Air Conditioning Inspections – An Urgent Reminder
The EU and UK Government have introduced additional Air Conditioning Inspections. These are in addition to the F-Gas checks and are not part of or covered by regular service visits.
ACS Group Maintenance Ltd have announced they are contacting all of their customers to remind them that the Department for Communities and Local Government have introduced new regular inspections for air conditioning systems – and these inspections have to be made by an independent accredited energy assessor – and are not part of most annual maintenance agreements.
Spokesperson for ACS, Rebecca Wheeler, explained, “The purpose of this new report is to determine the energy efficiency of plant and equipment and is designed to improve efficiency and reduce the electricity consumption, operating costs and carbon emissions. Energy inspections will highlight improvements to the operation of existing systems or opportunities to replace older, less energy efficient systems or over-sized systems with new energy efficient systems”
“From the 4th January 2011, it is the legal responsibility of site managers or owners responsible for air conditioning equipment with an output of more than 12kW, to arrange for an independent inspection carried out by an energy assessor.”
“In order to ensure ACS Group Maintenance Ltd customers comply, ACS have partnered with a UK network of accredited energy assessors who will provide a completely independent report. Further information can be obtained about this facility by sending an e-mail to: inspections@acsgm.co.uk.”
“ACS will e-mail full details of your specific obligations under the Regulations together with associated costs. Due to very high call volumes regarding this matter at present they have asked customers and anyone seeking more information to use this e-mail facility.”
If you do not currently have a service agreement and would like to use ACS Group Maintenance Services, then contact them using the same email: inspections@acsgm.co.uk.
Rebecca Wheeler went on to say, “We urge you to take note of this reminder and be certain of your obligations under the Regulations, we do however, aim to support all of our customers in this respect. To put this new European and UK government legislation in perspective, since the coalition came to power they have cancelled a number of ‘green schemes’.”
“The air conditioning industry and associated authorities recognise there are not enough qualified inspectors to visit and inspect the hundreds of thousands of sites in the country. The cost of the inspections appear to start from £450, going up to the £thousands. The fine for not having one is currently £300. As far as we can see this report is for advice that does not have to be acted upon.”
“When the new EU F-Gas regulations were implemented, a similar situation occurred but it should be noted that to date, none of our customer base of approximately 3000 sites have had their F-Gas regulations checked, none of the sites with over 250kW of equipment who have paid for and had their inspections have been checked and our registration as an F-Gas compliant contractor has only ever been looked at by our own governing body. “
