It has been six months since my last blog –“Hurrah” some of you will no doubt cry!...

I haven’t been idle however. Indeed I’ve still been working on the AREA proposals to ban pre charged split systems and continuing dialogue with various industry sectors and groups. I thought it prudent to refrain from any more public criticism until such time as I had given manufacturers the opportunity to come to their senses and sense the changing winds. I’ll keep you posted on that if there is ever a decision made!

In the meantime of course we’ve seen the French Environment Ministry come up with their own proposals which are aimed at achieving the same goal as us but without the full ban. They are proposing much stricter restrictions on the purchase of the units. The main concern in mainland Europe of course is sales of mini-splits through retail outlets and DIY stores. The French proposal is for the units to only be sold with the proviso that there is a registered company identified as responsible for the installation and commissioning. An example of this type of sale is that of El Corte Ingles – the Spanish department store. You can buy a split system from the shop but cannot take it with you. They will provide a list of contractors and you choose which one you want to carry out the work for you. This is a sensible way of ensuring the systems aren’t installed by cowboys. Of course this will only work if there is an openly accessible database of registered companies – something UK industry has asked for many times but to date has not been accepted by HMG as necessary – hopefully in time common sense will prevail.

While the debate about the long term future of HFCs continues, a group of MEPs are actively lobbying their own Parliament for a change of tactic and to go for a phase out as rapidly as possible. Forget the fact that many applications simply cannot run safely or efficiently on what they term “naturals”; forget the fact that a growing number of European countries are in danger of defaulting on their Government bond liabilities; forget all the logical debate that has been carried out over the last few years. In the interest of maybe, possibly, theoretically saving a couple of polar bears in the distant future let’s simply stop using these nasty gases! What planet do these people live on? Have they listened to nothing?

We should all be contacting our MEPs and urging them to see common sense about the realities of the world of refrigeration. Any moves towards a greater role out of CO₂, for example, have to be taken hand in hand with more training if we are to avoid dangerous corner cutting and mistakes that could put the public and our own engineers in danger.

But then environmental catastrophe, as they like to term it, always seems to take precedent over human safety doesn’t it? There has been a big backlash against the environmental lobbying groups during the past year and with the economic situation not looking much rosier for some time yet it is hard to see where the justification is for a phase out of efficient gases as long as they are contained. Sadly, common sense and justifications don’t seem to apply to those MEPs who irresponsibly call for actions that will result in yet more expense to contractors and manufacturers alike and make not one iota of difference to the future of our planet.

You have to ask them: if you are going to insist on not using any HFCs, why have we gone through so much trouble of up skilling our engineers and re-certifying everybody? Surely it is eminently more sensible to enforce existing legislation than it is to spend ever more on new legislation.