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Sheds, shops, kitchens and offices
A valley that runs a heavy season and a quiet one, in buildings that mostly have to be maintained around both. Commercial work here starts with finding out what is actually on the roof.
One sheet per unit, and a map of what serves what
Every unit located and identified by model and serial number, matched to the area it actually feeds, with its measured condition recorded and dead or abandoned plant marked as dead. On a building that has changed tenants twice, some of what is up there will not be connected to anything.
Then the readings that matter commercially: airflow and static pressure, refrigerant charge, economiser operation where one is fitted, filter condition and the pressure drop across it, belt and bearing condition, condensate drainage, and combustion analysis on gas heat.
The survey is written so a manager who has never been on the roof can use it, and so a landlord and a tenant can tell from it who is responsible for what.
Four kinds of premises, four different problems
Storage, packing and light industrial
Heat in a tall building is a stratification problem before it is a capacity problem: the warm air is at the roof and the people are on the floor. Destratification fans, ventilation, roof treatment and spot cooling at the fixed work positions will usually move the number at head height further than plant would, for a fraction of the cost. We measure both and put the figures side by side.
Restaurants and kitchens
Make-up air balanced against hood exhaust, measured rather than assumed. A kitchen out of balance pulls conditioned air from the dining room and the street and makes the front of house impossible to control. We work on the air. We do not clean hoods and we do not certify fire suppression, and we will tell you who does.
Shops and offices
Almost always a zoning problem rather than a capacity problem: one thermostat governing a space with glass at one end and a store room at the other. We measure the zones separately at the hour the complaints happen, and the answer is frequently rebalancing and a second sensor rather than new plant.
Buildings with a season
A building that runs flat out for three months and quietly for nine needs its maintenance timed to that, not to a calendar. We will schedule the work to land before the season rather than during it, and say plainly when something should be replaced in the quiet months instead of nursed through the busy ones.
What we do in premises
Written plant survey
Every unit found, identified, measured and mapped to what it serves, with abandoned plant marked as dead.
Planned maintenance
Scheduled visits, the same readings each time, timed around the building’s season rather than around a calendar.
Repair and replacement
Repair diagnosed and costed first. Replacement sized from the load the building carries now.
Ventilation and destratification
Fans, extraction and make-up air, measured before and after so the change is a number rather than an impression.
Zoning and controls
Sensors where the complaints are, schedules set to the hours the building is used, economisers checked for whether they still move.
Records
Filter changes, airflow readings and dates, in a form that satisfies a tenant, a landlord or an inspector.
Work we turn down
| We decline | Who it belongs to |
|---|---|
| Commercial refrigeration | Walk-ins, display cases, ice machines and produce cooling are adjacent to us and are a different trade. In this valley that distinction matters more than most places. |
| Central chiller plant and cooling towers | A different discipline with different tickets. We are not going to learn it on your building. |
| Proprietary building management systems | We will work with the controls in front of us and tell you what a schedule is doing. Programming a manufacturer-locked system belongs to whoever holds the licence. |
| Hood cleaning and fire suppression | Separate licensed jobs. We do the air balance around the hood. |
| Process extraction for dust or fumes | Where extraction is a health and safety engineering question rather than a comfort one, it needs an industrial hygienist and we will say so. |
| Second-hand refrigerant equipment | No warranty, no history, no honest basis for standing behind the result. The same answer as on the residential side. |
Tell us the building
What it is used for, roughly how many units are on the roof, when the busy season is, and where the complaints come from. 2423 S Broadway, Santa Maria. Monday to Friday, 7am to 4pm.