Air conditioning and refrigeration for care homes
Older residents lose heat regulation, and a heatwave in a poorly cooled lounge is a genuine clinical risk rather than an inconvenience. That single fact reorders the priorities: reliability first, quiet second, appearance last.
The other half of the work is storage. A care home kitchen runs commercial refrigeration on food safety records, and the medication fridge runs on a much tighter tolerance with its own logging.
We service both halves under one schedule, because a home has enough suppliers already.
What matters in a resident area
- Quiet indoor units, because a fan running at night in a bedroom will simply be switched off
- Controls that staff can operate and residents cannot accidentally set to 30 degrees
- Draught free air distribution, since cold air blowing directly on a resident causes complaints and refusals
- Locked or restricted setpoints so a whole wing stays within a sensible band
- Filtration maintained on a proper cycle, given the occupancy and hours of use
Kitchen and medication refrigeration
Kitchen cold rooms, fridges and freezers carry food safety obligations that are already familiar. Medication and vaccine storage is stricter: a narrow band, continuous monitoring, and evidence that the fridge held it.
We service medication fridges as their own asset class, with calibrated readings and a record that stands up to an inspection, and we recommend alarms on anything unmonitored overnight.
Planning for hot weather
Heatwaves arrive with a few days' notice, which is not enough time to fix a system that has been quietly failing since last summer. Homes that plan a spring service ahead of the season almost never make an emergency call in August.
Where a home has no cooling in communal areas at all, we will set out a staged plan starting with the rooms that carry the highest risk rather than quoting the whole building at once.
Access and disruption
- Work planned around meal times, medication rounds and visiting hours
- Dust control and clean down in occupied areas as standard
- DBS checked engineers where a home requires it
- Noisy work confined to agreed windows
- Single point of contact so the manager is not chasing an office
FAQs
Common questions
How cool should a care home be kept in summer?
Guidance for vulnerable residents generally points at keeping at least one communal area comfortably below 26 degrees during hot weather, with bedrooms managed individually. The practical approach is to cool the rooms residents actually spend the day in first, then extend from there.
Will the units be too noisy for bedrooms?
Not if they are chosen for it. Modern inverter indoor units run very quietly at low fan speed, and correct sizing matters more than the badge: an oversized unit cycles hard and is heard, a correctly sized one runs slowly and is not.
Do you service medication fridges?
Yes, as a separate asset with its own record. That means calibrated temperature checks, door seal condition, alarm function and a dated certificate, rather than lumping it in with the kitchen equipment.
Can you work around residents with dementia?
Yes. That usually means short, quiet working periods in occupied areas, tools never left unattended, and staff told exactly where an engineer will be. We take direction from the home on this rather than assuming.
How often should a care home be serviced?
Twice a year on comfort cooling, with the main visit in spring before the hot weather. Kitchen refrigeration is better quarterly, and medication fridges get checked at every visit because the consequences of drift are clinical rather than commercial.
Keep reading
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