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Shops, cafes, offices and studios
On a commercial building, how the plant is reached is not a detail. It is most of what the equipment will cost to keep running.
Every unit found, and how each one is reached
Every unit located and identified by model and serial number, matched to the area it actually serves, its measured condition recorded, and dead or abandoned plant marked as dead. Then the readings: airflow and static pressure, refrigerant charge, economiser operation, filter condition and the pressure drop across it, belt and bearing condition, condensate drainage, and combustion analysis on gas heat.
And an access column, which is the part that changes decisions. How each unit is reached, whether a ladder or a hoist is needed, whether the roof has an edge that can be worked near safely, and what all of that adds to every filter change for the next fifteen years.
On a building where three units are easy and one is not, that column is usually the reason the fourth one has never been maintained.
Four kinds of building, four different access problems
Shops with a stock room ladder
The roof is reached through a hatch in a stock room and the ladder went missing years ago, or the hatch opens onto a roof with no safe edge treatment. Both are fixable and neither is expensive relative to what they cost in deferred maintenance. Until they are fixed the honest answer is that the unit gets looked at less often than it should.
Cafes and kitchens
Extract equipment above a working line, reached over hot surfaces during trading hours. That is a scheduling problem as much as an access one, and it is solved by coming before opening rather than by anybody working over a fryer. Make-up air balance is measured rather than assumed. We do not clean hoods or certify fire suppression.
Offices above shops
Plant in a cupboard that has become a stationery store, or on a roof reached through a tenancy that is not yours. Both need arranging before the visit rather than on the day, and the second needs written permission from somebody who is not our customer.
Studios and small workshops
Equipment above a working space full of things that must not be disturbed, and extraction that is often doing a job nobody specified. Where extraction is a containment question rather than a comfort one — fumes, dust, anything hazardous — that is an industrial hygienist’s field and we will say so rather than take it on.
What we do in premises
- Written plant survey with an access column
Every unit found, identified, measured, mapped to what it serves and to how it is reached.
- Planned maintenance
Scheduled around trading hours, with the same readings each visit, written specifically enough that a lease obligation can be shown to have been met.
- Access works
Fixed ladders, hatch improvements, walkways and edge protection specified and arranged, so the plant can actually be maintained.
- Repair and replacement
Repair diagnosed and costed first. Replacement planned with the route, the hoist and the closure worked out before anything is ordered.
- Make-up air and kitchen balance
Extraction measured against supply, with the figures written down.
- Records and handover
A plant list, a maintenance history and an access note per unit, in a form the next manager can use on their first day.
Work we turn down
| We decline | Who it belongs to |
|---|---|
| Working at height without proper protection | Nobody. It simply does not happen, on any building, at any price. We will specify what is needed and arrange it. |
| Building the access works ourselves | Fixed ladders, walkways, edge protection and structural openings are a builder’s or a specialist’s work. We specify them and we will co-ordinate; we do not install them. |
| Central chiller plant and cooling towers | A different discipline with different tickets. |
| Proprietary building management systems | We work with the controls in front of us. Programming a manufacturer-locked system belongs to whoever holds the licence. |
| Commercial refrigeration | Walk-ins, display cases and ice machines are adjacent and are not the same trade. |
| Hood cleaning and fire suppression | Separate licensed jobs. We do the air balance around the hood. |
| Laboratory and process extraction | Where extraction is a containment question it needs an industrial hygienist and a specialist contractor. |
Tell us the building
What it is used for, how many units there are, and how somebody currently gets to them. 1676 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley. Monday to Friday, 8am to 4.30pm.