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Commercial HVAC in downtown Albany
Offices and professional suites, storefronts, restaurants, clinics and small industrial — in floors that have been fitted out three or four times before, with the evidence still in the ceiling.
The survey before the schedule
Most premises we are called to cannot say what serves what. In a building that has been re-partitioned since the sixties that is not carelessness, it is the normal state of affairs.
| Recorded | What it is, and why it earns its place |
|---|---|
| Identity | Where it is, what it serves, and a tag on it — so the next conversation is about a numbered unit rather than “the one over the back office”. |
| Plate data | Make, model, serial, capacity, electrical requirement, refrigerant and factory charge, copied off the plate rather than estimated. |
| Real age | Decoded from the serial number. In a building with several generations of equipment this routinely surprises everybody. |
| What it inherited | Ductwork from a previous fit-out, diffusers behind partitions, a return path that was interrupted when a wall went in. This is the part that matters most in an old office floor. |
| Consequence | What stops trading when it stops. A server cupboard and a stockroom do not get the same priority. |
A maintenance contract on a building nobody has surveyed is a schedule of visits to unknown equipment. Everything else — priorities, budget, what is worth repairing at all — depends on the survey, and it takes one visit.
Planned maintenance
Two visits a year on most premises. Fixed content, readings written down, a sheet per unit afterwards.
Before cooling
- Coils cleaned inside and out.
- Charge measured against the conditions and the plate figure, never topped up on sight.
- Belts, bearings and mounts — mounts because in a mixed-use building somebody lives above you.
- Economiser driven through its full range. Stuck, it is silent, invisible from inside and expensive in both directions.
- Condensate pan, trap and drain — which in a shared building becomes somebody else’s ceiling.
Before heating
- Combustion tested with an analyser and the readings recorded per unit.
- Flue and combustion air checked, including anything a tenant has added since. In a tight building a new extract fan can pull a flue backwards.
- Heat exchanger inspected; a failed one means shut off and tagged, not patched.
- Controls read against how the premises actually trades, which is rarely what was set on the day.
- Filter sizes written down so the next set is right without a tape measure.
Fitting out an old floor
Ducts from a fit-out two tenants ago, still connected and serving nothing. A diffuser sealed above a new partition. A return path that worked until a wall was built to the slab while the rest go to the grid. Most comfort complaints in an old office floor are inherited rather than caused.
Design for the layout you are actually building, coordinate with whoever is doing the ceiling rather than following them, balance the airflows and record them, set the controls to your hours, and hand over the figures with an asset list.
A floor nobody commissioned never performs, and nobody finds out for two years.
Where the complaint is stuffiness we measure outside air actually delivered, filtration in place, and whether the system short-cycles so hard it never ventilates. We make no health claims for air cleaning equipment — we will say what a room is getting and what it costs to change it.