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Associations
“ Maintenance requires a lot of skill and that ' s SARACCA ’ s current focus – to lift technicians to a high skills level so as to properly maintain equipment whether it ' s a simple air conditioner or a centralised system . Chillers also require a certain amount of specialist training , and there is strong demand for that training . We are about to introduce ammonia training as a collaborative effort involving Hennie Basson , Grant Laidlaw and SARACCA – for which there is also a lot of demand .
“ As a result of these activities , SARACCA today is stable financially and operationally and has grown its membership – though much more needs to be done . When I joined there was only me , and a part-time bookkeeping function which was done manually . Today we have three fulltime employees : an association secretary also looking after the financials ; one for registrations with SAQCC Gas ; and one in charge of membership .”
I also served terms as a board member of Master Builders South Africa and the JBCC while at SARACCA
Richardson lists a highlight of his period with SARACCA as being registration with SAQCC becoming compulsory under law , written into the OSH Act in 2009 . He notes the pressure regulations were updated to specifically state that people working on pressure systems had to be registered as an authorised person .
“ Compliance is not across the board as yet , but policing of this is becoming more stringent with the Department of Labour having recently appointed a further 500 inspectors and asked SARACCA to train them . There remains a lot of resistance to registration , with technicians frequently asking us to register them ‘ quickly ’ when caught out – which we of course refuse , as to do so counters the entire basis of membership .
“ We have a marketing company to drive the registration process through various channels such as advertising and social media .
“ The biggest change in the industry at the moment is undoubtedly the new , natural refrigerants . Soon we ’ re going to have air conditioners with R290 in , and this means the equipment is now designed to be spark and flame proof . Practitioners need to be training in the handling of flammable refrigerants and equipment .
“ A lot of the current synthetic refrigerants are ozone depleting and many contribute to global warming . “ My message to the HVAC sector is to get yourselves qualified , get yourselves up to speed on the pressure equipment regulations , and also be compliant with the SANS engineering standards ,” concludes Richardson . RACA
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RACA Journal I July 2023 www . refrigerationandaircon . co . za