Airedale builds service team to 40 in its 40th year

Glasgow based, Dougie Miller, joins the service division as one of two engineers covering Scotland.

Service Team Leader, Mark Hargrave, said: “Over the last few years we’ve been growing by around two to three engineers a year, in part due to an increase in demand for planned maintenance but also for retrofit work such as installing energy-saving EC fans and EEVs (Electronic Expansion Valves). We’re also seeing an uptake in on-site rebuild projects where we strip product down and then rebuild it on site. Often this is because of weight, size or other restrictions at the customer’s site. We build and test the product in the normal way, then reassemble it on site to the same high tolerances.”

As well as growth within the M25 conurbation, an area densely populated with data centres, Airedale is also seeing growth in the Midlands, Nottingham and Derbyshire from sectors as diverse as communications and defence to power generation and healthcare.

The team of qualified service engineers is supplemented by six younger engineers at various stages of their four- year service apprenticeship with the British manufacturer, where they build on basic refrigeration knowledge attained at college through practical training at Airedale’s own CITB Construction Skills approved centre, as well as fault diagnostics and resolution in the field.

Mark continues: “As with the wider business, our people retention rates are fantastic. We believe this is a great plus for customers as it means our engineers build in-depth knowledge of customer sites and applications, ensuring systems can be kept at peak efficiency levels.”

Dougie joins Airedale with 16 years’ HVAC experience having worked for Carillion plc and two local specialist refrigeration businesses where he covered Scotland and Northern Ireland.