A building is not one system. It is a stack of them.
Harbor Crest works on heating, cooling and ventilation for buildings with more than one occupier in them — and for the houses of the people who own and manage them. Most complaints we are called about start on a different floor from the one they are reported on.
Six things, in buildings of every size
Planned maintenance
A record per unit rather than per building, with combustion readings, charge, economiser position and filter sizes written down so the file shows a trend.
Breakdowns
Diagnosed and quoted before parts are ordered. Where the unit is on an asset list, the model and refrigerant are already known and the part comes on the first visit.
Rooftop and split systems
Coils, belts, bearings, economisers, condensate, curbs and the roof penetration. Most of what shortens a unit’s life happens outside it.
Ventilation and extract
Kitchen canopies, workshop and salon extract, and the make-up air that has to replace whatever is being thrown out.
Fit-out and commissioning
Ductwork, diffusers and controls for the layout being built, with airflows balanced and recorded and the figures handed over.
Houses
Furnaces, heat pumps, ducts and cold rooms, with the same instruments used on the commercial side. A real page, not a token paragraph.
Suites, shops, clinics and small industrial
Johns Creek and the corridors around it are full of buildings with six, ten or twenty occupiers under one roof, one roof deck full of units, and nobody holding a single list of what serves what.
That is the gap we work in. The first visit to a new building produces a written asset list — unit by unit, what it serves, its real age from the serial number, its condition, and what stops trading if it stops.
Why a list rather than a contract
A maintenance contract on a building nobody has surveyed is a schedule of visits to unknown equipment. The list comes first because everything else — priorities, budget, what is worth repairing — depends on it.
It also settles the arguments. When a tenant is told their unit is twenty years old and the list says nine, that conversation ends quickly.
Houses get the same instruments
A furnace in a Johns Creek house is combustion tested with the same analyser as a rooftop unit, and a bedroom that never keeps up gets the airflow measured rather than argued about.
Gas heating, heat pumps, air conditioning, duct sealing and the rooms added during a remodel that were never properly served. Georgia’s cooling season is long, so the ductwork matters more here than the equipment does.
The one thing we say most
A room that never keeps up is nearly always airflow — a branch added during a remodel, a crushed flexible run in a crawlspace or attic, a damper closed years ago, or a return far too small.
We measure static pressure and the airflow at that register. An oversized replacement makes it slightly worse, and that is what gets sold.
Trace the complaint down the building
“Suite 210 is too hot.” The cause is on the roof about as often as it is in Suite 210 — and sometimes it is in Suite 310, or in the ceiling void between them.
Six complaints, traced level by level
Pick what has been reported and the page lights up the levels worth looking at on a section through the building, then writes out what to check at each one — including the ones that are not a heating contractor’s problem at all.
Why it is on the website
Because a property manager who can say “it is Suite 210, it started when 310 fitted out, and there is a stain on the roof beside RTU 4” gets the right visit first time. Vague complaints cost everybody money and usually cost it twice.
What this website will not tell you
Each one would be a number we invented.
| Not stated | Why |
|---|---|
| A price | A stuck actuator and a failed compressor are not the same visit. You get a fixed figure on the phone once we know what is installed. |
| A response time | We will not promise two hours on a July afternoon when half the county has lost cooling. |
| A saving | “Cut your energy bill by a third” depends on the building, the hours and the tariff. It cannot be known from a web page. |
| How long it will last | Two identical units on the same roof deck last very different lengths of time. The serial gives you the age; nothing gives you the future. |
Asked often enough to answer here
One suite is too hot and the one next door is fine. What is it?
Almost always delivery rather than capacity — the two suites prove the plant works. The usual causes are a flexible branch crushed when a ceiling was re-laid, a damper closed during somebody else’s fit-out, a return path blocked by a partition, or load the space picked up after it was designed. There is a page on this site that traces each complaint level by level.
Why do you survey a building before agreeing a maintenance schedule?
Because a contract on a building nobody has surveyed is a schedule of visits to unknown equipment. The survey produces a written page per unit — what it serves, its real age from the serial number, its condition and what stops trading if it stops — and everything else depends on it, including which repairs are worth doing.
There is a water stain on a tenant’s ceiling. Is it the roof?
Two candidates and they are two different trades. If it follows rain and is near a unit, the curb or the flashing is the first suspect and the repair belongs to whoever looks after the roof. If it appears in cooling season regardless of weather, it is almost certainly condensate — a blocked drain, a dry trap or a corroded pan — and that one is ours.
Do you work on houses as well?
Yes, properly. The homes page is a real page: furnaces, heat pumps, air conditioning, attic air handlers and the ductwork that decides whether any of it reaches the room. The same combustion analyser and the same manometer we take onto a roof deck.
My air conditioning needs refrigerant every year. Is that normal?
No. Refrigerant is not consumed — a system losing it has a leak, and an annual top-up is paying for the same fault repeatedly. Finding the leak is the job. The plate on the outdoor unit states the refrigerant type and the factory charge for a stated line length.
Which areas do you cover?
Johns Creek, Alpharetta, Duluth, Suwanee, Roswell, Peachtree Corners, Cumming and Milton.
Where we are
5805 State Bridge Rd, Johns Creek, GA 30097. Monday to Friday, 7.30am to 4.30pm.
We cover Johns Creek, Alpharetta, Duluth, Suwanee, Roswell, Peachtree Corners, Cumming and Milton.