Water chiller serviceand maintenance specialist, Coolmation Service Ltd, a division of the Coolmation Group, is investing heavily in training itsservice team which is required to support clients’ chillers regardless of make or capacity, in both industrial and HVAC applications. This now includes support for the latest generation of chillers incorporating the revolutionary Turbocor oil free centrifugal compressor. Such continued capital expenditure comes at a time when many employers, especially in the construction industry, are cutting training budgets to weather the recession.

However, according to Coolmation the phasing out of R22 and the introduction of the F-Gas Regulation is leading to a boom in work for service engineers. As a result Coolmation Service is undergoing a phase of continuous expansion and is recruiting new engineers to meet the growth in demand.

“At Coolmation we believe it is essential to both take on apprentices and develop our existing engineers. This is particularly important in recession to retain the good staff you have and to attract the best recruits,” explains Martin Poyner, service director, Coolmation Group.

“During this phase of expansion we have been recruiting service engineers but unfortunately we have been struggling to find enough good candidates. As a result, we are happy to take on good trainable recruits from a general refrigeration, as opposed to a specific chiller background,” adds Martin Poyner.

As part of its current training investment Coolmation pays for all its service engineers to take City and Guilds 2079 the latest refrigerant handling certificate. In addition, as Coolmation Service is part of the Coolmation Group, the exclusive distributor for low energy ECA approved and Eurovent certified Rhoss chillers, Coolmation’s service engineers are also taken to Rhoss’ factory in Italy for training on their particular chiller ranges, including specialist training on the new Rhoss Turbocor compressor chiller series. This allows the service engineers to be trained on chillers in “real life” situations within the Rhoss temperature controlled Eurovent certified test laboratory, one of the biggest of its kind in Europe, to ensure they are fully equipped to resolve any trouble shooting issues that occur in their day-to-day work.