School Air Conditioning and Refrigeration

School air conditioning and refrigeration in London

Climate Flow Limited installs, services and repairs school air conditioning and school refrigeration for schools, academies and colleges in London and surrounding areas. That covers cooling for classrooms, ICT rooms and offices, and the fridges, freezers and cold rooms in a school kitchen. Work is planned with the bursar or site manager around the school day, and installation can be booked for holidays or after hours. This page is part of our work across different sectors.

Why do classrooms and ICT rooms overheat?

The Department for Education sets design and performance standards for ventilation, thermal comfort and indoor air quality in school buildings in its Building Bulletin on ventilation and thermal comfort. That guidance covers avoiding summertime overheating. It is design guidance, not a legal maximum classroom temperature.

For staff, the Health and Safety Executive states that there is no maximum temperature for workplaces. The employer decides what a reasonable temperature is.

In hot weather, the UK Health Security Agency's guidance for teachers and education settings tells schools to use the classrooms and spaces least likely to overheat. It also tells schools to switch off computers, monitors and printers when they are not in use, rather than leave them on standby, because equipment on standby generates heat. Air conditioning is one option alongside ventilation and timetabling, and it can help keep a room usable when those measures are not enough. An engineer looks at the room before recommending a system.

What keeps a school kitchen's refrigeration safe?

A school kitchen stores food, so its fridges, freezers and cold rooms fall under food hygiene law. Chilled food must be kept at 8°C or below, a legal requirement in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The gov.uk guidance on chilling and freezing recommends setting fridges to 5°C or below, so food stays cold enough even if the temperature changes.

A cold room is an insulated, refrigerated room that kitchen staff walk into to store chilled or frozen food. It is cooled by a condensing unit, the part of the system, usually outside, that rejects the heat taken out of the room.

Who is responsible for F-gas leak checks in a school?

F gas is the group of fluorinated gases used as the refrigerant in air conditioning and refrigeration systems. Whoever uses stationary refrigeration or air conditioning equipment containing F gas is responsible for getting it checked for leaks, and on a school site that is the school. Service technicians share that responsibility. Equipment containing F gas equivalent to 5 tonnes of carbon dioxide must be checked at least once every 12 months. Larger charges are checked more often, so each system is assessed on its own.

It is against the law to work with F gas without the correct qualifications. Climate Flow's engineers are F-Gas certified.

What equipment do schools run?

• A split system is an indoor unit in the room connected by pipework to an outdoor unit; split air conditioning suits a single classroom, office or ICT room.
• A ducted system hides the indoor unit in a ceiling void and sends cooled air through ducts to grilles in each room. A cassette unit is an indoor unit set into the ceiling. VRF (variable refrigerant flow) is one outdoor unit serving many indoor units. For a whole block or several rooms, our air conditioning page compares these systems with split air conditioning.
• Kitchens with more stock than upright fridges can hold use a walk-in store. Our cold room installation service covers the survey, build and handover.
• Planned preventive maintenance (PPM) means scheduled visits that check and clean equipment before it fails; maintenance contracts set those visits up for a site.

The Department for Education's Good estate management for schools guidance lists catering equipment and air conditioning systems among the things many schools manage. It cites good practice of splitting PPM and reactive maintenance budgets in the region of a 70:30 ratio.

Can work be done in school holidays or out of hours?

Yes. Installation and planned maintenance can be booked for school holidays, half terms or after the school day, so classrooms and the kitchen stay in use during term. The usual sequence is:

1. Survey. An engineer visits while the school is open to see the rooms, the pipe routes and where an outdoor unit can sit.
2. Plan. Dates, access and the rooms that must be clear are agreed with the bursar or site manager.
3. Install or service. The work is carried out in the agreed window.
4. Handover. The engineer shows the site manager how the controls work.

Before any drilling or fixing, the engineer asks for the school's asbestos information. A school must pass on its asbestos survey findings and details of any known or presumed asbestos in the work area to whoever does the work. The site manager also agrees access, parking and how engineers sign in.

School projects

Our featured school project is the condenser unit replacement for the freezer room at Ark Walworth Academy in Walworth, where Climate Flow replaced the condensing unit serving the school's freezer room.

Places we've worked include Berkshire College of Agriculture, Langley College, Strode's College and Ark Walworth Academy.

Talk to us about your school

Climate Flow Limited, 2 Engineers Way, Wembley, London HA9 0JS, works with schools, academies and colleges across London and surrounding areas on school air conditioning, kitchen refrigeration and maintenance. To arrange a survey, call 020 3488 5452 or request a quote.

This guide is general information, not a survey or a quote for your site; every system is different, so an engineer needs to see yours before any work is priced.