The math every business owner should run
A single unexpected RTU failure during peak business hours costs more than most quarterly maintenance contracts. Add up the lost revenue from an uncomfortable dining room driving customers out, a retail space too hot for staff and shoppers, or a walk-in cooler failure destroying inventory, and preventive maintenance stops looking like an expense and starts looking like insurance.
What a quarterly PM contract actually includes
Filter changes on a schedule matched to your specific traffic and dust load (restaurants and retail need more frequent changes than typical office space).
Coil cleaning, condenser and evaporator, which directly impacts efficiency and prevents the gradual capacity loss that shows up as a slowly climbing utility bill nobody notices until it's dramatic.
Refrigerant charge verification catching slow leaks before they become full system failures.
Electrical component testing, contactors, capacitors, and control boards checked under load, catching failures before they happen rather than after.
Belt and bearing inspection on units that use them, preventing the mid-shift failures that come from a snapped belt or seized bearing.
Condensate drain service, especially critical for commercial units where a clogged drain can mean water damage to ceiling tiles, merchandise, or equipment below.
Documented service records, which matter for lease compliance (many commercial leases require documented HVAC maintenance) and for warranty claims on newer equipment.
Why quarterly beats annual for commercial
Residential systems typically do fine with twice-yearly service. Commercial equipment runs harder: longer hours, higher occupancy loads, and often more demanding environments (restaurant grease-laden air, retail dust and traffic, medical office air quality requirements). Quarterly service catches problems in a 90-day window instead of letting issues develop for 6-12 months before the next scheduled visit.
Restaurant and food service specifics
Grease-laden exhaust air accelerates coil fouling on rooftop units serving kitchen areas. We factor this into service frequency recommendations for restaurant accounts, often recommending more frequent coil cleaning specifically for kitchen-adjacent RTUs.
Walk-in cooler and freezer maintenance (door seal checks, evaporator coil frost patterns, compressor cycling behavior) prevents the inventory-destroying failures that hit hardest during a busy weekend.
Response time matters as much as prevention
Even with excellent maintenance, equipment eventually needs repair. Our contracted commercial accounts get priority emergency response, under 2 hours for a downed unit during business hours, ahead of non-contract same-day calls. For a restaurant on a Friday night or a medical office mid-day, that response time difference is the whole point of the contract.
What it costs
PM contracts start at $600/year per rooftop unit for quarterly service, scaled based on unit count, tonnage, and complexity (standard RTU vs. VRF system vs. refrigeration equipment). Multi-unit accounts (strip malls, multi-location restaurant groups) get volume-based contract pricing.
Lease compliance
Many commercial leases specifically require the tenant to maintain HVAC equipment on a documented schedule, sometimes with specific frequency requirements written into the lease. A PM contract with Keith's gives you the documentation trail landlords and lease auditors ask for, without you having to track it yourself.
Setting up a contract
Call (228) 265-8609 and ask for commercial. We'll walk your site, count units, assess condition, and put together a contract scoped to your actual equipment, not a generic per-unit rate that doesn't match your situation.