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Morning, Ian.
Morning, Israel. How are you going today?
Yeah, not too bad. How’s yourself?
Yeah, good. What have you got left from yesterday to do? Much?
Yeah. Got them all out of the way. I just need some
more to do today. We’ll just go outside and have a look
My name’s Israel Barker. I’m a refrigeration and air conditioning technician.
We’ve got a job at 1110 Hay Street.
What’s the matter there?
Same problem we had the other day with the chiller so ... OK then.
I think you need to just go and check a few pressures and
just make sure the pumps and things are running like that.
No worries. I can do that.
When we go out on a service call, we’re aware of the problem
but we’re not usually aware of the fault so,
to be fully prepared, we have to take as many tools as we can. Most of the time
we have to unload 80% of the tools out of our van just to do the one single job.
The refrigeration/air conditioning trade’s more like six
trades in one where you really have to be a plumber,
electrical-minded, sheet-metal -minded. You have to know about the building
skills, roof tiling and refrigeration and air conditioning skills on top.
Doing refrigeration and air conditioning, there seems to be a myth that it’s
all about fixing domestic refrigerators. Couldn’t be further from the truth.
I come across quite a lot of large, high-rise buildings
with a lot of office people in there and normally,
I have to go and fix little faults with people complaining about being cold or hot.
The first thing to do is go and talk to the owner, the manager, the
person in charge of the building to find out what the fault is,
to get to the bottom, the nitty gritty so we can sort our job out quicker and faster.
How are you doing, Liam? Oh, not too bad, Israel.
That’s the way. Just got a call that somebody was a bit cold in the building somewhere. Oh, yeah,
Margaret that’s down in the travel area, she’s talking about it being a bit cold down there.
What, down on the ground floor? Yeah, near the Hay Street entrance. All right then.
I’ll go and have a look. Yeah, thanks, matey. No worries.
Our next approach is rather systematic.
We go and find out whether the system is actually working.
If it is working, then we can advance to the next step
and find out what is causing the fault and what
is stopping the system from cooling or heating.
There can be one to a thousand problems wrong with an air conditioner system.
We systematically have to go through and eliminate
each one until we eventually find the cause.
It can be a broken wire in a high-rise building and we have
to find it somewhere from the first floor to the ninth floor.
Through your basic training through your apprenticeship,
you gain the skills to fault find air conditioning systems
and you become used to the air conditioners that you see all the time
but, from time to time, you come across one that you haven’t seen before
and with your basic skills, it might be daunting but you
do get over it and you do manage to fault-find the system.
Ian, good day. Yeah, just finishing up here and then I’ll look in the fridge.
Righty oh, I’ll finish up and I’ll head out there now.
The job is quite demanding and challenging.
Where it can get stressful is when a job can take a little bit longer than usual
and your boss is already on the phone giving you
your next two or three jobs on a 40 degree day
and you’re left pulling your hair out trying to fix the job you’re on as quick as you can.
I found that this compressor has been slightly short on gas.
My first step is to search for that gas leak.
The best way I’ve found to find leaks is by using soapy detergent,
putting it over any possible cause of a leak and a
bubble will protrude and you know you’ve found the leak.
In this case, I found that the bolt was slightly loose, so all I had to do was tighten the bolt
and the seal was good again. I re-tested it. I was happy with it and then I could walk away.
Being able to fix that piece of equipment is quite satisfying. On top of that, when you do leave the building,
if it is in a high rise, you know you’ve gone away making maybe a hundred people’s lives a bit more comfortable.
The dangers of the trade are quite real and they’re there everyday, whether it be working on top of a
ladder with machinery, on top of a high-rise building or with quite high voltages with the electricity.
It is advisable to use safety equipment whether it be goggles, gloves, earmuffs.
You may think you look a bit funny, a bit out of place but it is all worthwhile.
I started in this field quite late at age 22. I had a couple of options in front of me.
I opted for the four-year TAFE apprenticeship.
At the end of that, I found myself with the skills
to be able to gain employment throughout the world.
Being a tradesperson and being able to pass my skills down to an apprentice
may sound a little bit corny but I feel I gain a little bit of immortality.
Since completing my apprenticeship, I’ve recently found that
my skills are in quite high demand around the entire world
which suits me quite well because I’m looking to travel, take a working holiday
and when I come back,hopefully eventually start my own company.