Overhauls on Reciprocating compressors on packs

[Mark]

Hi All

I was having a discussion the other day on when to examine cylinder heads on reciprocating compressors for routine inspection, i believe the ball part figure is 10,000 to 20,000 hours.
What are other peoples opinion on this subject .

Regards Mark

[spacemanmark]

Hi Gents

Firstly let me introduce myself, my name is Mark Woods and I am the Technical Manager for Space Cooling Systems in Bristol.

I have read this forum with avid interest over the last months and enjoy the discussions and feel that I know most of you personally as I can relate to the problems you encounter and the solutions you employ.

I am glad to see a section on supermarket refrigeration as this sometimes tends to be a poor relation to the industry, probably due to it also tends to have the lowest skill set.

Further to Marks question on Recip Compressor overhauls the Hall's, Sabros and larger carrier machines tend to have a yearly inspection and a 20000 hour strip down. As for the smaller/ retail compressors, the few that still have recips and the ones that actually carry our maintenance have a yearly pump test. However, most would insist that the compressor be replaced given the cost of a reman over the cost of the engineering labour, that is if you can find someone with the required skills and the time available?

[Mark]

Mark i take it your having problems finding REFRIGERATION engineers who will work in supermarkets .
Or do you have supermarket engineers with tunnel vision

Regards Mark

[Mark]

I am glad to see a section on supermarket refrigeration as this sometimes tends to be a poor relation to the industry, probably due to it also tends to have the lowest skill set.

I think this is a big assumption to make

Lets not assume anything about anyone!

However, most would insist that the compressor be replaced given the cost of a reman over the cost of the engineering labour, that is if you can find someone with the required skills and the time available?

you must be short of refrigeration engineers working in supermarkets.

[spacemanmark]

Hi mark

The problem as I see it lies with most of the major end users in the retail market that feel that they don't require a refrigeration engineer to carry out their work, My lads will love me for saying it but most supermarket engineers are not refrigeration engineers.

The industry sells it self very short in the supermarket arena and the end result is a short of skilled engineers, training programs and apprentices.

The days of attending site fixing the problem and moving on to the next have gone, customers require ETA's, KPI's, Fault Codes, Root Cause Codes, Fix First visit stats, Non- Trading Case Stats and full management reports, all these are now an added burden to the engineer.

Technology has provided mobile phones, mobile data, trackers and sat nav all at the burden of the engineer.

If only being a refrigeration engineer is all that is required most would have the skills to carry out the work required of them.

Mark don't get me wrong I love the industry and would not want to do anything else........................perhaps it’s just been one of those days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[WebRam]

customers require ETA's, KPI's, Fault Codes, Root Cause Codes, Fix First visit stats, Non- Trading Case Stats and full management reports, all these are now an added burden to the engineer.

Mark, I hear you dude.

most refrigeration engineers in the supermarket trade are now driven by managers who have no idea about refrigeration and look only at their laptop with all their little figures and pie charts explaining as you just said, ETA, KPI first fix yada yada. Most if not all of this though, is driven by the supermarkets wanting a bigger and bigger profit margin. Unfortunately its the business we are in and thats the reality of it

[spacemanmark]

Hi Paul,

The skill level at Space is higher than most commercial refrigeration companies of our size, and as the technical manager engineering training lies at my door and for that very reason I am self critical about the engineering standards.

Yes, we have offered a scheme that will reward engineers extra for carrying out every thing over and about fixing the fridges. We do see it as a burden for engineers.

Let’s not continue this discussion on this forum, drop me an email, standard space format, and we can chat more regarding ongoing engineer training pass NVQ.

Kind regards

Mark

[spacemanmark]

Hi Marc,

Yeh, its a long story, but I know Richard through another forum and a friend of a friend wanted me to look at a water chiller for them, It was a tad warm last summer and I was a little busy, passed your number on to see if you were available. Hope you did not mind?

We have shed loads of commissioning work coming up this year, would you be interested? Richard has my number give me a call.

Kind regards

Mark

[Peter_1]

What's Space?

[Mark]

Hi all

Certainly the engineers who work at coldservice in my region ,and others can and do carry out repairs to recips.
Whether it be on a pack,c/u,integral,chiller,icemaker etc etc my point is that myself and many of my collegues can work on a variety of equiptment and whatever fashion the industry follows with compressor types there will allways be a time when your knowledge is used.
Certainly a big part of our job is finding out why the equiptment failed in the first place,contrary to contract size and time allowances etc etc etc.Of course there are other issues to consider but you have to set yourself a standard to adhere to.

Kind Regards Mark