Latest / The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast / Episode 375. Refrigeration Trends To Expect (What North America Can Learn From The UK) with Brian Churchyard

Transcript

Episode 375. Refrigeration Trends To Expect (What North America Can Learn From The UK) with Brian Churchyard · The Refrigeration Mentor Podcast

• 0:00
  Trevor: Welcome to the Refrigeration Mentor Podcast. We're here at the 2026 a HR Exfo, and I'm here with my good friend Brian Churchyard. How you doing, Brian?
• 0:01
  Brian: Okay. Cheers. Thanks Trevor. Yeah, so my background is I'm born and bred service engineer, refrigeration guy. So the guy on the tools, you know, like yourself going out there two o'clock in the morning, three o'clock in the Saturday afternoon when the sun's burning hot and trying to get everything fixed.
• 0:02
  Brian: It was an interesting one. I mean, exactly to that point, Trevor, that, we have kind of four key sections that we have in the refrigeration site.
• 0:03
  Trevor: Oh, there's so much to learn in the refrigeration and, and that that leads us into like these trends. You know what I mean? Like, I do a lot of these training courses and design courses and we, I see the them coming in and they're like, I don't know, like, what's happened?
• 0:04
  CO2 is, is mainstream. It's a mainstream technology. Yeah. You see that being deployed in quite large numbers now across Europe across the uk. Comes with its challenges, like every refrigeration comes with its challenges. You know, training, skills, experience, knowledge, all of those things, they take time.
• 0:05
  We pretty much need all technology that's available to us to be able to get there. Certainly the clients, customers we, we work with, they have different challenges that they need to achieve, whether it's ESG policies or budget constraints, whatever they might be. So we need to be able to provide them options within the framework of regulatory restriction.
• 0:06
  Like refrigeration doesn't change, but it's these rules and regulations. Pressure reliefs, leak mitigation, all these different things that you're seeing. What are your thoughts on that? Because you, you've s you guys designed tons of a two L stuff, you guys designed tons of CO2 stuff. What is that the, the challenges and the benefits of these new systems for, let's start with the A two Ls for an example.
• 0:07
  It's not something to look at and go, this is flammable, this is dangerous. This is an issue. What you need to do is understand it, become upskilled like any technology, and you need to become, you know, knowledgeable on it. I would say when we talk flammability, lower flammability, yeah, which is the relevance to an A two L is the refrigerant oil in the system's more flammable than the actual refrigerant itself.
• 0:08
  So it's just the different rates that a light at. So all these refrigerators, I've seen flames like four feet come outta pipes before, you know what I mean? A 4 0 4. So. They can, they, they can all catch on fire, but the, the big thing is now it's a lower flammability than those ones, so it can catch it a little bit easier.
• 0:09
  If you are either thinking about a retrofit of this refrigerant, probably it's better to go with a new system. Yeah. On, on an A two L, you, you need to think about, you know, your, your atex rated components, so your spark three components. Yeah. Electrical components. You need to think about where those.
• 0:10
  The big thing is, is just to understand. I had a message on TikTok, I think last week where I did an A two L post or, or posting something and they're like, well, can I. Can I use the lines of a four 10 system for an R 32? So this is residential. You know, I don't know if it was a mini split or not, but I, I wasn't a hundred percent sure.
• 0:11
  Brian: Definitely. And this is about, you know, education up, skill, skills, knowledge, experience and those are the areas where, going back to your points around whether you are service, maintaining or installing the equipment, as we go through this low carbon transition, you need to know more. You need to understand the design elements and the limitations around that as well.
• 0:12
  Brian: it I, yeah, I speak, I've got ex Walmart colleagues that I speak to still often today, and the, it does feel like the challenges that you see in the US certainly see those in UK and parts of Europe as well.
• 0:13
  You know, you've got your emergency outs of hours, weekends, all that kinda stuff. It just seems generationally that it's not of interest and how you attract that next generation, entry level engineering youth is, is becoming a challenge. Every business organization you talk to, whether it's apprentice level, entry engineers, or even existing engineers that, that, that are within the, the marketplace, they're either moving to refrige, guys will be moving to the HVAC sector.
• 0:14
  So it kind of feels like from a skills perspective, the industry is pulling in many, many, they've got many things that are pulling the industry in different directions against this backdrop of this more, more complex environments of technical skills and knowledge. And it's, it sounds a little bit doom and gloom.
• 0:15
  Trevor: One of the main reasons why I got into refrigeration is the, the financial aspect. How much money I could make and like, it, it was, it was so much that, that's why I got into it. A guy told me I could make $50 an hour, and this was 20 years ago.
• 0:16
  That's the reality. The end user group are looking for value. They're not readily going to be, you know, looking at this technology transition and saying, well. You know, this is more complex, more costly, therefore we're gonna put more money into keeping it service and maintained. 'cause they, they have their financial limitations as well.
• 0:17
  Yeah. But you need to work for it and you need to have more knowledge in order to work on all these different systems. And it's probably another example of where things are pulling in different directions that are putting challenges into the sector.
• 0:18
  Where is, is it a, a plumber, an electrician? I don't really know. Yeah, yeah. A fridge engineer. Is that a thing? Yeah. Yeah. And I think at the same time, what's interesting is you think about how much, how many times we interact with refrigeration. On a day-to-day basis.
• 0:19
  Trevor: Oh, we will. And we cons. I consistently see that, like I said, in trainings where people come in and they're new and they haven't, they've only done a few months or a few years and it, and then it's just like they continue to evolve. And how did that train, and then it comes back to training.
• 0:20
  Brian: It does. The access to information now is better now than it, than it's ever been. You know, like you say, it's not a you, you're a great engineer because you've got 30 years of experience and you've hold, held onto that knowledge is that if you can be bothered to go find it, it's there.
• 0:21
  And I think one of the things that I've seen that has been really successful is more technicians having better conversations with their end user to help them understand, not talk about, oh, this is soup eat. This is why it happened. Understand why behind the scenes what's really going on to keep their products safe.
• 0:22
  I'm not talking about being patronizing, but you've gotta understand the language that we use. I mean, engineers, we use letters and numbers in our sector. And, and something that sounds as simple as straightforward to us, to somebody that's never heard it before. It can be overwhelming.
• 0:23
  Trevor: know, I just practice it and just like doing refrigeration where practice put the reps in, put the more reps in the communication, more reps, more reps, more reps, and let, and let's pivot a little bit because we know that these technologies are continuing to evolve and advance and controls continue to evolve and advance.
• 0:24
  So long as they're correctly designed and selected appropriately and installed correctly, it's, you know, these systems do what they're supposed to do. I often, often it's the controls that become a bit of a problem, the complexities around the controls and where we look at, so now data that, that we're developing at the moment with omega Solutions is, is an agnostic control platform.
• 0:25
  Why can't a refrigeration console system be as simple as that and as affordable as that as well. So now data is very much built around being agnostic, being we, we, as long as we know the protocol standard for a system, we can program that in. And then for a very cost effective solution, we can turn it in existing, sort of dumb control of devices into accessible iot remote connected devices at an, at an affordable price.
• 0:26
  And then like before I even left, I could take a look at what's going on, all the temperature, pressure. And I talk to people today and they say, they still tell me they don't have dial in, they can't get into the store, they can't dial out, they can't see what's going on. They have to drive. I, you still have to drive out to the store.
• 0:27
  Brian: Yeah, exactly. And you know, going back to the now data concept is that once we know what the, the protocols are, the back net protocol, Modbus, or whatever that might be, we can effectively connect to those four different devices with individual routers and then bring it on, bring it onto a single platform, and then see everything in one place.
• 0:28
  I have a list of items I can look at. So without that remote connectivity you are gonna struggle, I think. More so now than ever before and into the future and, and having a system where you can go in retrospectively and connect to the existing control platform and create those, turn them into IO OT devices, is, is got to be a way forward.
• 0:29
  If you, if you are reducing the call, the amount of calls. If you have the remote access to be able to deal with something that is very basic as that what you're today doing is saving yourself money as from a business perspective. If you're on a fully comprehensive maintenance contract and you are having to send an engineer on a two hour round trip to close the door, I mean, what a waste of money is that if you're on a fully, so there's financial benefit there as well.
• 0:30
  But I talk to a lot of technicians now that who, or our community, there's like, I love the hours. I wanna work 60 hours a week, you know, because it helps. I'm working, I wanna make some more money, I wanna pay off more bills. And that's one of the advantage of being a technician as well, like. Depending on where you're at, you can work as many hours as you want.
• 0:31
  What's your final thought? What, what's your outlook on, on industry, some, some of the, some of the trends you're starting to see, you know what I mean? Some, what are technicians gonna see over the next, say, three to four years? 'cause we can't even go longer than that, I would say, because regulations are changing so much with pfas and TFAs and all this stuff that we're not gonna get into today.
• 0:32
  You're gonna find it difficult because engineering best practice is relevant to any type of system. Yeah. Design it correctly, install it correctly, maintain it correctly. And it's interesting how well these systems perform. So it's just keeping laser focused from now on the future. Accept things are gonna change, things are gonna develop, enhance, and move forward.
• 0:33
  I've seen it not done the right way at all. Mm-hmm. So it's like getting those, using nert gas when you're brazing, you know what I mean? Pulling the evacuations or deep evacuations, making sure that you, you know, you don't overcharge the system. All these little things that we're supposed to do anyway, which is gonna make it easier in the future for you.
• 0:34
  And everybody's scratching their head wondering where, where it all, where it all went wrong. Yeah. Yeah. At the end of the day. So yeah, it's, it's so important to understand what those basics look like and not just understand what you've got to do, but why you're doing them, because that makes it also more effective.
• 0:35
  Brian: Be excited about engineering. It's an interest. It's, it's an incredibly in interesting job to get into because it's one of the few interest industries where you can be a mechanical expert and electrical experts and electronics experts, a plumbing experts. The list goes on. The, the abilities that you can apply in the refrigeration trade are fantastic.
• 0:36
  Brian: Pleasure, Trevor. Thank you. It's always a pleasure. Okay. And we'll. Meets again on some of those training courses.