Why you must use an F-Gas registered installer

F-Gas registration is not a nice-to-have badge. It is a legal requirement for any company that installs, services, repairs or decommissions air conditioning, refrigeration or heat pump equipment for other people in the UK.

The refrigerant that moves heat around inside an air conditioning system is a fluorinated gas, often shortened to F-gas. Because these gases are powerful greenhouse gases if they leak into the atmosphere, UK law sets strict rules on who can work with them.

Under the gov.uk guidance on F-Gas company certification (opens in a new tab), a company, including a sole trader, must hold certification from an approved body to install, repair, maintain or decommission stationary air conditioning equipment owned by someone else. Separately, every individual engineer who physically works on that equipment must hold their own personal F-Gas qualification. It is against the law to carry out this work without both in place, and a company or individual without the correct certification can receive a civil penalty.

We are F-Gas REFCOM registered, with the registration number REF1022701. REFCOM is one of the approved certification bodies named in the gov.uk guidance, and our registration is listed on REFCOM's own public register (opens in a new tab), so you can check it independently rather than taking our word for it.

The refrigerant used in modern air conditioning, including the R32 used in every system we fit, is a fluorinated greenhouse gas. R32 has a lower global warming potential than many older refrigerants, but it is still classed as an F-gas, which is why handling it, recovering it and preventing it from leaking into the atmosphere are all covered by law rather than left to good practice alone.

An F-Gas company certificate is only part of the picture. Each individual engineer also needs their own personal qualification, and UK guidance sets out four categories depending on the work involved:

• Category 1 covers the full range of work: installing, servicing, maintaining, checking for leaks, recovering gas and decommissioning systems.
• Category 2 covers installing, maintaining, servicing and recovering refrigerant from smaller systems, generally those containing less than 3kg of F-gas (or less than 6kg if hermetically sealed).
• Category 3 covers recovering refrigerant only, from the same smaller systems.
• Category 4 covers checking equipment for leaks without opening up the refrigeration circuit.

Most domestic wall-mounted systems, including everything on our price list, fall well within the smaller refrigerant charge categories, but the point of asking about qualifications is the same regardless of category: the engineer in your home should be able to show they are entitled to do the specific job in front of them.

Before booking any air conditioning company, you can check their F-Gas status in two ways:

1. Search the REFCOM register by company name or postcode. It is a free, public search.
2. Ask for their F-Gas certificate number directly and keep a note of it with your paperwork, alongside the engineer's name, in case you need it for a warranty claim or an insurance query later.

Manufacturer warranty terms vary by brand and model, so we always recommend checking the specific terms that come with your system rather than assuming one blanket rule applies. What is consistent across every brand is the legal requirement itself: the law applies to the installer, not to a particular manufacturer's paperwork.

Registration is a useful filter, not just a legal box to tick. A company that maintains F-Gas certification has to keep records, handle refrigerant safely to avoid leaks, and renew its certification periodically, which is a reasonable proxy for a company that takes the technical side of the job seriously. It will not tell you everything about an installer's customer service, but it does tell you they are legally allowed to be doing the work at all.

Every air conditioning installation we carry out is completed by F-Gas registered engineers, from the free survey through to commissioning. You can see our current fixed prices for each brand and size, and if you are fitting more than one room, our multi-room air conditioning guide explains how a single outdoor unit can serve several rooms, still fitted and commissioned to the same F-Gas standard.