rickmoore1

I have been doing the fifo thing for some time now all over Asia and when i get to these locations i may be there for a month at a time. yes i will be in a big city but i don't talk the language and i never seem to do less than a 12 hour days, with 16 hour days common. so the mine should be some what good as at least i can have a decent conversation in English and they may be boring but when you have time of then its up to you where you go and make up for lost time :-) i see jobs advertised for refrigeration / air conditioning guys to work full time on mine sites taking care of the village sites split air-cons, kitchen equipment, machine water chillers etc is it realistic to expect to be able to get these jobs? has w.a. relay got a skills shortage in these areas? i have seen company's advertising will fly you in and out from any where in Australia this says to me they are having real difficulty filling positions.

Thanks yes i should have said i am 30 years old so that would put me in the range you have suggested. Thanks for the advise all thoughts are welcome. Regards Rick

. Need advise on the mining work in w.a. ? Hi I am just finishing of my visa to come over to W.A. i am a refrigeration engineer by trade working mostly on commercial catering equipment. for the past year i have been working from Thailand flying all over south east Asia training on the equipment my company produces. I am aware i will need to get the Australian refrigeration and electrical qualifications before i can get work and have allowed for 4-6 months sorting this all out. Hopefully i can do it quicker as i have been in contact with the collage that will asses me and give the training required to get the Australian qualifications. I have 10 years experience with refrigeration equipment and a further 6 with electrical and mechanical maintenance i did an electrical / mechanical aprentaship at a lead processing factory in the u.k. before working for a refrigeration company fixing commercial refrigeration systems chillers freezers etc. from this job I have been working as the technical refrigeration engineer for a u.s.a. based company. They manufacture commercial fast food refrigeration equipment. I have been living in Bangkok and working all over Asia in this role. So the question is how much work is there available in these mines in w.a. for a skilled guy? I don’t mind being on site for 4 weeks at a time as I am single so no one is pushing me to go home I can do as I please. I do have a friend that has been working in a mine now for 6 months and he tells me he got a gob in two weeks after he got his Australian qualifications and he was offered 4 jobs the same week. He is now working 4 weeks on 1 off from a mine in w.a. has he been lucky or is there a genuine skils shortage in w.a. and people with skills like refrigeration, electrical, hydraulics etc can almost pick and choose the jobs? Would love some other peoples opinions on this

Hi I have also had to do the IELTS English test even tho I am 28 years old, so I get the maximum points for my age. And refrigeration is a trade that gets you maximum points i fall short of the points score needed as I will be going alone. so I will not get points for my partners age qualifications and a do not have relatives living in oz already. If you wont to double check what the agency have said to you look at the Australian web site and you can find a check list which will allow you to figure out how many points you get for what and then compare your total with what you need to get in (the web site is easy to navigate around with a bit of time even I have figured it out) I am quite pore at English as you can tell from reading this so I did the IELTS test first to make sure I would pass before I spent loads on the practical exam. I took the test in Aston University in Birmingham it was an all day thing, there for around 8.30am and finished for around 6.00pm. I would advise you get a study book on the exam and do some revision first even if you are very competent at English you will need to get familiar with the format of the test to make sure you do not panic in the exam and lose points. You will need to get a grade of 7 or higher in all 4 areas of the exam listening, reading, writing, and speaking. The reading and speaking exams came easy to me and I got my best grades in both. However the writing and listening where harder, the writing I did lots of practice questions and my friend who is an English teacher marked them for mistakes. for the listening I used the C.D. that came with my revision book (Barron’s students’ #1 choice IELTS by Dr. Lin lougheed, Ed.D.) the listening comes quick over a radio on the day and you only get one chance to hear it you then have to fill in the blanks it something like a newspaper article or map, also the answer has to be spelled correctly for you to get the point so this is in fact a reading listening and writing test in one with limited time. Hope this helps Rick

I also have a successful out come so next to apply for the visa and start looking in to this ark license. :biggrin::twitcy:

Nothing yet m8 I have also been checking every day the examiner said around 2 weeks so should be any day now will let you know as soon as good luck

Vetassess test Refrigeration and Air-conditioning review Hi I have now completed my vetassess practical exam for Refrigeration and Air-conditioning so I am posting this to help others who will be doing the test with what happened on the day. Ok first of all the test I did was on the 22-2-2011 at North West collage London not bad to get to, not far from wembley stadium. I rang the collage before the test to ask them about parking and found out that the test would be carried out when the collage was closed for the week so we would be able to use the staff car park in the collage for free. this was very good news as the road side car parking looked limited and with all the tools I had to bring I wanted to be close.(well worth ringing the collage before and asking some questions) tools I took with me electronic leak detector, gauges 404a 134a scale , refrigerant compotator, every day hand tools, solenoid puller, multimeter, vacuum gauge. I also took P.P.E. with me safety boots, gloves, goggles, and wore my work clothes. There were 5 people taking the exam and 6 the day before I think the max number is 6 there was 2 English examiners there that worked at the collage and an Australian from Vetassess. First task was to take some readings from systems we were given I.E. hi side pressure, low side pressure, condensing temp, evaporating temp, ambient temp , how much super heat the expansion valve was producing, and liquid line sub cooling. We then had to reclaim the entire refrigerant from the system and record how much we got out then pressure test with o.f.n. and do a leek test using soap spray then recharge the system and re take all readings for the system. Next I was asked to make up a pipe to the drawing given it had a swage joint a few flared joints on it. When made up we brazed the joins using o.f.n. to purge the pipe work and after cut the joins open so the examiner could see the quality of the joint. Then on to the motors (compressors) I was given 2 motors and asked to test them electrically. The single phase one was fine no fault the 3 phase one had 2 windings shorted together then I had to determine the common start and run terminals of the single phase comp. Then draw how I would wire the 3 phase comp in star and then delta. Then I was given 2 plugs a 13a domestic and a 16a 3phase and a length of wire and asked to wire them up. Next came a air con split system mounted on a upright board I was told there was an electrical fault on it and asked to take a look I did not see it but the examiner told me to look at the capacitor wiring where I then noticed that both wires had been placed on one side of the capacitor essentially making the capacitor out of the circuit. Next I was given a system that was not working the evaporator fan was not working so I chased the wire down to the electrical panel where the wire had been removed from the terminal block.(I was not asked to fix either of the faults only to find them) and last a system that I was asked to record the systems running data the same data as in the first test and find the system fault the fault was with the dryer partially blocked causing bubbles in the sight glass a big temperature difference from the inlet to out let of the dryer and after about 10 minutes some frosting on the top of the dryer. All of the findings were recorded in a small booklet I was given when we started which also outlined the tasks we had to do the examiners where helpful and thank god as I asked more than my fare share of questions. There was all so a few verbal question and answers as we were going along like can you describe the triple vack method. The test stated at 8a.m. and finished at 5.30p.m. Hope this helps some people that are going to do the exam good luck :cute: