Although many schools for air conditioning and refrigeration are in place today, the industry is crying out desperately for skilled, well-trained mechanics. In checking the number of school graduates who have successfully passed a journeymen's general mechanical examination, the author has found that only a tiny fraction of the people completing a school course of any kind were able to pass a municipal certificate examination without further study. An exception to this pattern is the graduate from the Joint Apprenticeship Schools administered by the United Association of Journeyman and Apprentices of the Plumbing and Pipefitting Industry. As far as this author is aware no schools in the nation can compare with the UA training program for Journeymen General Examination.

The number of air conditioning courses offered in vocational and trade schools throughout the country has proliferated. High schools, colleges, and adult extension courses provide various levels of training, and these are supplemented by a growing number of private technical schools offering either regular classroom training or home study correspondence courses. But the journeyman general mechanical must know much more. Albeit different states and municipalities vary in their certification and licensing programs, usually, a journeyman general mechanical; that is, he must be qualified to perform in air conditioning, refrigeration, heating, and pressure piping trades. And in some areas he must also be qualified to do sheet metal, ventilation and insulation. He must be knowledgeable in gas cooling as well as gas heating, large ammonia systems as well as centrifugals, construction, service and test and balance.

There are many excellent air conditioning mechanics who have little knowledge of pipefitting, many skilled service men who cannot erect a 50-ton cooling tower, many good heating men are unable to perform the test/adjust/balance function on a total environmental control systems, many good sheet metal men who can erect in air handler but know nothing about controls.

Journeyman General Mechanical Examination - Table of Contents:

• Preface
• Introduction
• Part 1 Everything For The Exam
• Part 2 Technical Tables And Formulas
• Part 3 Field Applications Problems
• Part 4 Quizzes And Tests
• Part 5 Answers To Quizzes
• Part 6 Appendix