William Lane is a Director/Owner of Air-Con-Tech P/L, a company active in the setting up and commissioning of Mechanical Services and Air Conditioning Systems.

Bill started his career in the industry by completing a plumbing apprenticeship with the formal section of training at the Preston Institute of Technology and became a licensed MMBW plumber.

He has won various awards and completed a Heating & Ventilation and Refrigeration & Air Conditioning course. He further broadened his technical skill base by studying as a Refrigeration Mechanic and qualifying for a State Electrical Commission of Victoria "D Licence".

A highlight of Bill's achievement was in the presentation of a technical paper at the Clima2000 world congress in Naples, Italy on the "Commissioning of Air Conditioning systems".

He also has undertaken a study course with the National Environmental Balancing Bureau (NEBB) and became a certified NEBB supervisor.

Bill's activities within the AIRAH organisation have included:

1) AIRAH Victorian Committee
2) Past convenor and active member of the Commissioning & Balancing S.I.G.
3) Preparing of two Technician Guide's for publication (VAV Systems & Hydronic systems).

His vision and understanding of AIRAH's role within industry is that of a leader in the dissemination of knowledge to all who want to learn. As the past convenor of "Commissioning and Balancing", he see AIRAH's role slightly different to the "father of the institute", Fred Goodman, where the focus was on engineers joining the institute. He is in total agreement with one of our past national president's Mr Ray Cooper that any member "irrespective of their academic achievements" can be a competent person for our industry and also have something to contribute to our industry.

As technology is advancing in leaps and bounds, Bill feels that it is AIRAH's role not only to train engineers but also the commissioning technicians, with the benefits in the future being:

• To help raise the working standards of technicians via training.

• To ensure the person doing the job can understand the design intent of the air conditioning system as designed by the engineer.

• To provide a working document on all aspects of commissioning in layman's terms to help the commissioning technician do the job correctly the first time around.

• By training technicians, we not only raise the standard of workmanship but we also make the employee more efficient for the employer.

Another way in which AIRAH, could be more user friendly would be for it to expand its social role activities, becoming an organization in which members and partners could periodically meet and get to know each other.

He sees Commissioning as playing a very important role in the future of the HVAC&R industry.

His thoughts wander into the future as to the service provided by Institutes like AIRAH and the type of information that is disseminated to whom and by whom. He is interested in energy conservation and whether we hand the world, as we know it today, to the next generation of children in a better condition than the way we received it from the previous generation.

He feels that very little is done to fully utilize the energy from the sun, and that it is easier to use refrigerants to provide the heat transfer median to maintain room comfort conditions.

He envisages that AIRAH's role in the future would actually encompass the whole spectrum of the Air Conditioning & Heating Industry incorporating:

1. Engineering- Mechanical

2. Engineering- Sound & Vibration

3. Engineering-Lighting

4. Engineering-Energy Conservation

5. Commissioning of Air Conditioning to be appreciated for what it is, a means of fulfilling the design intent of the mechanical engineer to achieve what is up to now the theoretical conditions that can be maintained. As this person can either enhance or detract the actual working conditions of the system, and also add extra running cost $ due to inefficient energy conservation.

6. Training of the service technician to enhance the optimum performance is achieved from the equipment being maintained.

He also sees that the electric car would have reached its potential and be in widespread use with parking stations offering car battery recharge whilst people are at work.

He also envisages that better use of solar energy and the usage of heat sinks would be more widely used in an effort to conserve energy.

1. The use of a channel or ducting arrangement buried say 5 metres underground and rising up out of the ground away from the house and also into the house with a fan attached to draw the air into the ducting and in turn provide cooling to the home, but then again there is another method that would not require the installation of the fan, by installing relief vents in the roof to allow for the natural convection current to move the air into the house due to the fact that the hot air will rise and cooler air will in turn replace this air.

2. The use of heat sinks to help store energy from the sun to provide the heating requirements of an evening should it be required, this can be crushed rock buried under the home or the use of a pond to absorb the energy during the day then covered of an evening to retain the energy. Another method used to provide heating of a night is the use of 44 gallon drums filled with water and placed in the enclosed patio so that when night comes the room is closed to the outside and the energy from the water is released as heat to the home.

For AIRAH to grow it needs to provide not only a service to its members but also provide a service to the community as a body that also cares about the effect that Air Conditioning of offices and homes have on the environment.




 

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