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Older commercial buildings have the same constraint as the flats do
A landlord, a building and sometimes a design review all have a view about what appears on an elevation. We establish that first, because it decides the job.
Small commercial across Pasadena and the west valley
Professional suites
Offices in older buildings along the avenues, often on a shared system nobody has documented, often with one tenant far too hot and another far too cold. Balancing and zoning before equipment, every time.
Clinics and treatment rooms
Rooms that must hold a temperature while somebody lies still in them, where draught and noise at the chair matter as much as the average reading, and where a failure cancels a day of appointments.
Studios and galleries
Dance, yoga and fitness studios with high and variable occupancy; galleries and framing studios where stability matters more than the exact number. We will design to a figure you give us and say honestly whether the building can hold it.
Shops and showrooms
Door-open trading, west glass and one unit expected to handle both. Honest conversations about air curtains and vestibules, including when they are not worth it for your door.
Restaurants and cafes
Where hood exhaust and dining-room comfort are one problem. We measure the make-up air, because a room that cannot hold temperature at service usually has a building being pulled into a vacuum by its own hood.
Landlords and managers
Attend, diagnose, photograph, price, report, and authorise nothing without your written say-so. Annual condition surveys per unit across a portfolio, with ages read off serial numbers.
Four questions we ask on a commercial tenancy
None of them is about equipment, and all four change the price.
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Who owns the roof and the elevations?
A tenant rarely has the right to put a unit on either without written permission. We ask to see it, and we do not proceed on an assurance that it was mentioned at a meeting.
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Who owns the equipment at the end of the lease?
It determines whether it is worth buying good equipment or merely adequate equipment, and it is very often not settled until somebody asks.
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What happens to the existing plant?
If there is a rooftop unit already, is it yours to replace, the landlord’s to maintain, or a shared system serving units you do not occupy? Those are three different jobs.
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When can we actually work?
Trading hours, quiet hours, lift access, roof access and whether a crane can stand anywhere. On an older building in a dense street, access decides the method more often than the equipment does.
A schedule that fits a trading week
Filters at an interval that suits your building rather than a default. Coils cleaned, drains proved, belts and contactors inspected, charge and combustion measured, and the readings entered against last year’s so a trend is visible rather than remembered.
One document per site listing every unit, where it is, what it serves, its age from its serial number and its last readings. If you change contractor, it goes with you.
