Commercial HVAC Company in Jacksonville, FL

On a roof, the first question is the nameplate rather than the ladder. Packaged rooftop units are sold in a light commercial range that tops out around 25 tons, which is exactly where our license stops — per system, so three 10-ton units on one roof are three separate systems and all three are inside it. Send a photo of the data plate and you have the answer before anybody climbs anything. Two other things a roof genuinely changes: getting up there needs sorting before the visit rather than during it, and replacing a unit is a different job from repairing one. On most change-outs the old unit comes off the curb by crane and the curb has to be flashed and sealed again afterwards, which in Florida is a roofing contractor's licensed scope, not ours.

More often it is a wrong-equipment problem than a broken-equipment one. A server closet throws off the same heat in January as in July, while the building's comfort system is designed around people and is frequently locked out overnight, at weekends, or when it is mild outside — which is exactly when the room cooks. Two things to check before you assume the unit is failing. First, whether that split is rated to cool at a low outdoor temperature at all; the operating range is in that model's installation manual, not on the nameplate. Second, where the temperature is being measured. A stat by the door tells you nothing about what the back of the rack is breathing.

It changes what failure looks like. With one packaged unit there is no partial failure and nothing to limp along on — the building either has cooling or it does not. On a two-circuit rooftop unit you can lose half the capacity and stay open; on a single machine you cannot. That is not an argument for buying a second unit. It is an argument for knowing the condition of the one you have before August rather than during it, and for treating a small fault on it as a scheduling decision rather than something to sit on.

Your lease decides that, and it is worth reading the clause before you approve anything. Commercial leases split HVAC in more ways than a homeowner ever has to think about. A lease can put routine maintenance on one party and replacement on the other. It can cap what the tenant contributes in a year. It can have the landlord carry a replacement and recover a share of it from you across the equipment's remaining useful life. Triple-net leases quite often put the whole thing on the tenant. Those are separate questions with separate answers, and the answers are in your document, not ours. What we will do is tell you what we measured and what actually failed, before any work happens, so whoever ends up paying is looking at the same numbers you are.

Yes. The thing worth settling before we come out is not the diagnosis, it is the paperwork. Your lease decides who is responsible, and it genuinely varies — retail, office and warehouse space are not the same on this point, and some leases require the landlord's own contractor. Read it, or tell us you have not, and say on the phone who authorises the spend. Tell us the tonnage too if you know it, because a single unit over 25 tons is a job we would rather turn down on the phone than on site.

Yes. The code is explicit: anyone intending to install, alter, repair, remove or replace a mechanical system has to apply to the building official and get the permit before the work starts. The exemptions are narrow — portable equipment and minor parts that do not change the equipment's approval. Swapping a rooftop unit or a split system is not on that list. Florida does let an owner act as their own contractor on a commercial building up to a limit, but only for a building they occupy themselves and do not lease out, so on leased space that route is closed in both directions and the permit comes from the licensed contractor. Check which department, too: Jacksonville takes applications through its own portal, but Jacksonville Beach, Atlantic Beach, Neptune Beach and Baldwin never consolidated with the city and run their own building departments. A contractor who offers to skip the permit is not saving you a step — he is moving the exposure off his license and onto your building.

It is a residential rule of thumb — the age of the unit multiplied by the repair cost, and if the answer clears $5,000 you replace — and it does not travel well to commercial equipment. It was built around a house with one system, where the only thing riding on the decision is comfort. On a commercial building the arithmetic is different: whether this unit is one of four or the only one, what it is actually cooling, and what the roof work adds on top of the equipment. We will still give you the number both ways. We are just not going to pretend a formula from a blog post knows your building.

Sixteen years is the median in ASHRAE’s service‑life database for a packaged rooftop unit, and a median is not an expiry date — it is the age at which half of them are still going. The more useful number in the same table is the count: of the 220 rooftop units in it, 215 were still in service. Age on its own is not a diagnosis. What failed, what it costs to put right, and what the rest of the machine looks like are the things that decide it, and a unit that needs a contactor is a unit that needs a contactor whatever year it was made.

No. R-410A equipment can still be serviced, and nothing obliges you to pull out a working unit. What changed is manufacture: since 1 January 2025, new residential and light commercial air conditioning and heat pump systems have to use a lower-GWP refrigerant, which is why new equipment ships with R-454B. EPA has since proposed dropping the installation deadline, which is why pre-2025 stock is still moving. The practical effect on you is that topping off an older R-410A system gets a little pricier each year — a reason to plan a replacement, not a reason to make one today.

You do not need one to book a visit, and nobody should be signed on to something recurring on a first visit. What scheduled maintenance genuinely buys on commercial equipment is that somebody is looking — the filters, the belts where there are still belts, the economizer, the condensate drain that blocks up through our long cooling season. Economizers are the clearest case: they fail quietly, usually a stuck damper or a drifted sensor, and the building gives you no hint either way. Some of what a visit catches is a failure avoided outright. The rest is a repair you schedule instead of one that picks its own afternoon. What we will not tell you is that any arrangement makes a unit unbreakable.