AIRAH thanks the NSW Department of Customer Service for the opportunity to provide feedback on the Practice Standard for Professional Engineers.

AIRAH is Australia’s peak membership body for mechanical engineers working in the heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration (HVAC&R) building services industry.

Our members are those engineering professionals who plan, design, install, commission operate, tune and maintain mechanical machines and systems in the built environment. This includes air conditioning and refrigeration plants, ventilation systems, chillers, cooling towers, fire and smoke systems, fans, pumps and control systems.

We are a strong supporter of registration schemes for building practitioners, including engineers. This is in line with the Shergold-Weir Building Confidence report, which identified the need for such schemes to restore community confidence in Australia’s building and construction industry.

As part of our commitment to the HVAC&R industry and the engineering profession, AIRAH has launched a professional accreditation scheme specifically designed for engineers operating in the HVAC&R building services industry. The AIRAH Professional Engineer Register (APER) accredits professional engineers in the mechanical engineer HVAC&R building services discipline.

The APER accreditation has been designed to meet the requirements in Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales. We are also working with governments in Western Australia, South Australia and the ACT to ensure the APER accreditation supports their schemes.

AIRAH’s responses to the consultation questions can be found below. We would welcome the chance to be involved in ongoing consultations on this topic.