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How we work in a building that cannot stop
Maintenance with a record per unit, plant renewal phased around your hours, and ventilation measured rather than assumed. Syracuse and Onondaga County.
Panels off, instruments out
Condition, model and serial numbers, access, how a unit would come off, electrical supply, what the controls are actually programmed to, and which hours you can genuinely give us. Photographed throughout.
On a first visit we also take the pressure readings, because they explain more complaints than anything else and because almost nobody has them.
What is excluded, in writing
Curb adaptation, roofing, structure, electrical distribution and asbestos are each named as in or out. A scope that excludes nothing has simply moved the argument to later, which is why ours names them.
Nothing is ordered before the scope is agreed, and anything that changes it gets reissued in writing before it happens.
What is in a visit
The same list every time, per unit, with numbers that can be compared against the previous visit.
- FiltersChanged, with sizes and quantities recorded on the unit as well as on the sheet, so a set can be ordered without a trip to the roof.
- CoilsBoth faces inspected and cleaned, condition graded, pressure drop noted so deterioration is a trend rather than a surprise.
- Belts, sheaves and bearingsTension and alignment set, part numbers listed, worn sheaves flagged rather than quietly re-belted year after year.
- ElectricalContactors, capacitors and terminals. Pitting makes heat and heat makes more pitting, and eventually a compressor starts through a bad connection.
- Combustion, before the seasonBurners, heat exchangers, flues and safeties on gas and oil plant. Tested with instruments, in September.
- EconomisersDampers driven through their range, linkage and actuator checked, minimum outside-air position recorded as a number.
- CondensateDrains, traps and overflow switches cleared and function-tested. On a rooftop in this city they also freeze, which is its own item.
- Control schedulesDocumented as actually programmed, before anybody proposes changing them. A surprising number of buildings run somebody else’s hours.
The half that is never on the quotation
Extract, make-up air and the balance between them decide comfort in more buildings than the cooling does, and they are almost never measured because nobody is selling them.
- Hood and fan volumes measured at the terminal
- Make-up air sized against what is actually installed today
- Interlocks so make-up runs when extract runs
- Outside-air rates recorded for clinics and occupied spaces
- Differential pressure per zone, written down
The buildings we cover
Retail, food and hospitality
Downtown shops and trade counters, restaurants and bars. Door heat losses through a seven-month winter, and kitchens that pull harder than their make-up air can supply.
Offices, suites and clinics
Professional suites, medical and dental practices, small offices. Zone complaints, after-hours running, and outside-air rates that are written down rather than assumed.
Industrial and warehousing
Unit heaters, extract, destratification and make-up air. In these buildings the ventilation matters considerably more than the cooling, and it is usually the thing nobody has looked at.
Why there are no prices here
A rooftop unit replacement can differ by a multiple depending on access, curb, crane time, electrical supply, controls and the hours available — and in this city, on what month it happens in. A figure published here would be a guess dressed as information.
The survey is quoted as a fixed number before we come out, and it is the only figure we will give you without seeing the plant.