Refrigeration Or Air Con

[graezybee]

Ok, so I am very confused.

Is a refrigeration engineer a different career to an air conditioning engineer?

[james10]

1. are you into spanners or multi meters, modern a/c is mainly controls (excluding install)
where as industrial refrigeration your more likely to be knee deep in oil getting screamed at because the plant is loosing money
2.Not much difference more o/t in a/c fan coil maintenance etc
3.industrial fridge
4.both usually other than installation most service techs work alone unless their lucky enough to have an apprentice
once you've completed level two nvq thats when you decide which route to take dont panic to much about it though i started out working on the larger scale systems centrifs,screws (industrial refrigeration)
now i work on anything from a small deli counter to large water chillers and anything in between
hope this helps

[graezybee]

Thanks James, awesome information.

The help I get on here rather than some puppet at the careers centre is so much more useful.

What would you say is more in demand? Or is the industry - for both - a pretty safe one to enter?

[james10]

I would say it's a good career choice if you want to keep learning. I think there will always be work for decent engineers
Air con is busier in the summer months
where as refrigeration is about keeping/reducing the temerature of a product so steady all year round

[graezybee]

I would say it's a good career choice if you want to keep learning. I think there will always be work for decent engineers
Air con is busier in the summer months
where as refrigeration is about keeping/reducing the temerature of a product so steady all year round

Ok.

What do you mean by keep learning?
Once you do NVQ level 3, isn't that you ready?
What other ways do you learn?

[james10]

I mean changes in product technology the cooling industry is constantly changing

[graezybee]

I see.

What overtime do you do as an air con engineer? How many hours etc?

And also, say I choose the air con option, could I still carry out smaller repairs on refrigerator related things?

[james10]

o/t really depends on the type of company/client base you work for. Some of the sites i work on wont let you near an office floor whilst there are staff in, so everthing is done on a weekend. Also in the summer months when the breakdown calls start coming in you can easily clock 14hour days and get used to the motorways 1500 miles+ a week isn't unheard of.
Theres nothing that stops you working on fridge if you do a/c it's another string to your bow if anything