Climate Squirrel Air Conditioning

Where the line falls, and why we are putting it on the page

The electrical half of an air conditioning installation — the load assessment, the supply, the dedicated circuit and its protective device, the isolators, the containment, the board work and the certification — is what we do every day of the week as an NICEIC Approved Contractor.

The refrigerant circuit is the other half, and it is governed separately. Connecting into it, pressure testing, evacuating, releasing the charge, commissioning, servicing and decommissioning are restricted work. That part of your job is carried out by an F-Gas certified engineer.

A great many websites blur those two halves into one confident sentence. We would rather set it out plainly, because it is the thing that decides who is legally allowed to touch what on your job — and you are entitled to know that before anyone quotes you, not after.

Why Climate Squirrel sits alongside Solar Squirrel

Because of when it runs. Air conditioning draws its heaviest load on hot, bright afternoons, which is exactly when an array is producing most. Of all the things a building can be asked to do with its own generation, cooling is close to the best-matched there is.

That also changes the sensible order of operations. If there are panels on the roof, or panels on the list, the moment to think about a cooling load is while the system is being designed — not after somebody has bought a unit and discovered the supply will not carry it.

It is the reason Climate Squirrel sits under the same roof as Solar Squirrel rather than on a generic cooling site. The question that decides your job is an electrical one, and electricians are what we are.

The question to settle before anybody orders a unit

Can the supply and the board actually take it? That is answerable in an afternoon, and it is the single thing most likely to derail a job if it is left until the equipment is standing in the hallway.

We look at the incoming supply and what headroom is left once the oven, the shower, the kettle and everything already on the board have had their say. We look at whether the consumer unit has a spare way and the right protective device — and whether it is a board with anywhere left to go at all.

On plenty of houses the answer is a straightforward yes. On some it is that the board needs work first, and that is a far better thing to hear before you have committed to equipment than on the morning it arrives.

What the electrical work actually consists of

A dedicated circuit, sized for the load and for the length of the run, with the correct protective device and RCD protection. Local isolation for both the indoor and the outdoor unit, so that whoever works on it next can make it safe without switching off half the house.

A fused connection unit where one is called for, and a supply for a condensate pump where the position needs one. Earthing and bonding checked rather than assumed. Containment and cable routes planned so the finished job does not look like an afterthought stapled to the outside of a wall.

Then it is tested, and you are issued an electrical installation certificate for the circuit we have installed. That certificate covers our work. It does not cover the refrigerant side, and nobody should ever tell you it does.

Where our half of the job stops

The part of this job that is ours is the electrical work and the first fix: mounting the indoor and outdoor units, running the pipework and the cable between them, and leaving the system ready to be commissioned.

What we do not do is open the refrigerant circuit. Connecting the system through, pressure testing it, evacuating it and charging it are carried out by an F-Gas certified engineer, and we set out in writing before the job starts which parts are ours and which are not.

You get an electrical installation certificate for the circuit, and the refrigerant side is certificated separately by whoever carries it out. Two pieces of paper, two names on them, and no confusion later about which one covers what.

Responsibility written down beats responsibility assumed. If any part of a quote you are reading — ours or anybody else’s — does not say who is doing the refrigerant work, that is the question to ask before you sign it.

Where the outdoor unit goes

It wants air around it, a position where the noise is not aimed at your neighbour’s bedroom window or your own, and a fixing that will hold it for years on whatever wall or ground it is actually going onto rather than whatever was convenient.

The condensate has to go somewhere. Access for whoever attends it later has to exist rather than be hoped for. The pipework and the cable need a route that does not cross the front elevation of the house.

And on a listed building or inside a conservation area, where a unit sits is not purely a practical question. A good stretch of our patch is inside the South Downs National Park, which is worth checking before a position is settled rather than afterwards.