Commercial air conditioning maintenance that is the same at every store.
Scheduled servicing, breakdown repairs and replacement programs for store air conditioning, by licensed technicians, recorded per unit.
- 6 months
- Full service interval in long trading hours
- 4 to 6 weeks
- Filter checks in heavy use
- ARCtick
- Licensed refrigerant handling
Commercial air conditioning and HVAC maintenance keeps the heating, cooling and ventilation in a store running through scheduled servicing, breakdown repairs and planned replacement. Nextage runs it across Australian retail fleets with licensed refrigeration and air conditioning technicians doing the work, one service standard for every unit, and a record per unit that shows what was done and what is failing. Delivered in Sydney, including Western Sydney, and in Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Hobart, Canberra and Darwin, plus Newcastle, Wollongong, Geelong and the Gold Coast.
At a glance
- Full service
- About every six months for units in long trading hours
- Filters
- Checked every four to six weeks in heavy use
- Refrigerant work
- Only by a holder of an ARCtick refrigerant handling licence
- Licence issued by
- Australian Refrigeration Council
Sources and detail: How often should commercial air conditioning be serviced?
The problem
- Every store has a different air conditioning contractor and a different idea of what a service includes.
- Units fail on the hottest trading day because nobody tracked their age or condition.
- Replacement is funded unit by unit in a panic instead of planned across the fleet.
What's included
- Asset register per store: unit type, age, condition and location
- Scheduled servicing to one written checklist: filters, coils, drains, refrigerant checks, controls
- Breakdown attendance and repairs, logged from report to close out
- Work by technicians holding the required refrigerant handling licence
- Replacement planning ranked by condition and cost, staged across capital cycles
- Service record and photos per unit
Public liability insurance: $20 million.
Program shape
How the work runs
Same order every time. The order is what makes site 40 match site 1.
Each site closes with a completion report: photos before and after, the work performed, and the handover detail. How a national program runs
Register the units
Every unit at every store, recorded the same way.
Set the service standard
One checklist and frequency per unit type, written down.
Service and repair
Licensed technicians, after hours where trading needs it.
Track condition
A running history per unit, so failing units are visible early.
Plan replacement
Worst units first, priced per site, staged to capital.
A good fit
- Retail fleets with split systems, packaged units or rooftop plant across many sites
- Groups with no single record of what air conditioning they own
- Owners who want replacement planned rather than forced
Not a fit
- Central plant in a shopping centre that the landlord maintains
- Mechanical services design for new buildings
- Cooling tower water treatment programs
Run for: Liquor · Large format retail · Convenience and fuel · Shopping centres
Photos
Rooftop condensers and the service sheet
A technician logging a service at the condenser units, and the sheet we fill in for every unit: filters, coils, drain line, refrigerant pressures and electrical connections. The sheet shown is an example.
FAQ
About commercial air conditioning & HVAC maintenance
How often should commercial air conditioning be serviced?
About every six months for units running long trading hours, with filters checked every four to six weeks in heavy use. Busy or dusty sites are serviced more often. The schedule is set per unit type and written down, and refrigerant work is only done by an ARCtick licence holder.
Who works on the refrigerant side of the system?
Technicians who hold the refrigerant handling licence required in Australia. Nextage manages the program and the records; the licensed work is done by licensed people.
What does a service visit include?
Filters, coils, the drain line, refrigerant pressures, electrical connections and controls, checked against one sheet for every unit. The sheet goes on the unit's record, so the next visit starts from the last one.
When should a unit be replaced instead of repaired?
When its own record says so: repeat call outs, parts that are hard to find, or an older refrigerant such as R22 that is being phased out. We rank replacement across the fleet from the service history, not from the age of a unit alone.
What changes the price of an air conditioning maintenance contract?
The number of units and what type they are, how often they are visited and what each visit includes, roof access, after hours work so the store can trade, and the condition of the units at takeover.
Can you take over air conditioning another contractor has been maintaining?
Yes. The first step is registering every unit and its condition, so the history starts from a known point.
Related
Often runs alongside
Reactive & preventative maintenance
Reactive call outs, make safe, planned preventative maintenance and general repairs across the store fleet, through one accountable team.
Read more
Refrigeration & door energy efficiency
Aerofoil blades on refrigeration cabinets and air curtains at cool room and entry doors. Measured on site before capital is committed, then staged across the estate.
Read more
Air conditioning
How often should commercial air conditioning be serviced?
Commercial air conditioning is commonly serviced every six months, filters more often. What a service checks, and who is licensed to do refrigerant work.
Read the guideAir conditioning breaking down?
Tell us the stores. We'll register the units and set the service standard.