Thread: One for the fridgies

Originally Posted by scarry

Powder coated?

All the cages i have seen have been hot dipped galvanised,as per specs,in the tender docs.

Ditto the ones used south of the border

Originally Posted by 4bee

Ah, the olde spend spend spend like your life depended on it. Then we can ask for more next year & be able to justify it.

What could possibly go wrong? Danfoss TEV MOP55? A new one on me. Of course, everything is.

Can't recall that one?

So was the system on 404 Paul?

Originally Posted by scarry

Unfortunately,that seems just like half the AC techs around today.

But they don't wait for the Senior person,they dive in and **** it all up

Our apprentices say that all the other young fellas at tech run pipes for splities and ducted's and that's it.

They just don't get exposed to the wider industry.

And no one seems able to braze anymore.
Even install blokes going by the amount of rod used on joints I see in new installations.

Originally Posted by 4bee

When I was a Service Manager ( AKA Underpaid **** Kicker) back in the 60/70s we would not employ anyone that had worked for PBD, or Army, come to that. We were not a Training Establishment & each Mech had to start earning their keep from day 1.

That was what they had been to some sort of Trade School for to learn & get experience.


They were expected to know what it was all about being "experienced" Tradesmen. That was what the Adverts called for, so if the weren't then No Job.

No idea how to save money, Work ethics & Loyalty to the Employer were next to bugger all & it would take them much longer to do a simple job even if they could do it at all without a Senior Person looking over their shoulder in which case the applicant was superfluous while the SP actually did the job.

Hard? Possibly, but as we did a lot of Country & After hours work, Coolrooms, Freezers, Milk vats etc & travelled all over SA there was no room for "holding of hands" when the bloke was out in a distant Pitch Black Dairy Farm Paddock at midnight & an expensive return visit for the company if he ****ed it up. They had to know what they were doing & correctly.




Ah Happy Days.

We employed an older bloke recently to fill a gap between branches, early 60's and supposedly extensive supermarket experience.
He lasted a week and a half.
Major faux pas replacing a TXV on a case and created a bit of a scene apparently.
Didn't isolate the case properly, only closed the liquid line ball valve, the EPR started to open letting rack pressure back into the evap and yet he tried to continue brazing.

Common sight, this is a 1.375" feed out of an EXV into the distributor on a large DX AC system.
And when I opened it, no nitro had been used.

The second photo is the replacement valve going on.
At least this one shouldn't stick and jam/stop modulating.

[Edit] and I think they'd only used Yellow tip, too.
It was boiling when brazing after unsweating and then brazing the adapter to the distributor.

Originally Posted by rick130

Can't recall that one?

So was the system on 404 Paul?

It was, for the last 3yrs since installed.I recon just luck kept it going somehow,just restricted on MOP kept it going.
The bar manager did say it has never been as good as the other cabinets
We fitted a 404 TX,all good,replaced both evap motors,and cleaned condensate tray.

Real rough job,13 cabinets,six remote condensers,nothing marked.
Condensers on units 30mm from wall,cable tied onto brackets up high out side.Not bolted on,no refrigerant labels anywhere either,some of the food cabinets are on R134a going on the TX and unit models.

All cabinets are Skope rubbish,we have to cut pipes to slide the units out to get to the dirty condensate drains to clean them.The drains block,they fill up with water and blow up the evap fansFantastic design,similar to the old Orfords with the slide in bottom mount cassette unit.

Originally Posted by rick130

Our apprentices say that all the other young fellas at tech run pipes for splities and ducted's and that's it.

They just don't get exposed to the wider industry.

And no one seems able to braze anymore.
Even install blokes going by the amount of rod used on joints I see in new installations.

Correct,thats why the whole industry is shagged,they are just installers,we know some that are fully qualified,but have never seen inside the panels of a split system.
As for refrigeration,well they have absolutely nooooo hope.Had a fridgie ask me the other day why a freezer room has what seems like a drain heater in the drainFFS

When the boys were at Tech,the teacher was a sparkie who had only worked on a building site,had absolutely no idea.The youngest son asked him to explain the wiring on a freezer room,with the old Paragon timer,with fan delays,defrost klixon,etc.Oh,and terminal X,the one that confuses them all....The teacher had absolutely no F'in idea at all

The installers,even putting in commercial refrigeration are using the crimp tools,so they will get no experience brazing.I don't think the fittings will last on Semi Hermetic units,with the vibration,but they don't care,just throw it in,do the Harold Holt,thats the job done.In fact on a recent job a young plumber had a water leak in a plant room,on a 1" pipe.The crimp fitting didn't work,so he had to get one of the older guys from the company to turn up and braze it as he didn't know how too.FFS
We were there, and could have done it standing on our head,but we thought,bugga them.

Thats why they like the electronic TX valve,no brazing in the valve,just braze up the blower tails,push a couple of buttons,fill it with gas,and run away.

Originally Posted by rick130

Common sight, this is a 1.375" feed out of an EXV into the distributor on a large DX AC system.
And when I opened it, no nitro had been used.

The second photo is the replacement valve going on.
At least this one shouldn't stick and jam/stop modulating.

[Edit] and I think they'd only used Yellow tip, too.
It was boiling when brazing after unsweating and then brazing the adapter to the distributor.

Yellow tip?

That looks like a nice blue tip weld.
There was an older supermarket guy when i was an apprentice,he used to do them absolutely perfectly,even upside down.
He was also a bloody good fridgie,did his time at Peters ice cream,back in the day.Taught me a few tricks.
Used to spend a lot of time at the Ferny Grove tavern,and subsequently his license vanished a couple of times so i was the allocated 'driver'
The only thing was he was an absolute perfectionist,so i had to drive 'sensibly',and the van had to be perfectly clean
His van was always the tidiest and cleanest in the fleet,he used to polish the bloody thing.I used to have to brush off my work boots before getting into it.He used to take it to Bathurst every year,with a few mates,clean out the back,sleep in it up on the hill
The thing that did **** him was,because his van was so well looked after,when the lease ran out they would often keep it,so at times he had the oldest van in the fleet

There was always room for the golf clubs in the back as well.We used to do work on milk vats in the Gold coast hinterland,often staying overnight somewhere,it had to be near a driving range.Beaudesert on the way back was the favourite.

Those were the days.