Property management on 30A runs on a different clock than residential HVAC service. A system failure at 10pm on a Friday in July is not a Monday-morning call. Guests are either in the unit or checking in tomorrow morning. The refund exposure on a botched turnover during peak season can exceed the cost of the repair by a factor of five.
The property management company that called us — [UPDATE: if they've consented to being named, add the company name; otherwise leave as "the management company"] — was handling [UPDATE: number of units, e.g. "eleven units"] in Seacrest Beach and a handful of adjacent properties. They had been using two different HVAC contractors with inconsistent response times, no unified service record, and no pre-season maintenance protocol. One contractor had stopped responding to after-hours calls entirely.
What we set up
Pre-season inspection (April). Every unit gets a full maintenance visit before Memorial Day weekend — coil cleaning on both the evaporator and condenser, condensate drain flush, refrigerant charge verification, capacitor test, contactor inspection, filter replacement, and thermostat check. Any deferred issues are flagged with a repair estimate before the season starts, not when a guest is in the unit. For [UPDATE: insert how many units had issues at first pre-season visit, e.g. "three of the eleven units"], the first inspection found conditions that would have become failure calls by July — a marginal capacitor on two units and a condenser coil choked with debris on a third.
Mid-season check (July). A lighter pass — condensate drains, filter check, visual inspection of outdoor units. High-occupancy rental properties run their systems harder than a primary residence in the same period. Condensate drains clog more frequently. We build the mid-season check into the agreement specifically because of this.
Response time. Occupied units get same-day response for daytime calls. After-hours calls for genuine failures (no cooling, not a thermostat setting issue) get a tech on-site within [UPDATE: your actual after-hours response target, e.g. "three hours"]. The property manager texts the on-call line directly — no routing through an answering service.
Service documentation. Every visit generates a service record with the unit address, the technician's name, what was done, parts used, and the next recommended service action. The property manager has a running file for each property. When an owner asks what's been done to their unit's HVAC, the answer is a document, not a memory.
What the relationship actually costs
The annual maintenance agreement for the portfolio runs [UPDATE: annual cost or per-unit cost, e.g. "$X per unit per year covering both pre-season and mid-season visits"]. Repairs are billed at our standard rate with no markup for the management agreement — the agreement covers labor for scheduled visits and parts at cost. For this portfolio's first full season, total repair cost outside the maintenance agreement was [UPDATE: if you tracked it, e.g. "$Y — primarily two capacitor replacements and one condensate pump"].
If you manage short-term rental properties on 30A and your current HVAC situation involves multiple contractors, inconsistent response times, or no pre-season protocol, we should talk. Contact us — we can outline what a service agreement for your portfolio would look like.