I'm Learning how Air Conditioning Works

After dinner we walk down to the waterfront to a Boat Club. It’s very dark, not many street lights and the moon shines through the palm trees. There are a lot of natives walking in the streets. They say, 'Good Night masta', as they pass us and smile. The people of Rabaul are much more friendly than the native people in Port Moresby or Lae. Ted tells me that Rabaul is one of the safest places in New Guinea. 

We have a few drinks at the club and Ted befriends an Australian traveling salesman who is staying in Rabaul for the night. 'I’m from England', Ted proclaims. The salesman looks at him suspiciously, 'Really'? he says. I wonder why is he pretending to be English instead of American? I guess he must have his reasons. I can also see that our new found friend doesn't believe him.

Ted knocks on my door at 6.30 in the morning. We’re having breakfast at the hostel and drive off to the first job. It’s in the Administration Building in town.

Mechanical Switchboard

It’s only 9 o’clock but already it is very hot and humid. The plant room is big, has a very large switchboard, four compressors and an enormous air handling unit. My job is to service the switchboard, that means I have to tighten all the electrical connections, check all the operational functions of the various components and clean up any dust. Ted’s job is much more elaborate. He has to check the refrigeration system, which involves a lot of opening and shutting of valves of the refrigeration circuits.

When I first started work at Carrier Air Conditioning as an electrician, I didn’t know anything about air conditioning I just wired switchboards to diagrams, and tested them after they were wired. And still I didn’t know if they worked properly. I didn’t know what the functions were or what they did. For me as an electrician that was not important, as long as the switchboard worked.

Now, that I’m here in an actual working plant room I start to look around and observe Ted. My switchboard job is done within an hour so I ask Ted if I can help him. 'Not really' he says, so I just observe him what he is doing and ask him questions like what does this do or that?

Ted looks pleased that I’m interested and explains in great details how everything works, how the refrigerant liquid expands at the Thermal Expansion Valve, how the condenser turns the hot gas back into liquid and how the compressors pump the whole lot round and round. It’s fascinating. We climb into the actual air handling unit through doors. It’s nice inside, very windy but cold, about 16°C, in no time my clothes are dry from perspiration. It feels great.

Ted shows me the innards of the unit, the fan that supplies the cool air into the three floors of the building. The fan is very large, taller than me. Ted tells me to be careful not to be sucked into the fan. He shows me the evaporator coils where the cold gets picked up by the air moving over it  to be delivered into the occupied areas, it is all fascinating.

It takes us the whole day to finish the service at the Administration building, checking everything, cleaning and leaving the plant room in a spotless condition. It’s easy work, I love it.