Air Conditioning, Ventilation and Refrigeration
Ventilation System Maintenance
Ventilation rarely fails outright. It loses ground as filters clog and fan belts wear, and keeping it in working order is a legal duty under the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992.
Robinsons Facilities Services provides planned maintenance and business-hours repairs for commercial supply and extract ventilation across Yorkshire and the Humber. Our engineers carry out most of the work in-house, with specialist partners on more complex plant, and planned visits follow SFG20 task schedules.
- PPM contracts from £385+VAT/year
- One-off services from £250+VAT
- Repairs from £80+VAT/hour
Get a quote for commercial ventilation maintenance or repair →
Prefer to speak to someone? Call us on 01423 226578 →
There’s no fixed legal interval for maintaining general commercial ventilation. Regulation 5 of the Workplace Regulations requires mechanical ventilation to be kept in efficient working order and good repair, so frequency normally comes from SFG20 task schedules and manufacturer guidance. In practice, visits range from once a year on lightly used plant to quarterly on busy systems.
How often should commercial ventilation be serviced?
The right interval depends on how hard the system works and what it protects. We set it asset by asset, looking at:
- Running hours, since plant in use around the clock wears faster than an office system on a timer
- How quickly filters load, which is faster near busy roads or dusty processes
- How much the space depends on it, such as a windowless meeting room or a server room
- The manufacturer’s recommendations, which can be a condition of the warranty
We review the interval after the first year, once we know how quickly the filters and moving parts are actually wearing.
What a planned maintenance visit covers
Each planned visit follows the SFG20 task schedule for that type of asset, so every visit works through the same task list, whoever attends. Typical tasks include:
- Filter checks at every visit, with replacement when the filters need it
- Fan, motor, and bearing checks, including belt tension and wear on belt-driven fans
- Controls and safety device checks, so the system responds to its controls as it should
- Airflow readings at key grilles and diffusers
- Visual checks on accessible ductwork, grilles, and louvres for damage or build-up
You get a report for each asset after every visit, with any remedial work priced before it goes ahead.
Air handling units with heating or cooling coils have their own schedule, covered on our AHU maintenance page.
Ventilation system repairs
Common problems we’re asked to look at include:
- Fans that won’t start or keep tripping out
- Noisy fans and worn bearings
- Snapped or slipping drive belts
- Controls or timers that have stopped responding
- Weak airflow, stale air, or condensation in the rooms the system serves
We attend during business hours, diagnose the fault, and fix it on the first visit where parts allow. If a fan or unit is past economic repair, we’ll say so and quote a replacement before any work starts.
Pricing
Choose a contract if you want the plant held on a schedule, or a one-off visit if it only needs looking at once. Repairs are available either way.
PPM contract: from £385+VAT a year
Planned visits to an SFG20 schedule, from annual to quarterly, with priority attendance and preferential rates on repairs and parts. Contract customers also get the customer portal for visit reports and site documents. Terms run from 12 months to five years.
Find out more about PPM contracts →
One-off service: from £250+VAT
A single planned service for sites not on a contract, covering the same task list and asset report. It’s a sensible first step on plant you’ve inherited or that hasn’t been looked at for a while.
Repairs: from £80+VAT an hour
Pay-as-you-go attendance during business hours, with the rate confirmed before we come out. Follow-on work and replacement parts are quoted before they go ahead.
How we support you
Ventilation is rarely the only system on a site that needs specialist attention. We can bring duct cleaning, kitchen extract, smoke ventilation, and LEV testing into the same contract, so you deal with one contractor and keep one set of records. See commercial ventilation systems for the full range.
Robinsons Facilities Services has looked after commercial buildings across Yorkshire for decades from our Harrogate base. We’re SafeContractor approved, CHAS accredited, and hold UKAS-certified ISO 9001, with teams working on sites from Ripon and Huddersfield to Barnsley and Bridlington.
Get a quote for commercial ventilation maintenance or repair →
Prefer to speak to someone? Call us on 01423 226578 →
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Ventilation System Maintenance FAQs
PPM contracts start from £385+VAT per year, one-off services from £250+VAT, and repairs from £80+VAT per hour during business hours. A contract price depends on how many systems you have and how often they’re visited. Send us an enquiry or call us on 01423 226578 for a quote.
Scheduled visits at an agreed frequency, a written report on every asset, and faster attendance at lower rates if something fails between visits. Remedial work found on a visit is quoted separately, so the annual price covers only what you’ve agreed to.
Each type of ventilation asset has its own schedule of tasks and intervals, and every task carries a criticality rating: statutory, business critical, optimal, or discretionary. That shows you which tasks protect compliance and which protect efficiency, so you can decide where the budget goes. SFG20 is published by BESA, and our article on what SFG20 is covers the wider framework.
It depends on how quickly they clog, which comes down to the air outside and what happens inside the building. A system beside a busy road or a dusty process may need new filters every few months, while a lightly used office system can go longer. We check filter condition at every visit and change them when they need it, not on a fixed date.
Stuffy or stale rooms, condensation on windows, dust around grilles, and a fan that’s louder than it used to be are the usual early signs. Rising electricity use with no other explanation can also point to clogged filters making the fans work harder.
General ventilation has no statutory certificate, so your maintenance record is the evidence that matters. After each visit we issue a report for every asset covering the work done and any defects found, with recommended remedials, which shows an auditor or insurer the system is under a suitable system of maintenance. LEV testing and duct cleaning come with their own reports.
Yes. Inherited systems are common, and we start by surveying the plant and building an asset register, which often turns up filters, fans, or controls that haven’t been touched in years. From there we set a schedule that fits what’s actually on site.
Usually, yes. Clogged filters make fans work harder to move the same air, and slipping belts waste energy as heat. How much you save depends on the condition of the system to begin with.
Not as standard. Each visit checks the accessible ductwork, and if build-up is found we arrange a clean to the BESA TR19 Air standard through our commercial duct cleaning service. Kitchen extract ductwork is a separate job again, cleaned to TR19 Grease.
Last updated: 06/10/2026
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