Commercial HVAC UK is a guide to the design, installation and maintenance of VRF/VRV, chillers, air handling units, ventilation and MVHR, commercial heat pumps and planned maintenance for UK commercial buildings. A good contractor sizes systems to a building's real loads and half-hourly data rather than a like-for-like box swap, plans refrigerant transitions properly, and models running cost and electrification honestly.
WHO WE ARE
About us
Published by SEO Dons (SEO-DONS LTD, company no. 16766013). SEO Dons does not install, service or maintain HVAC systems and holds none of the trade accreditations this site describes.
Commercial HVAC guide: how a good contractor designs, installs and maintains VRF, chillers, air handling, ventilation, commercial heat pumps and PPM, sized to your building's real loads. Low-GWP options and honest running-cost figures.
THE FACTS THAT MATTER
What drives commercial HVAC decisions
40–60%
HVAC share of a typical building bill
The largest single controllable energy load
~4:1
Electricity-to-gas price ratio
The honest fulcrum of the electrification case
5 / 50 / 500
F-gas leak-check thresholds (t CO2e)
Annual, six-monthly, quarterly by refrigerant charge
SCOP 2.8–4.0
Commercial heat-pump efficiency
Modelled from your real data, never guaranteed
ACCREDITATIONS & STANDARDS
What to check before you appoint a contractor
Installing, servicing or decommissioning F-gas equipment legally requires company and engineer certification. These are the schemes and standards a commercial HVAC contractor should be able to evidence. Check each one with the issuing body before you appoint anyone, for example on the REFCOM register and the government F-gas certification guidance.
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F-Gas registered
Company & engineer certification (REFCOM / Quidos / Bureau Veritas), renewed 3-yearly
Verify at refcom.org.uk -
BS EN 14511 / 14825
COP / SCOP heat-pump performance standards
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Gas Safe / NICEIC
For hybrid gas plant and electrical works
How the work should be evidenced
Commercial HVAC is easy to sell and hard to verify, so it is worth being explicit about what you should get and hold a contractor to.
A design you can see. The calculated heat load per zone, and the reasoning for the system type. If the answer to "why this system?" is "it is what we usually fit", that is not a design.
A commissioning record with numbers in it. Measured airflows at each terminal, refrigerant charge verified by superheat and subcooling, and the controls configuration as set — not a tick sheet. This is the single best protection against a system that quietly underperforms for fifteen years, and it should be a contractual deliverable.
For the technical background see commercial air conditioning and the full system range; for what things cost see the cost guides.
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