Commercial air conditioning: should you repair or replace your system?

Recently, our air conditioning technicians discussed when Brisbane homeowners should pursue air conditioning repairs, as well as when they should cut their losses and get a completely new air conditioner instead.

Of course, homeowners aren’t the only people who need air conditioning in Brisbane.

Businesses customers rely on commercial air conditioning to keep their staff, customers and stock at a comfortable temperature.

Commercial properties have vastly different air conditioning requirements from your typical home. As such, the calculations businesses need to make are vastly different.

How different? Let’s find out!

Is it your entire system that’s acting up, or just one part?

Many of the commercial air conditioning installations we perform are for much larger premises. At Tri-Tech, we’ve designed and installed cooling systems for:

Hospitals and schools
Factories and warehouses
Restaurants, bars, and cafes
Office buildings

As such, we understand first-hand that the scope of commercial air conditioning work is often much greater than your average home!

With the amount of disruption your operations might suffer if you opt for complete replacement, it’s no surprise that many businesses lean towards repair whenever possible.

Of course, that depends on whether your problem is with one specific part of your commercial air conditioning system or the entire thing!

Fortunately, an inspection by a qualified air conditioning team can help you figure it out.

Commercial air conditioning Brisbane

How has your air conditioning system been looked after?

Generally, business clients tend to run their air conditioners harder than homeowners.

While regularly-scheduled maintenance is important for both, the nature of commercial air conditioning requirements means that usually, it’s a bigger concern for business customers.

How your air conditioning has been cared for over its life has a major impact on its lifespan.

Business that sign a service contract with an air conditioning specialist are likely to have systems that are in much better condition than those that don’t.

Even calling a tech in every 2-3 years be the difference between being able to salvage your air conditioner and having to replace it altogether!

Is your current air conditioning adequate?

Different businesses have unique air conditioning requirements. For example:

Restaurants need to keep both the dining area and the kitchen at appropriate temperatures
Factories and warehouses are huge, and require a constant temperature throughout
Hotel guests have different tolerances for heat and cold – each room requires independent temperature control

These are just a handful of examples of how different business have unique air conditioning requirements. They’re also examples of why system design is so important.

Simply put, system design is about making sure your business has the perfect air conditioning system for your needs.

And when we say “perfect”, we mean it.

That means things like size, power, control, scope… even the size of your windows or heat generated by your operations come into play!

This type of service takes an expert. Many commercial properties (in particular, older ones) never had the benefit of professional system design.

If your commercial property’s air conditioning system simply isn’t up to what you expect of it, then aircon troubles might actually be a blessing in disguise.

In the long-run, getting a professionally-designed system will be worth it!

And of course, businesses need to think about the same things as homeowners!

Just because commercial air conditioning requirements are different from domestic, that doesn’t mean that you can ignore everything we talked about in our last article!

Just like homeowners, business owners need to think about:

The age of their air conditioning – newer systems are generally more reliable, and cost less to maintain
Energy efficiency – even if your system hasn’t reached its use-by date, if you’re worried about your quarterly energy bill, a new system might be in order
What refrigerant they use – you might need to start worrying about the phase-out of R22

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