A commercial maintenance contract is bought for two reasons and only one of them is comfort. The other is compliance: refrigerant systems above certain charge sizes carry legal leak checking and record keeping duties, and those duties sit with the operator of the equipment rather than with whoever installed it. A contract is how most businesses discharge them.
What a commercial air conditioning maintenance contract should list
Number of visits and when, what each visit covers, which units are included by name and location, leak checking where the charge requires it, record keeping and who holds the log, response times for a breakdown split by severity, whether parts and labour on a call out are included or chargeable, and what is explicitly excluded. A contract that is a price and a frequency is not a specification.
The statutory half of commercial air conditioning servicing
Systems containing fluorinated gases above defined charge thresholds must be leak checked at intervals set by the size of the charge, records must be kept, and the work must be done by certified personnel. Larger air conditioning installations are also subject to periodic energy inspection requirements. Both duties are the operator's, so a contract should say who is doing them and evidence that they were done.
Commercial air conditioning repair: response times are the priced item
Everything else in a maintenance contract is planned work with a predictable cost. The response time is the risk transfer, and it is what separates one quote from another. Decide what a failure actually costs the business, in a shop on a Saturday or a server room at any hour, and buy the response that matches rather than the cheapest headline.
Commercial aircon servicing across multi site and mixed equipment
Estates that have grown by acquisition usually have several makes and several ages of equipment, and a single contractor has to be able to work on all of them. Ask for the asset register at the first visit, because the contract is only as good as the list of what it covers, and unlisted units are uncovered units.
Questions people ask about commercial air conditioning service
How often is a commercial AC service needed?
Planned maintenance is normally one to four visits a year depending on use and environment. Statutory leak checking frequency is set by the refrigerant charge in the system rather than by preference, so establish the charge sizes first and let them set the minimum.
Who is responsible for the records?
The operator of the equipment, which is usually the occupying business rather than the landlord or the contractor. A contractor can keep the log on your behalf and many do, but the duty does not transfer with the paperwork, so make sure you can obtain it.
Are parts included in a commercial AC maintenance contract?
Often not, or only up to a value. Read what is included on a breakdown as against a planned visit, because the two are usually priced differently and the gap between them is where most disputes over commercial contracts start.
What happens when equipment reaches end of life?
A good contractor tells you before it fails, using run hours, fault history and refrigerant type. Systems on refrigerants being phased down get expensive to maintain well before they stop working, and planning the replacement is cheaper than reacting to it in July.