A commercial HVAC preventive maintenance checklist is only worth anything if a tech can actually run it on a roof in July without guessing what’s next. Most of the ones floating around online are written for a manual, not for a guy with a meter in one hand and the sun cooking the deck under his boots.
So here’s a commercial HVAC preventive maintenance checklist you could hand to a tech today, broken out by interval. It covers rooftop units, split systems, and the parts of chiller work a general FM crew actually touches. Print it, put it on the work order, whatever gets it in front of the person doing the job.
Monthly and quarterly tasks
The monthly and quarterly visits are the bread and butter. They’re short, they’re cheap, and they’re where you catch the failure before it becomes a 2 a.m. no-cooling call.
Every visit, on every unit:
- Check and replace air filters. Note the size and quantity so the next tech shows up with the right stack.
- Inspect belts for cracking and glazing. Check tension and pulley alignment. Replace anything past its service life.
- Pull the panels and clear the condensate drain pan and line. Flush it. A plugged drain is the number one cause of ceiling damage calls in the summer.
- Check the condensate pump if there is one. Run it, confirm it kicks the float and pumps.
- Look at the coils, both condenser and evaporator. Note whether they need cleaning. Light dirt, brush it. Heavy buildup, schedule a coil clean.
- Verify the thermostat or controls are calling and the unit responds. Confirm setpoints match what the client asked for, not what the last tech left.
- Check supply and return air temperatures. A weak split (usually 16 to 22 degrees on a working system) tells you something before the client feels it.
- Walk the unit for the obvious stuff: rust, standing water, loose panels, a bird’s nest in the economizer.
Quarterly, add:
- Lubricate motor and fan bearings where fittings exist.
- Check economizer operation. Confirm the dampers stroke and the actuator isn’t stuck. Economizers fail closed or fail open and nobody notices until the bill spikes.
- Inspect the disconnect and check for signs of heat at the lugs.
- Tighten belt covers and access panels that vibrate loose.
Annual and seasonal tasks
The annual visit is the real inspection. This is where you check the things that don’t change month to month but will absolutely leave you stranded if you skip them.
Cooling season startup:
- Check refrigerant charge by superheat or subcooling, depending on the metering device. Don’t top off a low system without finding the leak. Adding refrigerant to a leaking system is a repeat call you’re teaching yourself to make.
- Leak-check the connections and the coil if the charge is off.
- Test the compressor. Check amp draw against the nameplate. Listen for it. A compressor pulling high amps or short-cycling is telling you it’s on the clock.
- Check capacitors with a meter. A cap reading low is a five-minute swap now or an emergency call in August.
- Check the contactor for pitting on the points.
- Tighten every electrical connection in the unit. Loose lugs run hot, and hot lugs are how you lose a compressor or start a fire. This one item pays for the whole visit.
- Test safety controls: high-pressure and low-pressure switches, freeze stat, float switch.
Heating season startup, for gas units:
- Inspect the heat exchanger for cracks. This is a life-safety item, not a nice-to-have.
- Check the flame, the igniter, and the flame sensor. Clean the sensor.
- Verify gas pressure and combustion if you have the tools.
- Confirm the flue is clear and drafting.
Document the model and serial on every unit the first time you touch it. You’ll want it for parts, and the client will want it when they ask for an asset list at renewal time.
Why tracking the PM is how you keep the contract
Here’s the part that has nothing to do with wrenches.
The checklist above is table stakes. Any competent HVAC shop can do the work. What separates the shop that keeps a facilities contract from the one that gets underbid next year is whether you can prove you did it.
When the facilities manager’s boss asks why they’re paying you a monthly PM fee, that manager needs an answer that isn’t “they seem to show up.” They need a record. Which units, which visit, what you found, what you replaced, and the photo of the coil before and after. If you can hand them that, you’re not a line item they’re looking to cut. You’re the vendor who makes them look organized.
I’ve watched shops do flawless PM work and still lose the account, because when the renewal conversation came up they had nothing but a stack of handwritten tickets in a truck. The work was real. The proof wasn’t. From the client’s chair, undocumented work and no work look identical.
That’s the whole reason we built the work order and completion tools in TradelyHQ the way we did. The PM checklist rides on the work order, the tech checks off what he did and drops photos on his phone, and the client sees a clean completion record without you assembling it by hand. If you run recurring maintenance for commercial clients, the commercial HVAC software side of it is built around exactly this, keeping the recurring visits scheduled and the proof attached.
Build the checklist once, put it on the work order, and make the tech check the boxes. The work you’re already doing starts earning you the renewal instead of just the invoice. If you want to see how the recurring PM piece fits, take a look at the features.