priority list of things to check.

If you sometimes happen to find the fault straight away its 100% because you found that exact same fault many times before & it was in your judgement the probable cause base on your experiance & good memory & application of fundamental refrigeration knowledge while trouble shooting this problem before.

Depending on the ability of the engineer it can take some years to develop this trouble shooting skill.

When any engineer boasts that he can tell whats wrong with a system at 50 yards you just know he is full of BS or he has many years of experiance.

I do tend to agree with this.

IMO, the most important part of being a fridgie is the attitude - not so much in the typical sense of the term, but in regards to being the type of person who wants to see something fixed, and has trouble accepting defeat when faced with a problem.

I see having to return to a site as a personal failing, and absolutely hate it. Yet theres a couple of guys at the same company who are quite happy to return 2 or 3 times to the same job before getting it right, and happily claim a great success.

I'd say as labor becomes more and more devalued in the era of cheap Chinese imports, the ability of a tech becomes less important than the time it takes them to get off the premises and stop costing the customer money. The emphasis will be on replacing parts quickly, then leaving as opposed to a 'real' diagnosis and repairing components. The parts are cheap, the labor expensive.

Bit of a shame, but eh. I'm not going to become a parts replacer anytime soon so my career in refrigeration may be time limited :P