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Before you change contractor, get your records out of the old one
Changing is usually straightforward and often overdue. But there is a sequence to it, and there is one thing that can cost you thousands if nobody raises it — which almost nobody does, because raising it can cost them the job.
The records are yours, and the new firm should not quote before it has read them
Your equipment list, service history, readings and warranty registrations describe your building, not your contractor’s business. Ask for them. Most firms hand them over without any fuss, and a firm that refuses has told you something useful about the last few years.
And a new contractor who produces a replacement price before they have found every unit and read every rating plate is guessing on your behalf. A first visit to a building nobody has documented is a survey, not a quotation. If it is being sold to you as a free estimate that ends in a number, the number came from somewhere other than your building.
Why you are changing, and what you already have
Nothing is sent anywhere and nothing is recorded. This is what we would ask you on the telephone.
Manufacturers’ warranties on heating and cooling equipment commonly carry conditions, and two of them matter enormously when you change contractor. The first is registration: many warranties are only at their full length if the unit was registered within a window after installation, and the registration usually names an installing dealer. The second is maintenance: a good many warranties require documented annual maintenance, and a claim can be refused if nobody can produce the records.
Some manufacturers go further and restrict parts coverage to units installed or serviced by one of their authorised dealers. If yours does, and your new contractor is not one, you can lose thousands of dollars of cover by switching — and you will not find out until something fails.
What to do, in this order: find the warranty certificate and the registration confirmation; read what it says about maintenance records and about who may service the unit; telephone the manufacturer, not the contractor, and ask directly whether changing servicer affects your cover; and get the answer in writing before you move.
And about us, plainly: we are not an authorised dealer for every brand. If your equipment is inside a warranty that requires one and we are not it, we will tell you so, and we will tell you not to use us for that unit until the warranty runs out. We would rather lose the work than cost you the cover.
Ask for the records first, and change while you are calm rather than mid-failure
Write, do not telephone, and ask for the equipment list, the service history, the last set of readings, the filter sizes and any warranty registrations. Writing gives you a record of the request. Most firms send it. If yours does not, you have lost nothing but a week and you now know to allow for a full survey with the new contractor.
Then change in a quiet month rather than in the middle of an August failure. The first visit from anyone new is a survey, and a survey done under pressure is a worse survey. If something is already broken, get it fixed by whoever can attend, and do the changeover afterwards.
One thing worth doing before you go: write down, specifically, what went wrong. “They were unreliable” is not a brief. “Three visits for the same fault, no written readings, and nobody could tell us how old the unit was” is, and it tells the next firm exactly what to prove.
Treat it as a survey, not as a handover — you have no history and you should not pretend otherwise
Whatever the previous owner or the outgoing tenant knew has largely gone. Ask the agent or the seller for anything they hold, but plan on the assumption that it is nothing, and budget for a full survey of every unit in the building.
The two things to establish in the first month: whether any gas appliance is safe, which means combustion testing and a heat exchanger inspection, and how old each unit actually is from its serial number. Everything else can be scheduled.
If you have just bought and are still inside any contractual remedy period, get the survey done now rather than later. A written condition report costs a fraction of what it can be worth in that window, and it is worth nothing at all the day after the window shuts.
Find out what you are actually buying before you conclude it is expensive
Price is difficult to judge across contractors because the same words describe very different visits. A maintenance visit that includes measured static pressure, airflow, charge against target, combustion testing and a written record takes a couple of hours and costs accordingly. One that consists of changing a filter and looking at the unit takes twenty minutes. Both get called an annual service.
So before you move: ask the outgoing firm what their visit includes and ask for the last set of readings. If they cannot produce readings, you have been buying the twenty-minute version, and a cheaper quote elsewhere is not a saving — it is the same thing again.
And be careful of a low first-year price attached to a multi-year commitment. Ask what it renews at. We would rather tell you our figure and have you decide than win on a number that changes in year two.
Chase the paperwork now, while there is still somebody to chase
When a firm retires or closes, the records usually survive for a while and then do not. If the owner is contactable, ask straight away. If the business was sold, the buyer normally holds the files and will supply them, because they would like the work.
Two specific things are worth the effort. Any warranty registration, because it names an installing dealer and you may need that name. And the permit history from the city for any equipment replacement, because that gives you installation dates independently of anybody’s memory.
If none of it can be found, that is workable. Serial numbers give you manufacture dates, and a proper survey rebuilds the rest. It simply costs a visit that you would not otherwise have needed, and it is worth knowing that in advance rather than being surprised by it.
Standardise the record before you standardise the contractor
With several buildings, the problem is rarely that each local firm is bad. It is that nothing is comparable: different formats, different intervals, different amounts of detail, and no way to tell which site is about to cost you money.
So the first move is to specify the record rather than to appoint a single firm. Decide what every visit must produce — inventory with serial numbers, dated readings, what was done, what was not, and a photograph of each rating plate — and require it from whoever attends, including the incumbents. Within a year you can see the portfolio.
Only then decide whether consolidating is worth it. Sometimes it is not: a firm ten minutes from a site will beat a firm an hour away on response, whatever the contract says. Consolidate where travel time is similar, and keep the good local firms where it is not. We will say so even when it means we do not get the site.
About being let down
Ask the new firm what happens when a fault recurs after their visit, and get the answer before you appoint them rather than after. It is the single most useful question on the list and hardly anybody asks it.
About a building you have just taken on
Ask for the survey to include the location of every isolator, shut-off and condensate run. The day you need one of those, you will need it quickly and in the dark.
About price specifically
Ask for the scope of a maintenance visit in writing, as a list of what gets measured. Two quotes are only comparable once you have that from both, and getting it filters out a surprising number of firms.
About a firm that has gone
Check the city permit records yourself — they are public, they are usually searchable by address, and they give you installation dates and often the installing contractor without needing anyone’s cooperation.
About several sites
Ask any firm bidding for the portfolio to show you a completed record from another site with the client details removed. If they cannot produce one, they do not keep them, whatever the proposal says.
With no paperwork at all
This is the normal situation and it is entirely workable. Serial numbers give manufacture dates, a survey gives condition, and city permit records often give installation dates. Budget for one longer first visit and you are back in control. Do not let anybody quote a replacement before that visit has happened.
With a pile of invoices
More useful than people expect. Invoices give you dates, parts, refrigerant added and sometimes model numbers. Refrigerant added repeatedly is the single most telling pattern in the pile — it means a leak that was topped up rather than found, and it changes how you read any advice you were given. Bring them to the first visit.
With a maintenance contract
Read the notice period and the renewal terms before you do anything else, because some roll over automatically and some tie equipment discounts to continuous cover. Also read what the visits were supposed to include, then compare it with what you actually received — that comparison is often the clearest evidence of whether the problem was the firm or the contract.
With equipment under warranty
Read the note above before anything else on this page. Registration, the maintenance condition and any authorised-dealer requirement all need checking with the manufacturer directly, and the answer determines whether you should be changing contractor for that unit at all this year.
Ask the incoming firm these four questions
- What does your first visit produce?
- If the answer is a quotation rather than a record, you are being sold to rather than surveyed. A first visit to an undocumented building should produce an inventory and a set of readings.
- What exactly gets measured at a maintenance visit?
- As a list. Static pressure, airflow, charge against the manufacturer’s target, temperature split, amp draw, combustion where there is gas. Without that list, two prices cannot be compared.
- Do I get the records, and in what form?
- They describe your building. You should leave every visit holding them, and you should be able to take them to another contractor without asking permission.
- Are you an authorised servicer for my equipment?
- Ask it directly, brand by brand, and ask what happens to your warranty if the answer is no. A firm that answers this straight is worth more than one that is cheaper.