TM44 Air Conditioning Inspection report

All air-conditioning systems with an effective rated output of more than 12kw must be regularly inspected by an Air Conditioning Inspector. If the system has an effective rated output of 12kW or more, the first inspection must be done by 4 January 2011. Building owners and managers who operate air-conditioning systems have statutory obligations under the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) to ensure that air conditioning inspections are conducted by qualified and accredited air-conditioning inspectors.

All information here have been extracted from www.communities.gov.uk

Air Conditioning Inspection certificate Example

Table of Contents

1. Why air-conditioning inspections are required?
2. When air-conditioning inspections are required?
3. What does an air-conditioning inspection cover?
4. What can I expect in the report?
5. Penalties for not having an air conditioning inspection report

Why air-conditioning inspections are required?

Having your air conditioning system inspected by an Energy Assessor is designed to improve efficiency and reduce the electricity consumption, operating costs and carbon emissions for your system. Energy inspections will highlight improvements to the operation of your existing systems or opportunities to replace older, less energy efficient systems or oversized systems with new energy efficient systems.

As the replacement of refrigerant is restricted in older systems (as established under other legislation), there is an additional incentive to improve or replace older systems with more modern energy efficient units.

Building owners and managers who control air conditioning systems have statutory obligations and duties of care in the operation and maintenance of air conditioning systems. The energy inspections discussed in this guide are in addition to the normal activities associated with the ownership and operation of air-conditioning systems.

Inspection, maintenance and cleaning programmes maintain the ability of the system to provide healthy and comfortable environments for building occupants, limiting the escape of refrigerant gases and ensuring the safety of equipment. The practices and procedures needed to achieve these aims should be applied more frequently than the assessment for energy efficiency described here.

Air conditioning systems can account for a large proportion of a building’s energy usage. Having regular inspections carried out by a qualified assessor can improve efficiency and reduce energy consumption which in turn reduces capital operating costs and carbon emissions.

Building owners and managers who operate air conditioning systems have statutory obligations under the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) to ensure that air conditioning inspections are conducted by qualified and accredited air-conditioning inspectors.

All air-conditioning systems with an effective rated output of more than 12kw must be regularly inspected by an energy assessor.

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When air-conditioning inspections are required?

An air conditioning inspection is required if the effective rated output of systems within a building are more than 12kW.

a. If the system has an effective rated output of 250kW or more, the first inspection must be done by 4 January 2009.

b. If the system has an effective rated output of 12kW or more, the first inspection must be done by 4 January 2011.

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What does an air-conditioning inspection cover?

The inspection will examine the refrigeration and air movement equipment that are part of air conditioning systems, and their controls. It will also examine any documentation that helps to understand the systems, or indicates the extent to which the systems have been maintained. The energy assessor is also required to estimate whether the system is suitably sized for the cooling loads in the treated spaces, and to provide advice on ways in which the performance of the system might be improved.

Access will be required to equipment that may be located in plant rooms, or outside the building, including rooftops or other locations with limited provision for access. In all cases the building owner or manager should agree the means for safe access with the energy assessor, following a health and safety risk assessment of the individual situation. The energy assessor may need to be accompanied by the responsible building manager or maintenance agent at all times.

Some additional access is likely to be needed, for example to the inside of AHUs or ducts. This must be provided and supervised by the responsible building manager or maintenance agent with due regard to the safety of the energy assessor and to building occupants. This would require the system to be turned off to allow safe access, so arrangements may need to be made for this outside working hours to avoid disruption to business. Similarly, the Energy Assessor may need to access a sample of components, such as fan coil units, which may be hidden above suspended ceilings. Again, access should be provided by the building manager.

Building owners and managers should not expect the air conditioning inspection to identify hazards or unsafe aspects of the installation, operation or maintenance of systems that should be identified and addressed by other arrangements, nor should they expect the energy assessor to fix any problem identified as part of the inspection.

If owners or managers require this service then they should ensure that the need is clearly specified in the invitation to undertake the work, assure themselves that the energy assessor is competent to undertake such additional work, and ensure that such aspects are clearly expressed in their contract or agreement with the energy assessor.

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What can I expect in the report?

The purpose of the inspection and report is to ensure that building owners or managers are provided with basic information regarding the efficiency of the air-conditioning systems that they control, together with advice on how the energy efficiency or effectiveness of these systems might be improved.

Acting on the advice in the inspection report and rectifying faults or making appropriate improvements, where this is attractive and cost effective, may result in immediate improvements to the effectiveness of air-conditioning systems or reduce the operating costs.

In some cases the costs of providing both heating and cooling may be reduced, in cases where these two systems are unnecessarily in use at the same time due to inappropriate controls or settings.

In many cases it will be clear that the building and systems are already well understood, documented and commissioned, with records available showing that the equipment has been regularly maintained to a good standard.

In such cases an energy inspection could be reduced in extent and the inspection report brief, with the main content advising on opportunities for load reduction or on alternative solutions not previously considered.

However, in other cases the energy assessor may find it necessary to suggest relatively basic maintenance, such as cleaning or repairs, to equipment whose efficiency has evidently suffered through neglect.

Cleaning operations or adjustments to controls do not form part of the inspection procedure, even where they might be carried out simply and with significant immediate effect in improving efficiency. The inspection is not intended, or expected, to involve any physical work of this nature as this could change the level of professional risk to the energy assessor.

Authority to carry out such work would need to be given as part of a separate arrangement by the building owner or manager provided the Energy Assessor has the necessary competence to do this work. However, the building owner, manager or their representative may well be able to carry out some alterations themselves as the energy inspection is carried out, provided they agree with the assessor’s observations.

Most reports are likely to contain advice with a combination of simple low or no cost measures and measures where some investment may be required either to apply the measures, or to investigate the potential to apply measures in more detail. The manager should also be provided with, or informed how to obtain, access to advice on the ongoing management of the systems, particularly that contained in existing free publications such as the Carbon Trust’s Good Practice Guides.

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Penalties for not having an air conditioning inspection report

Local authorities (usually by their Trading Standards Officers) are responsible for enforcing the requirements relating to air-conditioning inspection reports.

Failure to commission, keep, or provide an air conditioning inspection report when required by the Regulations means you may be issued with a penalty charge notice. Trading Standards Officers may act on complaints or undertake investigations. They may request you to provide them with a copy of your air-conditioning inspection report. If asked, you must provide this information within seven days of the request or be liable to a penalty charge notice for failing to do so. A copy of an air conditioning inspection report can be requested by an enforcement officer at any time up to six months after the last day for compliance with the obligation to make it available.

The penalty for failing to having an air-conditioning inspection report is fixed at present at £300.

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The aim of the Air Conditioning Inspection Report is to outline any areas within the operation of all HVAC equipment that would improve in performance and reduce energy costs, with the introduction of any no-cost/ low-cost initiatives and any capital investment opportunities that may arise.

The survey covered the inspection of air conditioning systems, measuring the performance and powers of fans, and associated cooling electrical load, comparing performance with industry standards to identify energy savings whilst maintaining their minimum performance requirements.

A number of other observations are made during the inspection; these cover issues such as the condition of the air conditioning systems, appropriateness of maintenance regimes, cooling/building loads, fresh air volumes, air change rates and the control of ancillary units.

The TM 44 inspection is as far as possible carried out by making visual observations of representative sample of the air conditioning equipment and other visual indicators such as refrigerant sight glasses, pressure, temperature or filter gauges, although where these are not available the inspector may have taken some test readings.

The Air Conditioning inspection also included an examination of records of design, construction and maintenance where made available.

Inspectors have a duty to comply with relevant health and safety legislation. This includes a duty to draw the building owner or manager’s attention to obvious instances of inadequate maintenance or neglect, where these might have implications for the health and safety of building occupants or the public.

Also covered in air conditioning inspection report, is the comparison of size and appropriateness of cooling plant against the cooling loads of the building; and the effectiveness of current maintenance regimes. All of which will enable you to optimise your buildings HVAC operations and reduce energy costs and Carbon Dioxide emissions.

Also air conditioning systems which provide no comfort cooling (computer rooms, server rooms, Comms rooms, utility rooms, etc) are exempt from this survey and they are not covered by the inspection.

The main elements we cover in air conditioning report are :
1- General condition of air conditioning system, indoor and outdoor unit.
2-Carrying out survey to find any poor installation and refrigerant leakage .
3- Identifying any old refrigerant like R22.
4- Identifying any shortfall in programmer and incorrect date and time.
5- Identifying any blockage in the filters and grilles.
In air conditioning inspection we dont carry out any maintenance we wouldnt do any adjustment to system and its control, if we identify any problem we just show it on the air conditioning inspection report and suggest some reccomendations to solve the problem.
In air conditioning inspections we normally choose minimum 3 units or 10% of the existing units and carry out the air con survey on those samples.We as an energy assessors try to choose the units with worse conditions and problems as an sample however the recommendations might not be applicable for all other similar units.
Recommendations might be as simple and cheap as washing the filters, to very costly ones like replacing the unit.
In our recommendations about air conditioning systems we try to suggest cost effective and feasible solutions.In air conditioning inspection reports the reccomendations are in order to save money in short or long term, we also recomend how to save the energy, reduce the consumption and how to manage the air conditiong systems more effectively.
We try to reccomend using renewable energies like wind turbine, photovoltaics, solar panels and wind turbine  and CHP (combined heat and power) units.
Reccomndetaions like submetering will not effect the energy consumption directly but it would help us to monitor the energy consumption more effectively and records the effects of different improvment on the heating and cooling systems.
In air conditioning report we also reccomend to make some changes on the building fabric by improving the insullation, using better glazing, on top of that some other reccomendations like using reflective coating and external shading are also part of our reccomndations as an energy assessor as these changing will reduce cooling load and will reduce energy consumption via air conditioning systems and also co2 emission.
Some recommendations in air conditiong inspection report are about how we can control the system more effectively so we normally reccomend using a better controller which benefits from 7 days ON/OFF Timer. If there is already a god controller on the site our energy assessors review the time and date setting, temperature setting, ON/OFF periods and compare it to the acutal occupancy periods and designed envirionmental conditions and if there is a problem they will try to address it in their report.
The most common problems we normally see on the sites are blocked filters and indoor grilles, blocked condensors or damaged fines, poor insullation around the pipes. Too high or too low temperature settings, operation of heating and cooling at the same time, Poor installation or maintenance, incorrect time and date. wrong or unsuitable programmer or controller, icing the condensors and internal system failiur.
In most of the cases the installed unit is oversized.

We run a quick calculation in order to find out if the system is oversized we use rule of thumb to size the air conditioning systems, if it is oversized we suggest to change the unit with smaller one if it is old or if it is new we recommend to switch off couple of units if there is more than one unit installed.
As a part of air conditioning inspection assessment we check how much refrigerant is present in the system and based on that devide them into 2 different categories 1- F gas refrigerant like R-410A and R-407C and R-134a under effect of EU Regulation 842/2006 on certain fluorinated greenhouse gases (F-Gases) applications containing 3 kg or more of fluorinated greenhouse gases shall be checked for leakage at least once every 12 months.

2- ozone deplation gasses like R-22 or R-11 (Under effect of EC Regulation No 2037/2000,This is EC Regulation on HCFC refrigerant. This Regulation aims to reduce emissions of HCFC) the operator of the system must ensure that air conditioning systems containing 3 kg or more of HCFC refrigerant (including R22) is checked for leakage by certified personnel on a regular basis (every 12 months).

We also make recommendation on systems bigger than 25Kw.Based on The Pressure Systems Safety Regulations 2000, vapour compression refrigeration system where the installed power exceeds 25 kW requires a written scheme of examination. Users and owners of pressure systems are required to demonstrate that they know : 1- The safe operating limits, principally pressure and temperature, of their pressure systems, 2- They need to ensure that a suitable written scheme of examination is in place before the system is operated. 3- They also need to ensure that the pressure system is actually examined in accordance with the written scheme of examination.

Refrigerant leakagege is a very important part of the report too as refrigerant all have negative effects on environment and destroy ozone in the atmosphere, old refrigerant like R-22 and R-11 have much bigger effect on ozone compare to new refrigerants like R-410A or R-407C.As an air conditioning inspector we are responsible to check the units for any leakage and identifying them by finding oily stains on the pipes.

Poor insulation is very common in sites. As an unwritten rule insulations around pipes needs to be replaced every 5 years but in most of the sites we find old insulations. In some sites insulation is not properly covering all the pipes. Energy losses from uninsulated or poor insulated pipes are the main source of energy waste in the air conditioning systems.
Very often while we are carrying out the air conditioning surveys we come a cross with evidence of icing on the condensors.Evidence of icing on the fins indicates this system is not functioning correctly.
It can be cased by different reasons, probably as a result of heating and cooling operating at the same time, or internal fault in the condenser or inaccurate sensors or even blocked filters can be the reason.
Engage expert to look at the indoor and outdoor unit and solve the problem.

We also record the pipes temperature (before condensore which is coming back from indoor unit and after process which is coming from condensore and going to the indoor unit).
The temperature diffrence generally shows either the unit is functioning properly or not.Very small differnce (smaller than 10C) and very big difference (bigger than 30C) are the signs of faulty system.No exact temperatures can be provided as a refrence as the pipe temperatures are hugy depends on indoor and outdoor conditions.