Last week, the UK was overwhelmed by the heatwave that hit the country. With temperatures reaching as high as 36°C, the demand for air conditioning and cold room repairs soared, according to refrigeration experts, Synecore.

The M&E contractor reported that emergency call outs for broken or under-performing air conditioning units and walk-in chillers were up by 92 percent last week. The busiest day was Thursday, which followed the hottest day in June in over 40 years.

The demand was almost equally split between companies that have air conditioning installed and restaurant owners with walk-in chillers.

Synecore’s air conditioning service department handled the situation extremely professionally and managed to accommodate all its maintenance contract clients, as well as new customers.

Even with this unprecedented number of emergency air conditioning and refrigeration calls, Synecore was true to its promise and an engineer was onsite within 48 hours.

Gary Piper, Synecore’s HVAC manager said: “The heatwave caused numerous problems for businesses throughout the country. Restaurants were experiencing overheated walk-in chillers and businesses were finding their air conditioning systems were simply not working correctly.

“Our team of service controllers and engineers were outstanding. They excelled under pressure and managed to prioritise accordingly. It was vital we dealt with the calls for walk-in chillers initially, as the restaurants’ stock could be at risk. The problems with the walk-in chillers were mostly down to overheating. We have a mobile cold room trailer that can be hired if a lengthy repair time is expected, but fortunately, we rectified each situation swiftly and prevented excessive food waste.

“Equally, the calls for under-performing or broken air conditioning meant our engineers were in high demand. The root of the problem was mainly to do with under-maintained systems, or the fact that the air conditioning was turned on for the first time in a while and kept on for longer.

“We always stress to our customers how important it is to keep their air conditioning regularly maintained for safety reasons and to extend the lifetime of the system. However, when meeting new clients, it always surprises us how many businesses, hotels and restaurants are not aware of their legal obligation when it comes to maintaining F-Gas records and TM44 certificates. That’s why we make it our mission to educate businesses and the operator through training,” explains Mr Piper.

Synecore works with businesses throughout the UK to provide refrigeration services, including scheduled maintenance and installation. Its Planned Preventative Maintenance (PPM) service for air conditioning and refrigeration systems has specifically been developed to ensure businesses have peace of mind that their system is fit-for-purpose all year round.