Back to basics
IT ' S BEEN A LONG TIME !
By Andrew Perks
ANDREW PERKS
Andrew Perks is a subject expert in ammonia refrigeration . Since undertaking his apprenticeship in Glasgow in the 1960s he has held positions of contracts engineer , project engineer , refrigeration design engineer , company director for a refrigeration contracting company and eventually owning his own contracting company and low temperature cold store . He is now involved in adding skills to the ammonia industry , is merSETA accredited and has written a variety of unit standards for SAQA that define the levels to be achieved in training in our industry .
I occasionally sit and think about all those times in my life where I ' ve thought I will never see the end to some problems – yet we always do , because we must .
Yes , it ' s been a long time since I first started work at L Stern & Co in Glasgow in October 1962 , and oh my goodness , what a journey it has been . Those were the days where we did 5-year apprenticeships , went to night school , and worked 45-hour weeks , all for an initial £ 2.6 pence a week . Yes , you could buy a fair bit with that then .
Think about it – this was the time when the Beatles brought out “ Love Me Do ”– really a different world back then . How the industry has also changed since . L Stern folded in 1969 , and no I had nothing to do with it , they were just a company that had not moved on . Still , as they say , you can ' t keep a good man down , they had some really good engineers , and from the ashes spawned Star Refrigeration , an internationally renowned refrigeration company where incidentally both of my children work in the UK .
I learned a lot at L Stern , and followed up with a stint at Howdens , then Stal before arriving in South Africa in 1974 to work for Grenco . I thought I was top of my game until I was thrown in at the deep end . I remember my first day at the office in Cape Town and was informed that in South Africa you do it all .
Design , sell , project and commission – sink or swim . My first project was the installation of an ice-maker for Spekenham in Bellville , and it ' s still there . I see the condenser whenever I drive past the building . Obviously not operational anymore , but as the site has built up all around it , I suppose it ' s more trouble than it ' s worth to remove .
I ended up in Johannesburg for some time as the contract manager for Grenco . Those were formative years and Grenco was the right place for me to be . I can honestly say that whilst I ‘ knew ’ refrigeration it was at Grenco where I learned it , eventually leaving there as a design engineer . Those were good years .
Since then , I have run my own contracting company , Coldpak , and have built and owned a few cold stores . It ’ s been an interesting journey but something that always troubled me was the shortfall in our industry when it comes to training . Whilst we upskilled a good number of artisans and technicians at Coldpak , the need to add back into the industry was always in my mind .
So , in 2004 I set out to try to recycle some of my hard-won knowledge back into the industry . Working with Hans Damhuis , we developed 14 SAQA unit standards across the industry . I must confess that while we were actively involved in the ‘ Freon ’ industry at Coldpak , anyone that knows me will tell you that my passion has always been Ammonia . So much so that I developed the ‘ Safe Handling of Ammonia unit standard ’ which is currently being taught today . My other passion is safety . There are so many more incidents these days that in all honesty could have been easily avoided if the correct training and procedures were in place .
It ' s time for me to move on again and this will be the last article for the RACA Journal – which is sad in a way since I have been doing these since February 2015 .
However , I am not giving up my drive for safety in the industry . Far from it – we are actively involved in Ammonia site incident response training , so I am moving my contributions onto a publication that is more involved in the straight refrigeration side of the industry .
In future you will find me in the Cold Link Africa publication . I trust that you have all found something of interest in my articles over the years and will continue to strive towards a safer working environment for all . Remember , stay safe ! RACA
Interact Media Defined ( IMD ), owners and publishers of the RACA Journal , would like to sincerely thank Mr Andrew Perks for his dedicated support through his many contributions over the years , and we look forward to his continued participation in another of our publications , Cold Link Africa .
www . hvacronline . co . za RACA Journal I July 2021 41