From the Côte d'Azur to Cheshire
How a decade on the French Riviera shaped the way Matthew works today.
A one-way ticket to France
At 26, Matthew moved to the South of France and joined the holiday industry as a maintenance engineer — keeping holiday homes running and fixing everything from boilers to table legs. It's where his fix-anything, do-it-properly mindset took root.
Going specialist
He returned to the UK to train for his F-Gas certification — the qualification you need to work with refrigerant — then headed back to France to focus purely on air conditioning.
Out on his own
Matthew set up self-employed within the French system, staying on as a trusted subcontractor for the company he'd worked with while taking on his own installs and repairs.
St Tropez to Nice
Over a decade on the Côte d'Azur, he installed and repaired countless systems right along the Riviera — from St Tropez to Nice — in a market where air conditioning simply has to perform, day in, day out.
Requalified, then for good
As the rules required, Matthew re-sat his F-Gas qualification every five years — before earning a lifetime qualification.
Home, with rare know-how
He came back to the UK carrying a depth of domestic air conditioning experience that was still uncommon here — at a time when home AC had barely made its mark in Britain.
The Riviera standard, in Cheshire
That hard-won standard now goes into every job across Cheshire, Manchester, Stockport, Warrington and the wider North West.
