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Short answer
Commercial HVAC is priced around access and occupancy before equipment. Rooftop units need a safe route and sometimes fall protection; occupied buildings constrain when work can happen; and in a tenanted property the lease decides responsibility. Rooftop equipment degrades faster than residential because it is fully exposed and runs longer hours. That exposure is why a maintenance interval borrowed from a home system is wrong for a roof, and why a unit that looks similar to a residential one will not last as long. Ask a proposal to state the access arrangements it assumes, the hours it will work, who is responsible for the unit under the lease, and what service interval the exposure and run hours actually justify.
Jobs this covers
- Commercial heating repair
- Rooftop unit service
- Commercial heat pumps
- Ventilation and make-up air
- Controls and zoning
- Planned equipment replacement
Common problems and warning signs
- A business loses heat or cooling
- One zone will not maintain temperature
- A rooftop unit fails
- Ventilation is inadequate
- Energy or maintenance costs rise
- A tenant buildout changes HVAC needs
What service may include
Rooftop units need safe roof access. Work may include troubleshooting, scheduled maintenance, controls, airflow, equipment repair, replacement planning, rooftop access and coordination around business hours.
What affects the recommendation and price
A crane lift can dominate a rooftop job. Equipment size and location, occupancy, rooftop access, controls, ventilation, after-hours work, permits, crane needs and operating schedule affect scope and cost.
What is different around Burlington
Commercial buildings downtown and in the Old North End are often older, occupied and tight on roof access, so crane lifts, weekend work and tenant notice shape the schedule. Permits run through Burlington's Department of Permitting & Inspections.
What a written quote should tell you
- How the equipment is reached, and any access or fall-protection requirement
- Whether work can happen during trading hours and the cost difference if not
- Which areas lose heating or cooling during the work, and for how long
- Where the lease puts responsibility between tenant and landlord
- For maintenance, the task list and the interval, tied to run hours rather than a flat number of visits
| Constraint | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Rooftop access, sometimes fall protection | Adds a real line item to the job, not just the repair |
| Trading hours | Work has to fit around occupancy, not just scheduling |
| Exposure and run hours | Rooftop equipment degrades faster than a residential maintenance interval assumes |
Common questions
Do you help small retail and office properties?
Yes: state the property type, system, access and urgency so commercial-capable help can be arranged.
Can service happen outside business hours?
Sometimes. Include required work windows and access restrictions in the request.
Can plumbing and HVAC be coordinated?
Yes for mechanical projects, although the exact companies and credentials may differ by scope.
What is an RTU and why is so much commercial equipment on the roof?
A rooftop unit is a packaged HVAC system, compressor, coils, heating section, blower and controls in one weatherproof cabinet, installed on the roof and connected to the building by a duct penetration. Equipment sits up there because it keeps noisy, serviceable machinery out of leasable floor area, simplifies outdoor air intake and exhaust, and allows service without entering tenant space. The trade-offs are exposure to weather, roof loading, and the fact that Vermont winter service on a roof is genuinely harder and more expensive than service in a basement.
How do I know when to replace rather than repair a rooftop unit?
Track cost per year against remaining life and against what a replacement would save. Commercial rooftop units typically last fifteen to twenty years. Past that, repairs are being spent on a unit near the end. Two additional factors carry more weight commercially than residentially: refrigerant, since equipment using a phased-down refrigerant faces rising service costs, and controls, since older units often cannot integrate with a building management system. A capital plan that schedules replacements before failures is worth building if the property has several units.
Can building maintenance staff handle commercial HVAC?
Filters, belts, visual inspections, thermostat and control adjustments, keeping condensers clear and logging readings are all normal in-house tasks and doing them well prevents most emergencies. What requires a licensed and certified contractor is anything touching refrigerant, gas piping, high-voltage electrical work, or the fire and life-safety interfaces that commercial systems have and residential ones do not. Smoke dampers, duct detectors and shutdown sequences are regulated and tested, and adjusting them informally is a serious matter.
What does deferred commercial HVAC maintenance cost?
Usually business interruption instead of repair cost. A rooftop unit failing in a heat wave closes a restaurant or empties an office; a failed control sequence in a building with tenants generates complaints and lease disputes; and a refrigerant leak on a large system is both an expensive recharge and a compliance obligation. Because commercial equipment is larger and often on longer lead times, the replacement part that takes two days for a house can take weeks for a rooftop unit, which is the real argument for planned maintenance in a commercial building.
How often should commercial HVAC be serviced?
Quarterly is a common baseline for rooftop units and larger systems, with monthly filter attention in dusty or high-occupancy environments and semi-annual major service before each season. The right interval comes from the equipment and the use, not from a default: a restaurant kitchen's make-up air unit and an office rooftop in the same building are on entirely different schedules. Keep a written maintenance log: it matters for warranty, for lease compliance, and for the eventual capital planning conversation.
In a commercial lease, who maintains the HVAC?
The lease decides, and commercial leases vary far more than residential ones. Triple-net leases commonly assign the tenant responsibility for the HVAC serving their space, including replacement, which can be a substantial unplanned liability if the unit is already old at signing. Gross leases commonly leave it with the landlord. If you are signing, find out the age and condition of the units serving your space before you agree to be responsible for them, and consider negotiating a cap on capital replacement: this is a standard and reasonable negotiation point.
How does a commercial HVAC warranty differ from a residential one?
Commercial equipment warranties are typically shorter in run-hours-equivalent terms than residential warranties, since the equipment cycles far more: ask for the warranty stated in both years and, where available, operating hours, since a commercial unit can exhaust a '10-year' warranty's practical value well before the calendar date.
What is the most common mistake signing a commercial lease with HVAC responsibility?
Signing a lease that makes the tenant responsible for HVAC capital replacement without first finding out the age and condition of the units serving that space. An inherited unit near the end of its life can become an unplanned five-figure liability within the first year of a new lease.