As a business owner, monitoring hard costs is a vital part of maintaining your livelihood and the consequences of not accounting for them can be dire. You’re constantly keeping an eye on expenses like payroll, rent or mortgage, and let’s not forget energy costs. Your HVAC system is one of the most expensive and integral parts of your infrastructure, and yet it’s not likely that you’ve even thought about it lately.
But consider the following questions:
- How many customers would you be willing to lose because your building was say, too hot to complete that workout, or too cold to finish that meal, or too drafty to try on those clothes?
- How productive do you think your employees should be?
- How long would you be willing to close your doors due to an HVAC equipment failure?
Like any good business owner or building manager, you probably wouldn’t tolerate any of this. And yet, these are the soft costs of a poorly maintained HVAC system.
These soft costs are something you may not account for in your monthly budget, but they can mean the death of your business if you don’t pay attention. Staying on top of your energy equipment might seem expensive, until you realize the price of lost opportunities.
Benefits of an HVAC preventative maintenance contract include:
- Correcting issues in advance means your company doesn’t suffer from emergency situations that can require you to shut down. You should expect your preventative maintenance contract to require the HVAC experts to visit your place of business on a regular basis to check on equipment, evaluate performance and identify any problems.
- Regular “check ups” allow you to budget for future business expenses. If you know that you’re HVAC System is nearing its end, you can start saving for new components before the old ones break down.
- Priority service in the event of an emergency. Without a contract, you might be in line behind hundreds of other businesses that also need service calls. Having a contract in place gives you priority over others who also need to get their companies up and running again.
Business owners should carefully vet HVAC service providers and pay close attention to contractual terms. So do your own research, and ask questions.
Here are a few helpful hints for selecting an HVAC service agreement:
- Inquire about their main facility and its distance from your business, and the qualifications of their professionals. Find out whether they maintain a well-stocked inventory of parts and replacement equipment, as waiting several days for orders can cost you business.
- Thoroughly review the contract, especially its provisions on the maximum time period for response when you experience equipment failure. If the company cannot respond in a reasonable amount of time, consider taking your business elsewhere. The industry standard is four hours to be onsite at your premises.
While the costs of entering into a preventative maintenance agreement may seem steep, remember they’re nothing compared to the expense of lost business opportunities. Companies that do consider proper HVAC system maintenance into account when figuring future financial success are making smart, informed choices about HVAC preventative maintenance agreements.
To learn more about the soft costs of poor HVAC maintenance and how it could be affecting you, download our comprehensive white paper, Calculating the Hidden Costs of Poor HVAC Maintenance.
