Refrigeration temperature logs and F-gas records in Turkey: a practical guide

Any business that runs refrigeration keeps two sets of records side by side. One is the temperature log that protects the food. The other is the F-gas record that keeps refrigerant out of the atmosphere. Both are created at the same unit, often by the same technician, yet they rest on different regulations and answer different questions. This guide takes them one at a time and then shows how to run them as a single routine in the field.

This is not legal advice. Check the current text of each regulation at its source.

Temperature logs: what the rules require, and what they don’t

Turkey’s Food Hygiene Regulation (Official Gazette 17.12.2011/28145), Art. 10/2-ç, requires food to be stored at suitable temperatures, with temperatures monitored and recorded where necessary. Art. 22 lists the seven HACCP principles: critical limits, monitoring, corrective action, verification and records. Records are to be kept for “an appropriate period”.

What the regulation leaves out matters just as much:

• There is no numeric limit for chilled storage. The 0–4 °C range you see everywhere is common HACCP practice, not a legal figure. Your HACCP plan sets the limit.
• There is no logging frequency. Once or twice a day is common; your HACCP plan decides.
• There is no retention period in years. In practice, product shelf life plus a margin.

Frozen food does have a hard number. The Quick-Frozen Foods Communiqué (2014/47) requires the product to be at −18 °C or colder at all points, with a brief rise of at most 3 °C tolerated in transport and retail cabinets.

What a useful temperature log contains

A log that holds up in an audit doesn’t say “fridge cold”. It shows:

1. Which unit: cold room 2, meat display, undercounter fridge 3.
2. The reading and its unit: −19.5 °C.
3. Who took it, and when.
4. What was done if the reading was out of range: stock moved, service called.

Point four is the HACCP corrective action, and it is the column most often left blank on paper. An out-of-range reading with nothing written under it doesn’t prove control; it documents a problem.

F-gas records: Turkey’s fluorinated gas regulation

The Regulation on Fluorinated Greenhouse Gases (Official Gazette 15.10.2024/32693) gives equipment owners and service companies concrete duties. The measure is not kilograms but tonnes of CO₂ equivalent: charge (kg) × GWP / 1000.

For example, 10 kg of R-404A (GWP about 3922) is roughly 39 t CO₂e. The same 10 kg of R-134a (GWP 1430) is roughly 14 t CO₂e. Same charge, different gas, different band.

Leak check intervals (Art. 12)

Charge (t CO₂e)	Leak check	With a leak detection system (LDS)
5 – 50	every 12 months	every 24 months
50 – 500	every 6 months	every 12 months
500 and above	LDS mandatory; at least every 6 months	—

A few details:

• Exemption: hermetically sealed equipment, labelled as such, under 10 t CO₂e (Art. 12/2).
• The LDS itself is checked every 12 months on equipment other than switchgear (Art. 12/3).
• Leak detectors are checked at least every 12 months (Annex 5).
• Equipment at 5 t CO₂e or more is registered in EKOMVET, the ministry’s online system (Art. 7), and leak check results must be entered there too (Art. 12/6).

The 30 working-day rules (Art. 18)

These are the clauses that actually drive an operator’s calendar:

• A leak is repaired without delay, and a follow-up leak check is done within 30 working days of the repair.
• On a new installation, the first leak check is due within 30 working days.
• Each activity is entered in EKOMVET within 30 working days.
• The equipment logbook is kept in EKOMVET.

The operator is whoever owns or uses the equipment. A service company that neither owns nor uses it cannot be the operator (Art. 18/2). So the contractor does the work and prepares the record, while the EKOMVET duty stays with the operator. Spelling this out in the service contract protects both sides.

Who may do the work

Anyone installing, servicing or decommissioning equipment, or leak-checking equipment of 5 t CO₂e or more, needs a vocational qualification certificate (MYK) (Art. 16). A company serving third parties needs a TSE service competence certificate under TS 13905 (Art. 17). That is why the technician’s certificate number belongs on every leak check record.

What a leak check covers

Annex 5 lists the points: joints, valves including stems and bodies, seals including replaceable filter-driers, parts exposed to vibration, and connections to safety and control devices. At least one method is used: an electronic detector, UV dye or a bubble solution. Oil stains, poor cooling, a low charge or an LDS alarm also trigger a leak check.

If you serve EU customers

Regulation (EU) 2024/573 matches Turkey in the first two bands but is stricter at 500 t CO₂e and above: every 3 months, or 6 with an LDS. EU operators keep records for at least 5 years. The Turkish regulation sets no period for the EKOMVET logbook; keeping your own records for at least five years is a safe default.

Running both records as one routine

Temperature logs and F-gas records answer different questions, but they belong to the same unit. If cold room 2 has been drifting near its limit for three days, that is often the first sign of a leak or a low charge. When the two records live in separate binders, nobody makes the connection.

A workable routine looks like this:

1. Every unit has a card: refrigerant, charge, GWP, CO₂e, LDS or not, EKOMVET number. The band and interval are read from that card.
2. Staff take the temperature readings, but an out-of-range value goes straight to service.
3. Every leak check uses the same list: method, certificate number, check points, gas added and recovered.
4. Every repaired unit gets a date noted for its 30-working-day follow-up.

Where Saha fits

When you pick the Refrigeration template in Saha, asset types such as cold room, display cabinet, condensing unit and compressor rack are set up in your account with fields for refrigerant, charge (kg), GWP, CO₂ equivalent, leak detection system and EKOMVET registration. The F-gas leak check list asks for the technician’s certificate number, the method used, the Annex 5 check points and the amount of gas added and recovered.

Temperatures don’t need a work order. A log template, like the temperature log in the Commercial Kitchen template, is filled straight on the unit. The template says how often a reading is expected, and a late log shows as overdue on the unit. A reading outside its limits is flagged and, if you choose, opens a single service request for that unit. Staff enter readings on their phone, and the technician app keeps working without a connection, so a dead signal inside a cold room doesn’t cost you a record.

It all comes together in the unit’s service history: temperature logs, fault reports, leak checks, photos and part requests. Logs and work orders can be exported as CSV.

Two things, plainly: Saha does not submit anything to EKOMVET; the operator still makes the entry, and the record in Saha backs it up. Saha is not a HACCP system either; your HACCP plan sets the limits, and Saha records readings against them and flags the ones outside.

We cover building checklists with measurements in a separate guide. To try it with your own units, start for free.