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Meet Chloe

HVAC Technician

Chloe is a refrigeration engineer at Delta T Refrigeration

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What I do

I fix and maintain refrigeration and air-conditioning systems used by industry.

The equipment can be anything from a sandwich display fridge to a cold room the size of a house or a cooling circuit on a laser that cuts metal.

My job is to keep those systems working properly and efficiently and to fault-find when they stop working.

I help businesses to keep operating and protect what they’re storing.

HVAC Technician Chloe, wearing safety glasses and protective gloves, using a screwdriver to work on the electrical components inside an open refrigeration control panel.

How I became a technician

For my GCSEs, I chose French, design technology and statistics, with PE as an extra after-school subject.

I loved design technology, but for my A-levels, I took geography, psychology and economics. Looking back, I probably should have followed the design technology route more.

At the time, university felt like the normal next step, so I went to King's College London and studied geography. I loved the subject and the natural world, but my degree hasn't actually helped me in my career.

How I became a technician

After university, I worked for two years as a Legionella risk assessor. Legionella is a type of bacteria that can grow in water that's sat still in unused water systems, like pipes and showers.

I went around large buildings checking their water systems and writing reports. I liked being out on sites, but I found it quite frustrating telling people how to fix something, instead of just fixing it myself.

I then got a job in water treatment, so I could actually do the work, but after eight years I realised it wasn't the right career for me.

How I became a technician

I moved back home, which meant leaving my community and starting over, almost as if I was 16 again.

I enrolled on a Level 2 course in refrigeration, air conditioning and heat pumps. I did that for one day a week and for the rest of the week I worked with my dad, who is a refrigeration engineer.

I didn’t have much experience – at first all I could do was help organise his van, but I quickly gained the skills and knowledge I needed.

How I became a technician

I also gained my F-gas qualification, which I needed to work with refrigerants, which are the fluids used inside cooling systems.

After that, I did a Level 2 electrical course, where I learnt about electrical circuits and components like control boards, contactors, sensors and control panels. Doing that helped me to diagnose faults in refrigeration systems.

Now, I’m a refrigeration engineer, working alongside my dad in the family business. I have my own van, and I head out to jobs on my own.

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A typical day in my working life

A normal day starts with me heading out in my mobile workshop (my van full of tools and equipment). I arrive on site at about 8am or 9am.

I work in all sorts of different places, like big department stores, coffee shops and factories – anywhere that uses air conditioning or refrigeration.

A typical day in my working life

The first thing I do is ask about the backstory – How long has it been like this? How old is the equipment? Has anyone else looked at it? Then, I diagnose what's wrong.

I use different tools and equipment to understand the health of the system, and I might need to collect a replacement part and come back to fit it.

A typical day in my working life

Once I've fixed the problem, I write a service report explaining what I have done. If there's time, I might travel to another site and repeat the process.

I like that I’m involved in jobs from start to finish, from meeting the customer to getting the equipment working again.

A typical day in my working life

When the job is done, it is done, so sometimes I can head home during the afternoon, which is nice! Other times, I might be called out at 8pm or 9pm, if it’s an emergency and a customer has a large amount of stock at risk.

Summer can be especially busy, and some sites also need work outside normal opening hours.

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HVAC Technician Chloe wearing a hi-vis vest and respirator mask, holding a hose from a gas canister, kneeling underneath and pointing up to a refrigeration unit mounted near the ceiling.

What I love about my job

I love the variety, using tools and being able to physically do the job instead of sitting behind a screen.

I’m happiest when I turn up and I don’t know what’s wrong yet.

I have to work it out with the tools, my hands and the knowledge in my brain. Then, there is a real result at the end.

That feeling of actually fixing something is hard to beat.

The skills I use most

Problem solving is the big one. I can arrive with very little information other than ‘the fridge is warm’ and have to work out the cause.

Practical skills matter too, because I join metal pipework using heat, fit parts and use power tools, so I need to know how far I can bend, cut or tighten something.

Logical thinking helps me understand electrical circuits and plan how pipework and power will reach a new cooling unit.

I'm happiest when I turn up and I don't know what's wrong yet. I have to work it out with the tools, my hands and the knowledge in my brain.
Your journey doesn't have to be linear, there will be highs and lows, but if something isn't right, you'll still learn from it and keep moving.

A little more about my everyday role

The best bits about working in a team

Even though the family business is mainly me and my dad, I don't work in isolation. At our main client's food distribution centre, the vehicle maintenance staff are the people we report to, so I see them as part of our team.

I enjoy working out how different people like to communicate and building trust with them. I also like the confidence that comes from going off in my own van and solving a job myself.

My favourite piece of equipment

My favourite piece of equipment is probably my Milwaukee impact driver. It looks a bit like a drill, but it takes screwdriver bits and lots of other attachments, so I use it for fastening, fixing, nuts, bolts and drill bits.

One day, I used a pointed attachment to make screw holes larger in a fridge panel because the panel had shrunk in the cold and the holes no longer lined up – it's just really versatile.

What I like to do in my spare time

A lot of what I enjoyed as a child has carried into my adult life. I play football for an 11-a-side team on Sundays and I play rugby too.

I also like painting, especially when I've been somewhere beautiful on holiday and can try to recreate the view on a page.

My school days

I always liked practical things. My grandad was an engineer, and I used to love rooting around in his workshop. There are photos of me in my little dungarees in there!

I was also always outside playing sport. And from about the age of 10, I was cutting the grass and I regularly gardened with my granny. I loved being able to look back and see what I'd done.

The most exciting thing I’ve achieved so far in my job

One achievement I'm really proud of is receiving silver in the National Student of the Year Award, run by the Institute of Refrigeration and RAC Magazine, which covers refrigeration and air conditioning. I was one of about 12 people nominated, and the only woman in that group.

Coming from such a small family business, it felt pretty cool to be recognised alongside people from across the industry.

A surprising fact about my job

One of the biggest refrigeration systems I've helped install keeps a cheese-grating room at 2°C. The room can hold around 60 tonnes of cheese.

It gives you a sense of the scale of commercial refrigeration – sometimes, what looks like 'a fridge' is actually a whole room full of food that has to stay at exactly the right temperature.

The next steps in my career journey

I'm still very early in my refrigeration career, about three years in, so I still feel really fresh to it.

Longer term, I'd love to be in a position where I can dedicate some of my time to science, technology, engineering and maths outreach.

I try to say yes to opportunities that help young people see this kind of work, because I think it's so important.

The advice I’d give to someone younger

Follow what you truly enjoy. If there's a lesson at school where you think, I could do this all day, there are probably parts of that subject you should look for in a career.

Your journey doesn't have to be linear, there will be highs and lows, but if something isn't right, you'll still learn from it and keep moving.

HVAC Technician Chloe, wearing safety glasses on her head, working on the components of a large refrigeration unit, in an industrial workshop.
A mean working inside wearing a yellow hi-vis rain coat.

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