Commercial Heat Pump Maintenance in the North East & Yorkshire

Commercial heat pump maintenance keeps the heating and hot water in your building running, keeps your F-Gas records in order and catches faults before they close a room, a ward or a kitchen. We maintain, repair and install heat pumps for businesses across the North East and Yorkshire, and we quote each site on its own systems and needs.

This post explains what planned maintenance covers, how F-Gas leak checks work, and how we put a quote together. For an overview of our installation and repair work, see our heat pump installation and repair page, or get in touch to arrange a site survey.

Who we work with

Our commercial customers run buildings where heating and hot water can't simply stop:

• Facilities managers looking after several systems or sites
• Landlords with heat pumps in flats, offices or let commercial units
• Schools, where maintenance needs to fit around term times and the school day
• Care homes, where residents rely on steady heat and hot water
• Offices that need the building comfortable from the moment staff arrive
• Hospitality, from guest houses to pubs and restaurants, where a cold room costs bookings

Our home servicing plans are not for commercial properties. They are for homeowners with air source heat pumps. Commercial maintenance is quoted separately for each site, based on the systems you have.

What planned maintenance covers

Planned maintenance means each system is visited on a set schedule, rather than waiting for a breakdown. We arrange visits around your opening hours, so the work doesn't get in the way of staff, pupils, residents or guests.

A typical maintenance visit on a commercial heat pump includes:

• Cleaning and inspecting the outdoor coils and fans, clearing debris and checking airflow
• Checking condensate drains and the defrost operation
• Checking the refrigerant circuit for signs of leaks
• Checking electrical connections
• Checking system pressure, expansion vessels, pumps, valves, filters and strainers
• Testing the system water, glycol or inhibitor
• Reviewing controls, schedules and flow temperatures against how the building is used
• Checking hot water cylinders and their safety valves
• A written report for each system, with recommendations

The controls review is often where a commercial building gains most. Heating schedules set when the building opened rarely match how it is used years later, and a heat pump heating an empty building is money wasted.

If you'd like to see the full list of checks in more detail, our post on what a heat pump service includes goes through each one.

F-Gas leak checks and record keeping

Heat pumps contain refrigerant, a fluorinated gas. Under the F-Gas rules, many systems need regular leak checks by a certified engineer, and the operator of the equipment needs to keep records of those checks and any work done.

How often a system needs checking depends on its refrigerant charge, so the right interval varies from one system to the next. Some smaller systems may not need a legal leak check at all. Part of our job is to work out what applies to each of your systems and build that into the maintenance schedule.

Our engineers are REFCOM registered for F-Gas work. On each visit we can:

• Carry out leak checks on systems that need them
• Record the checks and any refrigerant work in your records
• Repair leaks and recharge refrigerant circuits where needed

Keeping the records with the person who does the work means fewer gaps when someone asks to see them.

Fault finding and repair

When a commercial heat pump goes wrong, the cause can be on the refrigerant side, the water side or in the controls. Many heating engineers can only work on the water side. Our engineers have worked on refrigeration and air conditioning for more than 30 years, so they understand the whole system and can trace a fault wherever it sits.

We repair heat pumps whoever installed them, including:

• Error codes and units that lock out
• Low pressure, leaks and air in the system
• Outdoor units that ice up and won't defrost
• Noisy fans and compressors
• Refrigerant leaks
• Poor heat output or running costs that have crept up
• Faults with the controls

We explain what we've found and agree the repair with you before doing the work.

One contractor for heat pumps, air conditioning and refrigeration

Most commercial buildings have more than one kind of cooling or heating plant. A school might have heat pumps and air conditioning in the server room. A care home or a restaurant might add cold rooms, fridges and freezers in the kitchen.

We look after all three:

• Heat pumps: installation, maintenance and repair
• Air conditioning: repair, servicing and installation
• Commercial refrigeration: 24/7 repair, maintenance and installation

One contact means one schedule, one set of F-Gas records and one number to call. Because we are also Gas Safe registered, we can cover hybrid systems that pair a heat pump with a boiler.

Commercial heat pump installation

We also design and install heat pumps for businesses. We are MCS certified and a Daikin Approved Installer. An installation starts with a survey of the building and how it loses heat, so the system is sized for the way it is actually used. Once it is in, we can look after it under the same maintenance arrangement as your other systems.

How a quote works

Every site is different, so we don't use a fixed price list for commercial work. Instead:

1. Tell us about your systems. A list of the heat pumps, air conditioning and refrigeration on site helps, with makes and models if you have them. If you don't have a list, we can build one.
2. Site survey. An engineer visits to see each system, how it is installed and how the building is used.
3. Proposal. We send a written proposal that sets out each system, how often it will be visited, what each visit covers and which F-Gas checks apply.

What drives the cost is the number and size of the systems, how easy they are to reach, how often they need visiting and whether you want maintenance to happen outside opening hours.

Areas we cover

Our engineers work from ATE House in Carlin How, near Saltburn-by-the-Sea, and an office in Whitby. We cover businesses across Tyne and Wear, Northumberland, County Durham, North Yorkshire and East Yorkshire.

Arrange a site survey

To talk about maintenance for your building, contact us with details of your systems and we'll put a proposal together. You can also read more about our commercial heat pump work, or call 01287 281014 or 07931 908711. Our office is open Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm.