When a Howard Street storefront's July power bill jumps, the rooftop unit is usually the reason

Reading a commercial power bill in Live Oak

A business in this market gets its electricity from one of two places. Inside the city limits, and in Wellborn and Houston, FPL sends the bill; the storefronts along Ohio Avenue and Howard Street, the clinics near the hospital and the offices around the courthouse are FPL customers. Past the city line, Suwannee Valley Electric Cooperative serves the farm offices, the poultry-operation support buildings, the churches and stores in the small towns, and the lodges and outfitters along the Suwannee. The bills look different and the demand charges work differently, but a failing rooftop unit shows up on both the same way.

The tell is a July or August total that rises against the same month last year while the hours of operation did not change. In this county, where the afternoons are hotter than anywhere on the coast and there is no breeze across a flat roof, a rooftop unit that has lost a little refrigerant, a condenser coil that has not been washed since the pollen drop, a belt slipping on a blower, or an economizer stuck open and pulling 94-degree air into the return will all run longer and draw more. On a commercial bill with a demand charge, a unit that runs flat-out through the afternoon peak costs twice: once in energy, once in the demand peak it sets for the month. The roof is where to look first.

Fix or replace: the branches for a rooftop unit

Commercial decisions are less sentimental than residential ones and the tree is shorter.

Under ten years. Repair. Parts are available, the warranty may still cover the compressor, and the efficiency gain from new equipment does not pay back on a unit this young.

Ten to fifteen years, minor part. Repair, and put it on a quarterly maintenance schedule if it is not already, because at this age the next failure is predictable and preventable.

Ten to fifteen years, compressor or coil. Run the numbers. A business running the unit twelve hours a day, six days a week, gets back the cost of a high-efficiency replacement faster than any house does, and the demand-charge savings are real. We write both quotes.

Past fifteen years, any major part. Replace. A rooftop unit in this climate has worked hard for fifteen summers, and a second major part is usually six months behind the first.

Any age, after a lightning strike or flood. Insurance drives it. We document the damage, test everything, and replace what is gone.

Any age, where the building has changed. A restaurant that added a kitchen line, a clinic that added exam rooms, a church that enclosed a porch. The load changed; the equipment did not. Replacement sized to the new load beats repairing equipment sized to the old one.

Call Cook's for commercial HVAC

Equipment we service on Suwannee County roofs and pads

Cook’s installs Lennox commercial equipment as a dealer and services nearly everything already in place: rooftop package units from three to twenty-five tons, split systems, heat pumps, mini-splits for server closets and additions, make-up air for kitchens, and the economizers, thermostats and building controls that run them. The buildings vary as much as the equipment: brick storefronts downtown with units on flat roofs, steel-sided agricultural offices with pad-mounted splits, churches with multiple zones added over decades, clinics with tight temperature and humidity requirements, and the lodges and dive shops near the springs that fill up on weekends.

Agricultural buildings get particular attention. The dust around a poultry operation or a hay barn loads a condenser coil in weeks, and a coil that cannot shed heat kills a compressor by August. Quarterly cleaning on those sites is not optional.

Commercial warranties, plainly

A manufacturer’s warranty on new commercial equipment covers parts for its stated term once the equipment is registered, which Cook’s handles at install. Labor and refrigerant are not covered unless a labor warranty is purchased alongside. Compressors sometimes carry a longer term than the rest of the unit. Warranty claims require that the equipment was installed and maintained properly, and a maintenance record is the document that proves it; a business with no record and a failed compressor in year four is in a weak position. Lightning and generator damage are excluded as acts of nature by most manufacturers, which is why surge protection on a rooftop unit in this county is on every estimate.

On repairs, the new part carries the manufacturer’s part warranty and Cook’s stands behind the labor.

Spreading the cost

Repairs are invoiced on completion with the price agreed before the work. Replacements come with a free written estimate, and financing with low monthly payments is available on new high-efficiency systems; terms are set at application and we do not publish a lender or rate. FPL’s commercial customers should ask about the utility’s efficiency programs at the time of the quote; FPL’s residential A/C rebate pays through enrolled contractors, so ask whether Cook’s is enrolled and whether any commercial equivalent applies. [[CONFIRM WITH JERRY]] There is no federal tax credit to count on for commercial HVAC placed in service now.

Commercial calls are dispatched from the Palm Coast headquarters with the same rule as a house: the phone is answered at any hour, and a Saturday-afternoon rooftop failure costs what a Tuesday one does.