Technical

New and constantly changing legislation can be a headache for many business owners and landlords but it’s important to keep up to date with legal requirements. On this page, we outline some important changes to regulations governing our industry, including those affecting users of fluorinated greenhouse gases – or F gases.

We also highlight our technical accreditations and memberships as testament to our abilities, range of service and quality assurance.

Refrigerants

How F Gas legislation affects you

Users of F gases are now required by EU regulations to follow a number of inspection, monitoring and reporting procedures at specified intervals.

These gases include HFCs which are mostly used as refrigerants in refrigeration, air conditioning and heat pump equipment. HFCs are linked to global warming by building up a layer of insulation, which keeps heat in – rather like a blanket - when not contained. You are now required to use trained staff to do the following, all of which we can help you with:

make regular leak-detection checks
repair any leaks promptly
install leakage detection equipment within units containing 300kg or more of F gases
recover any gases when servicing or disposing of old equipment
provide the necessary paperwork as evidence of compliance with the regulations

More information about this legislation and how we can help you meet your obligations is included in our F Gas Legislation leaflet

Safe handling of refrigerants: HCFCs & HFCs

The F Gas legislation (link to leaflet) relates to HFC refrigerants. HCFCs, which contain chlorine, come under different regulations. HCFCs have high global warming potential by making a hole in the ozone layer if they are released into the atmosphere, and are now being phased out. Meantime, safe handling keeps this risk to a minimum. The current and future position is laid down in European regulation EC2037/2000 which:

has banned the use of HCFCs in all new refrigeration or air conditioning equipment produced after 1 January, 2001
has banned the use of virgin HCFCs in the maintenance of existing refrigeration systems from January, 2010
will ban the use of all HCFCs, including recycled materials, from 2015

All our engineers are qualified, at the very minimum, in the Safe Handling of Refrigerants and to F-Gas certification 2079 all are registered with ACRIB (The Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Industry Board).

Click here for the R22 phase out leaflet

Quality

Quality management & safety

We are very much aware of the importance of quality management and safety. With that in mind, we have invested considerable resources in establishing and maintaining documented quality control systems.

As part of this commitment to quality we have gained registration with REFCOM ELITE, the register of companies approved as competent in the handling and management of refrigerant gases. Similarly, we aim to introduce a number of business improvement schemes involving accreditation. Examples are as follows:

We have developed our own Refrigerant Management Systems manual to ensure the safe management of our refrigerant gases. The manual has been produced in accordance with REFCOM’s requirements to provide a full audit trail of all refrigerant from purchase, storage and use on site to the return of the empty container and the safe reclamation of old, redundant refrigerant.

The system provides each engineer with our policy & procedures within a site-based manual. It includes thorough instructions on how to undertake each task and who is responsible for each stage of the process.

This is a good example of the importance we place on establishing and maintaining documented quality control systems and our plans to work towards other recognised systems such as the ISO 9001:2000 and ISO 14001 accreditation.
Other systems and procedures we have in place enable us to monitor and review performance across all the critical areas of service delivery. These include the monthly reporting of internal Key Performance Indicators for:

Adherence to programme
Adherence to response times
First time fix
Call back to completed jobs
Number of defects
Customer satisfaction
Customer complaints
Results of quality control checks

We also monitor and review our Site Safety Manual which applies to all site-based labour. The manual provides the engineers with our Health & Safety policy and procedures together with our hazard identification system which enables them to make each risk assessment specific to the site they are working on.

Similar monitoring applies to our office-based staff’s Safety Management System which provides every employee with a standard system of safety management to ensure consistency and quality in the way we manage our Health & Safety obligations.

Manufacturer Accrediations

We understand the importance of training our workforce and keeping up to date with technical developments.

Regular manufacturer training is provided as well as general trade and professional training to ensure we keep up to date with industry developments.

We are accredited/approved installers and maintainers of the following equipment:

Daikin D1 Partner Approved Installer	Accredited Installer
Approved Installer

Industry Accreditations

REFCOM

From July the 4th 2009 it will be an offence to install, maintain or service stationary refrigeration, air conditioning and / or heat pump equipment containing F-gases without being F-gas registered. We are proud to advise that we have had full registered status with REFCOM since June 2008 and are fully compliant with the F-Gas regulations.

GAS SAFE

From 1st April 2009 all gas work relating to gas fired heating systems must be undertaken by engineers registered with the Gas Safe Register. The Gas Safe Register has replaced the previous registeration scheme managed by CORGI.

All our engineers are registered with Gas Safe along with the company.