Project Description
First PPM visit and F-Gas leak check on a Mitsubishi Electric VRF system
Client Spaces Camden
Location Camden, London
Sector Commercial office
System Mitsubishi Electric City Multi VRF
Scope First planned maintenance visit + F-Gas leak check
Units 45 no. indoor units
Date June 2026
The situation
Every maintenance contractor inherits systems they didn't install. This one was a Mitsubishi Electric City Multi VRF installation at Spaces Camden, a commercial office building — 45 indoor units in total, a mix of ceiling-void ducted units and floor-standing consoles, served by City Multi condensers at roof level.
What didn't come with it was a reliable service history. No asset register we could trust, no recent leak check records, no clear picture of what had been touched and what hadn't.
That changes the job. A first visit on an unknown system isn't just a service — it's a survey with a spanner in hand.
What we were asked to do
- Carry out the first planned preventative maintenance (PPM) visit across all 45 indoor units
- Complete an F-Gas leak check on the system and bring the refrigerant records up to date
- Report back on actual condition, with photographic evidence
- Work around a live, occupied office with minimal disruption to the people using it
What we found
Filters were the headline. Return-air filters across the ducted units were heavily dust-loaded — the kind of loading that quietly costs a building money for months before anyone reports a fault.
A blocked filter doesn't usually break anything. It just chokes airflow. The fan works harder, the coil doesn't see the air it was designed to see, cooling capacity drops, and the unit runs longer to hit the same set point. Occupants notice it as "the air con isn't as good as it used to be" long before it shows up as a call-out.
Alongside the filters, we worked through:
- Coils, condensate trays, drains and pumps on every indoor unit
- Fan sets and bearings, checked for noise and free running
- Electrical terminations, isolators and controller operation
- Condenser coils, fans and general condition at roof level
The F-Gas leak check — and why it matters
Air conditioning maintenance and F-Gas compliance get talked about as one thing. Legally, they're not.
Under the F-Gas Regulations, the duty to have equipment leak checked sits with the **operator** of the equipment — the building owner or occupier — not the contractor. Systems containing 5 tonnes of CO₂ equivalent or more must be leak checked at set intervals by a certified engineer, and records must be kept for the life of the system.
On a VRF estate this size, that's a real obligation with real consequences if it's missed. Our engineers are F-Gas certified and the business is REFCOM accredited, so the leak check was carried out and recorded properly as part of the same visit, with the refrigerant log brought up to date.
That's the point of doing both in one attendance: the client gets a serviced system *and* a defensible compliance record, without paying for two mobilisations.
How we run a first visit
1. Asset register first. Every indoor and outdoor unit located, identified and logged before a single filter comes out. You cannot maintain what you haven't listed.
2. Full mechanical service. Filters, coils, fans, condensate trays, pumps and drains — unit by unit, not a sample.
3. Electrical and controls check. Terminations, isolators, controller operation and set points verified.
4. F-Gas leak check. Certified engineer, system-wide check, refrigerant records updated.
5. Written report with photographs. Condition, remedials and priorities — in plain English, issued the same week.
The outcome
- Airflow restored across all 45 indoor units — better cooling performance for the same running cost
- A compliant F-Gas record, completed and logged by a REFCOM-accredited contractor
- A complete asset register, so every future visit starts from fact rather than guesswork
- A prioritised remedial list, priced and clearly separated from the routine PPM scope, so the client can budget rather than react
Inherited a system with no service history?
We take on VRF and split estates across London and the South East — first-visit surveys, planned maintenance and F-Gas compliance, with the paperwork done properly.
