Technicians in this trade can legally work on refrigerant-charged equipment which is generally designed to provide refrigeration to a product, cooling to a space or, a combination heating-cooling system which can both heat and cool a space. The equipment can be found in many different types of structures ranging from residential to commercial to industrial to institutional buildings. It explains why ‘mechanics’ of this trade are always on-the-go, bringing their expertise and diagnostic tools to the equipment and not the other way around. This is very different for example, than an automotive mechanic whereby the equipment tends to be brought to them.
The day to day tasks of these highly skilled trade people usually involves installing, maintaining and, repairing AC/R equipment. These jobs can range from something as simple as replacing a dirty air filter to using sophisticated electronic refrigerant detection systems for finding and repairing leaks.
This is designated as a Red Seal trade. Therefore, an apprenticeship must be completed prior to becoming fully licensed but, once licensed you are eligible to work anywhere in Canada. A record of 9000 hours of training must be completed prior to writing a final licensing exam and, those hours are broken down into 720 hours school and 8 280 hours on-the-job. On average, an apprenticeship is completed in a five year time span, after which a mechanic can expect to earn an average wage of $86 000.00 per year.
Complete details on the 313A apprenticeship training standard can be found here:
Yours in training,
TradeMaster Chris.