Air Conditioning Servicing near you

GOV.UK sets leak check frequencies by the carbon dioxide equivalent of the charge, not by the type of building. Equipment containing F gas equivalent to 5 tonnes or more but less than 50 tonnes of carbon dioxide must be checked at least once every 12 months; from 50 tonnes to less than 500 tonnes, at least once every 6 months; at 500 tonnes or more, at least every 3 months. Where an automatic leakage detection system is fitted, each of those intervals doubles, and the detection system itself has to be checked at least once every 12 months.

There is a separate allowance for sealed units. GOV.UK states that there is no maximum period between leak checks on hermetically sealed refrigeration and air conditioning systems unless they contain F gas equivalent to 10 tonnes of carbon dioxide. A single domestic split system typically holds a charge well under the 5 tonne line, which means no statutory leak-checking interval bites on it. That is worth saying plainly, because it is often sold the other way round.

What does not depend on charge size is what happens when a leak is found. GOV.UK is explicit: if you find a leak during a check you must repair it as soon as possible and repeat the test within a month. A system topped up every summer without a leak search is a system paying for the same gas to escape twice.

The individual requirement is the one people know: an engineer must hold their own F gas qualification to work on equipment containing F gas, even when employed by someone else, and the certificates for stationary refrigeration, air conditioning and heat pump equipment are graded, with a category 4 certificate covering leak checking where the refrigeration circuit is not broken into.

The business requirement is the one people miss. GOV.UK states that your company, including sole traders, must be certified by an approved body to service stationary equipment containing F gas operated by others. Certification for refrigeration and air conditioning work is issued by a small number of named bodies, and it is a separate document from the engineer's personal certificate. A one-person firm is not exempt from it.

So there are two things to ask for before a sealed circuit is opened: the engineer's own certificate and the company's certification number. Neither is the same as membership of a trade association, and neither is checked by anyone unless the customer asks.

Since 1 January 2021 the F gas rules that apply in Great Britain have been the retained version of the 2014 EU regulation, with the Fluorinated Greenhouse Gases Regulations 2015 providing the enforcement framework — enforcement notices, and criminal offences for certain breaches and for failing to comply with a notice. Those 2015 Regulations extend to Great Britain, and to Northern Ireland only for import, export and trade with places outside the United Kingdom.

Northern Ireland is covered instead by the EU regulation on fluorinated greenhouse gases that came into operation on 11 March 2024 and applies directly there under the Windsor Framework. DAERA is the department responsible, and it has been working through the offences and penalties that sit under it. The consequence for a householder is small but real: a service contract, a refrigerant specification or a phase-down date quoted from a Great Britain source may not be the position in Northern Ireland, and the department's own guidance is the place to check.

Neither regime is a building control matter. Where the installation work itself needs building control — new fixed electrical circuits, or the energy efficiency requirements for a new system — that is Approved Document L and Approved Document P in England, the building warrant system in Scotland and the technical booklets in Northern Ireland, and it is separate from anything the F gas rules require.

A cooling-only system is best serviced in spring, before the first warm week, because that is when the faults that developed over a winter of disuse surface all at once and engineers are least busy. Leaving it to the first heatwave means joining the queue behind everyone whose unit also failed to start, with no realistic prospect of a part being ordered in time.

A reversible unit used for heating changes the calculation, because it is now working hardest in January and the outdoor coil has to deal with frost and defrost cycles rather than dust. Those systems are better on an autumn visit, with attention to the defrost drain and the base of the outdoor unit, where meltwater refreezes and can lift a fan out of balance. Either way, a system used all year round earns its service more clearly than one switched on for three weeks in July.

The quote moves with the number of indoor units, whether they are wall, ceiling cassette or ducted, how the outdoor unit is reached, whether the visit includes a full chemical clean of the coils or only filters, whether a leak check is being carried out and recorded, and whether refrigerant recovery or recharging is anticipated. A multi-split serving four rooms is four indoor services plus one outdoor. Anything involving the sealed circuit also brings the certification requirements with it, which narrows the field of who can quote at all.

LokalMatch introduces you to firms; it does not service anything. Post the job once with your postcode, saying how many indoor units you have, roughly how old the system is and what it is doing wrong, and air conditioning firms working in your area respond. Using LokalMatch costs homeowners nothing, and pros pay for the requests they receive. LokalMatch does no work, sets no prices and does not vet, rank or recommend the businesses that reply, so asking for the engineer's F gas certificate and the company's certification number is worth doing yourself.