You may consider yourself a pretty handy person who knows how to tinker with appliances and electronics until they work properly. And that’s a great skill to have! But when it comes to your commercial HVAC system, any mistakes can be costly.
A commercial HVAC unit is NOT the same as the systems you will find in a residential one. You can read more specifically about commercial HVAC maintenance to learn how it differs from residential here. But if you’re still not convinced you need an HVAC technician who specializes in commercial HVAC, keep reading.
The two major differences between commercial and residential HVAC systems are the size and configuration.
And if you have a technician who is familiar with residential HVAC units, it’s no guarantee they know their way around a commercial system.
Commercial HVAC systems cover much more square footage than a residential HVAC.
A business will always required more energy than any residential home. Because of the space and number of people a commercial system must keep comfortable, it’s larger. And typically commercial HVAC systems are spread out over the roof of a building, so working with these units requires more knowledge than working with a home system. Even in the installation process, working with a technician who can properly fit your commercial building with the correct size commercial HVAC unit makes all the difference. If the unit is too big or too small for your building, it won’t work efficiently and will cost you more in the long run.
Commercial HVAC units come as a package, one unit containing both the air conditioner and the heat pump.
In residential units, the heating and cooling units are separate, with a separate indoor evaporator and outdoor compressor, making commercial units a whole new ball game for technicians. Commercial HVAC combines heating and cooling in one large, rooftop unit.
Commercial HVAC units are modular, saving you money but requiring experience to work with.
The size of your building’s commercial HVAC system is flexible. These units come in modulars, which means you can change the heating and cooling by removing or adding modulars to your system. It takes a knowledgeable technician to make your system as efficient as possible by determining what modulars make up your system. These modulars are also a part of a larger system, which makes them even more complicated for a residential only technician to understand.