QualiPAC: the heat-pump qualification and its reinforced audits

Of all the qualifications in the Qualit’EnR catalogue, QualiPAC demands the most rigour — and not only because the heat pump is the flagship product of energy renovation. It is also one of the two qualifications the scheme treats as critical, with a reinforced regime of site audits. Here is what that means in practice for an installation firm.

What QualiPAC covers

QualiPAC is the qualification for installers of heat pumps and thermodynamic water heaters. Like the rest of the catalogue, it is issued by technology: it does not qualify you for photovoltaics or wood energy, which are separate processes. If you install several families of equipment, count one process per family — the principle we set out in our overview of the Qualit’EnR qualification catalogue.

What the qualification attests: that the company has the skills, resources and guarantees needed to carry out this type of installation. What it brings commercially: the RGE mark, the condition for your customers to access the main energy-renovation subsidies.

The mistake to avoid: confusing it with the refrigerant authorisation

This is the sector’s costliest confusion, because it bears on a regulatory obligation.

	Refrigerant-handling authorisation	QualiPAC
Nature	Regulatory authorisation	Professional qualification
Purpose	Handling refrigerant fluids	Attesting the ability to install a heat pump to trade standards
Issued by	A body approved for that activity	Qualit’EnR
Effect	Makes the activity lawful	Opens the RGE mark, hence the customer’s subsidies

The two stack up: the handling authorisation does not make you eligible for subsidies, and QualiPAC does not allow you to handle fluids. A firm installing air-to-water heat pumps needs both, each with its own body, file and timetable. Treating one while believing you have covered the other means being either non-compliant or out of the market — take your pick.

The assessment criteria

Requirements derive from the French order of 1 December 2015 on the qualification criteria required to benefit from energy-renovation subsidies, amended several times since. Five blocks:

1. An activity consistent with installing thermodynamic systems;
2. Insurance explicitly naming the activity: professional public liability and, for work covered by the French ten-year structural warranty (garantie décennale), the corresponding cover. A certificate worded “plumbing and heating” without mentioning heat pumps is not evidence;
3. A trained technical referent (référent technique) schooled in the technology’s framework, whose competence is verified over time: see our articles on the technical referent’s obligations and on the validity of that training;
4. Recent project references, evidenced by detailed quotes, invoices and completion certificates;
5. Administrative and social-security compliance of the company.

The order in which you tackle these five blocks matters little — except for insurance, which should be settled first. It is the easiest item to secure upfront and the one that costs the most weeks when discovered at the first round of queries.

Why two site audits

The certificate is issued for a four-year cycle, with a validity certificate reissued each year once the body has checked the firm still meets the conditions. The cycle is punctuated by site audits — visits to a real installation:

• a first audit within the first twenty-four months of the cycle, which must come out satisfactory;
• an additional audit during the third year, specific to the critical qualifications: QualiPAC and Qualibois.

This reinforced treatment is not an administrative punishment: it answers a technical observation. On a heat pump, the performance actually delivered hinges on sizing, hydraulics, settings and commissioning — parameters invisible to the customer and impossible to check on paper.

The research documents this unambiguously. Zoe Branford and Jennifer Roberts, in a 2022 publication from the University of Strathclyde (“The Installer Skills Gap in the UK Heat Pump Sector and the Impacts on a Just Transition to Net-Zero”), analyse the installer skills gap as a structural brake on heat-pump deployment, alongside capital cost and the lack of clarity in public policy. In that light, an on-site audit is the only moment when an outsider checks what the customer cannot check.

Preparing the audit: what happens before the visit

A well-prepared company has nothing special to do the day before an audit, because its project documentation is already kept. Four reflexes:

Document the sizing. The calculation note, the heat-loss assumptions, the chosen flow temperature: this is the technical heart of the matter and the first thing looked at. Untraced sizing is unverifiable sizing.

Record the commissioning. Report, actual settings, heating curves, checks performed. Commissioning is where performance is decided; it is also the least spontaneously documented step.

Keep the customer handover. Manual, usage instructions, maintenance contract where applicable. The operating side counts: a correct installation poorly explained ends up poorly set.

Prepare the customer for the visit. The auditor visits a household, with its consent. An announced and explained visit goes better than one that is merely endured — and a customer who understands the process forms a better impression of your firm.

Finally, treat findings as findings: a non-conformity calls for a documented correction, not a verbal explanation.

The training angle

Behind every QualiPAC technical referent stands a training provider. That market has its own rules: courses must be delivered within an approved framework to count towards the qualification, and the provider must hold Qualiopi certification for those courses to be fundable from public or pooled funds. The two stack up — our article on RGE training approval sets out that route, technical platform included.

For the installation firm, the consequence is simple: check the centre’s approval before enrolling your referent. A cheaper course outside an approved framework will be technically useful and useless for your file.

Take action

Start by checking two documents: your refrigerant-handling authorisation, and an insurance certificate that explicitly names heat-pump installation. Then enrol your technical referent on a course delivered within an approved framework, and put both audit deadlines of the cycle in your diary today — twenty-four months, then year three. The detail of criteria and the cycle is on our Qualit’EnR page.