F-Gas Regulations

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Does your business use air conditioning, heat pumps, or refrigeration?
If so, you should read this.

The European Union's F-gas Regulation No 842/2006 became law on 4 July 2006. This imposes obligations on "operators" of this equipment from 4 July 2007 that you should know about. More details on ACRIB website and DEFRA Website.

For a one-off charge, we will visit your premises, audit all your air conditioning systems, perform leak tests, provide a report to confirm if your systems use currently acceptable refrigerants, which require the refrigerant to be changed, which require annual leak checks, and confirm your new legal obligations.

If you require any further information on how this may affect your business or refrigeration / air conditioning equipment please do not hesitate to contact us.

F-gases include HFCs, which are the commonest refrigerants in use today.
The Regulation aims to minimise emissions of these gases, which affect global warming if they escape into the air.

User responsibilities.
"Operators" are defined as the people or organisations that have actual power over the technical functioning of the equipment.

The legal responsibility for compliance with the Regulation lies with the operator.

Any equipment small enough to plug in rather than have to be permanently wired is likely to be excluded from the requirements, other than an overall requirement to prevent leakage and to repair any leaks as soon as possible.

In a nutshell...
For stationary refrigeration, air conditioning and heat pump units over 3kg charge (6 kg if hermetic), operators must:

  • Prevent leakage, and repair any leaks as soon as possible
  • Arrange proper refrigerant recovery by certified personnel during servicing and disposal
  • Carry out leak checks to the schedule shown below
  • Ensure that only certified competent personnel carry out leakage checks
  • Maintain records of refrigerants and of servicing - Click here to download a log sheet (gratis)
For non-stationary equipment (e.g. mobile units on trucks) and any other products containing F-gases, operators must ensure that appropriately qualified personnel are used to recover gases, as long as this is feasible and not excessively expensive.

Leak checking schedule.
The leak checks must be carried out according to the procedure laid down by the Commission in October 2007. The schedule for leak checks varies depending on the amount of refrigerant in the system, as follows:

  • At least annually for applications with 3kg or more of F-gases (unless the equipment is hermetically sealed and labelled as such, in which case the thresholds is up to 6kg).
  • At least once every six months for applications with 30kg or more of F-gases
  • At least once every three months for applications with 300kg or more of F-gases
  • Leakage detection systems must be installed on applications with 300 kg or more of F-gases, and when these are in place, checking requirements are halved
  • If a leak is detected and repaired, a further check must be carried out within one month to ensure that the repair has been effective.

Maintenance and servicing records.
Operators of all stationary systems containing 3kg or more of F-gases must maintain records including

  • Quantity and type of F-gases installed, added or recovered
  • Identification of the company or technician carrying out servicing and details of the Operator
  • Dates and results of leakage checks, specifically identifying separate pieces of equipment containing 30kgs or more of refrigerant.
And Finally... It is the operator's responsibility to ensure that the relevant servicing personnel have obtained the necessary certification, which shows that they understand the regulations and are competent. More info here.

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