People are incredibly heated about the subject. I mean how dare these DIYers steal our work. We are after all highly trained professionals.

I've found the less experience and qualification the engineer has, the more heated they are about the subject, so lets take a look at it.

Installing split air conditioning units is trivial work for any half decent DIY enthusiast. All you need to do is hang the indoor and outdoor units, beat a hole through the wall and run two semi flexible copper tubes between the two boxes. The only part which requires any specialist skill or tools, lies in making the flare connections and evacuating the system.

Once this is done, its wire it up, open the valves and off it goes.

Weirdly, the only bit of the installation that is covered by any regulation at all is the provision of the power supply. The fridge bit is not yet covered by binding legislation, so no formal qualification needs to be held by the person doing it. This will all change as soon as the F-GAS regulation kicks in of course.

Lets look at this in another way. If I want to add a radiator to my heating systems, all I need to do is hang the unit on the wall, beat some holes and connect up some rigid pipes. Once again there is no regulation to stop me doing this. Do plumbers go berserk when you mention you are going to add a radiator to your system?

The DIY stores are huge. They are the only people big enough to advertise their products on television. Our industry will never be able to afford to do this.

So Mr Blogs goes to the store to buy his ac unit and when he gets it home, he hangs the boxes and plugs the units in and hopes it works.

Once the warranty has gone he’s stuffed. He’s going to need an engineer and as far as I know they are not available from DIY stores. That’s where you come in.

Lots of people will be watching Coronation Street in the sweltering lounge in August and up will pop an advert for air-conditioning. You never know it could result in more work for you.