AIRAH announces new HVAC&R course

AIRAH is developing a new HVAC&R training course aimed at providing graduate mechanical engineers with practical HVAC&R training in a building services environment.

The course will cover essential HVAC&R knowledge for graduates who are employed in consulting or contracting firms but have had little exposure to the HVAC&R industry before leaving university and joining the workforce.

The initiative has been driven by AIRAH’s strategic aim to ‘close the skills gap’, and its work around defining career paths for building services engineers, says AIRAH CEO Phil Wilkinson, M.AIRAH.

“Our industry has been crying out for something like this for the longest time: a definitive postgraduate training course for those entering the industry,” Wilkinson says.

“So to say this initiative is one of the most exciting developments in our industry training in years is no understatement.

“Many engineers, including myself, stumble upon HVAC and refrigeration engineering almost by accident after they graduate from a university course that might only provide a basic introduction.

“Now, with AIRAH’s graduate training initiative there will be a comprehensive introduction to an industry that happens to be pivotal to our society’s health and full of exciting career opportunities for those who work in it.”

AIRAH Education Manager Carolyn Hughes is the initiative’s project manager. “Graduate mechanical engineers often have very little - if any - knowledge of our industry until they are employed in it,” she says. “The need for this course has existed for a long time and AIRAH is now working to meet that need.”

As with AIRAH’s other graduate courses, the new course will run for approximately nine months, separated into two semesters.

The content will be delivered online, with 100 hours’ worth of topics divided into four key areas: Fundamentals; Equipment and Components; Systems; and Practice and Performance. The first pilot topic in the Fundamentals group - the three-hour ‘Introduction to HVAC&R’ - is set to be tested in November, with the complete course slated for April 2015.