Insight to a 60+ year career in HVAC&R

Records show that Alan Jaffe has been a member of IRHACE for 60 years, with the real number potentially higher than this… We asked Alan to share what his time in the industry has looked like

Words by Alan R Jaffe NZCE Refrig: LMIRHACE

I first wrote for the IRHACE Journal in December 2008 on how I came to be employed in the refrigeration industry. Extracts from that journal say: “My late father, Jack Jaffe, was a bespoke tailor who had served the well-respected Mr Maurice Paykel, a founding Director of Fisher & Paykel Ltd, and Mr Keith Doyle, General Manager of McAlpine Refrigeration Ltd. This relationship led to my Dad asking these men, ‘What am I going to do with my son Alan?’”

Soon after this question was asked, I recall walking into McAlpine’s Newmarket office and signing my apprenticeship papers. I have never looked back at that decision, and with great satisfaction achieve a well-fulfilled lifetime in the industry.

In 1953 when I started my apprenticeship at McAlpine Refrigeration, I was first employed at their Walls Road Penrose factory making air conditioning and commercial refrigeration systems for specialist environments like hospital operating theatres, telephone exchanges, manufacturing environments requiring humidity, temperature, and clean air conditions.

Running parallel to my time at the Penrose factory I attended Seddon Memorial Technical College and learned the fundamentals of heat exchange principals and such things as Boyle’s Law. Incidentally my tutors were senior management engineers employed by McAlpine Refrigeration.

After a few years at the factory, I moved to the service department where I soon learned to service domestic refrigerators manufactured by McAlpine and carrying the Prestcold label. Out in the field I found myself enduring the rigours of very toxic sulphur dioxide and methyl chloride refrigerants common to the early days of household refrigerators, and often came home with burning eyes and blistered skin on my hands!

A stint serving compulsory military training at Tihoi and Waiouru servicing high pressure compressors was a great experience.

So, there were many highlights experienced when working from 1957 to 1964 as a service technician for McAlpine in Newmarket attending to many systems I helped build at the Penrose factory.

For example, I was part of the industry where there were many office and shop air conditioning systems installed which were adapted from commercial refrigeration componentry. However a massive change occurred when companies like Temperzone, founded in 1956 by the late Eric Kendall, and McAlpine Refrigeration with Fred Needham started the production of Singer Incremental units, Fisher & Paykel and Frigrite.

It was 1962 when the late Jim Hawke introduced Worthington and later followed with iconic brand names like Zonepak and FPE, then Muller NZ Ltd when the late Brian Farmer introduced Seasonmaker. All these products were manufactured units using mass production methods and protected by rigours of strict import licensing.

One should note that McAlpine Refrigeration Ltd was an excellent communicator to their large number of employees and branches, with their publication of Sight Glass. This extract from October 1962:

“Application of Packaged Air Conditioning Equipment” refers to ‘split systems’ being air or water cooled where the latter was often applied running condenser water down the drain, and not through a cooling water tower!”

I have a 1964 record of an air conditioning installation for the Auckland Star building in Shortland Street. I was present when the Penrose-built water chillers were started for the first time… Unfortunately the pipe fitting contractors forgot to tighten the large diameter hoses carrying chilled water down to the air handling units and huge quantities of water severely damaged the huge rolls of newsprint and subsequently delayed the printing of Auckland Star.

McAlpine in the late 1950s imported window type air conditioning units, having brand names like Fedders ex USA and Tempair ex England. Tempair was a subsidiary of the Rootes Group, makers of Hillman and Humber cars who had, during WWII, turned into making tanks for the British Army and designing for military activities in hot climates, thus their development in air conditioning units.

Returning to New Zealand I worked in high-rise buildings using large chilled water air conditioning systems using R-11 refrigerant.

The ductwork systems were designed with dual ducts where hot and chilled air was sent to mixing boxes and then into extensive ductwork. Also common was the installation of perimeter type high-pressure induction units, and low-pressure centre zone ductwork.

The establishment of Temperzone as a significant manufacturer for finned coils, air handling units and associated components is well documented. They were supplemented by other manufacturers producing products with brand names such as Bonaire, Carrier, Cooke, Muller, Remington, York and Zonepak.

Specialist manufacturers and suppliers supported the rapid growth of the air conditioning industry included, Fantech, GEC, Holyoake, Honeywell, Staefa and numerous sheet metal/ductwork factories.

Running parallel to the growth of HVAC were long-established companies active throughout New Zealand designing, installing and maintaining industrial refrigeration equipment into massive freezing works using ammonia refrigerant, associated large cool room evaporators and cooling towers.Oldies will recall names like Sabroe, Hall, Sterne, York, Mycom, and many more!

During these times there were many young boys taking up apprenticeships who later became very successful people in the HVAC&R industry.

Legionnaires disease was not heard of during those formative years – now widely known to be a result of inadequate maintenance procedures associated with water cooling towers in large air conditioning systems.

There was also extensive use of asbestos-type insulation wrapped around chilled and hot water pipework. It was an effective insulation, but a silent killer to many who worked in the HVAC industry – I lost two very experienced engineers from asbestosis.

I witnessed the dropping of a large centrifugal chiller onto the footpath from the top floor of a high-rise building in Shortland Street, Auckland, and in today’s parlance, it was ‘munted’.

Fisher & Paykel Engineering Ltd took advantage of the NAFTA agreement during the mid-70s where refrigerators and washing machines were exported in exchange for the importation of Australian-made products. This included window-type room air conditioners and office water coolers all manufactured in Adelaide Australia by Kelvinator and marketed under well-known brand names – ZonePak, Kelvinator, McAlpine and Supercool. Prior to the importation of these units, some were manufactured in small volumes by Fisher & Paykel in their Mt Wellington factory.

The major air conditioning contractors had for many years huge backlogs of work, since high rise office buildings were being built for entrepreneurial developers, government departments, insurance companies, banks, and public and private hospitals.

Prominent were Fletcher Mechanical Ltd, Fisher & Paykel Frigrite (later Fisher & Paykel Engineering Ltd), A & T Burt Ltd, Cooke Heating Ltd, Chenery Ltd, Aqua Heat, Deep Freeze Projects Ltd and Wilkins & Davies Ltd, and many more, some of which merged into other companies and others lost to the vagaries of underestimating, bad management, recessions, and builders going into receivership.

One must not overlook the growth of specialist consulting engineers, quantity surveyors and their related architects who prospered with the rapid growth and acceptance of air conditining throughout New Zealand.

This is my story of achieving 72 years in the HVAC&R industry.