An important part of site management for universities, colleges and schools is maintaining a cool and comfortable environment throughout the year. When problems arise with school air-conditioning it can have a severe effect on teaching quality and the comfort of pupils. This became very apparent during the recent hot summer weather, when a number of schools in the Milton Keynes area experienced critical air conditioning faults.
It clearly isn’t enough to simply have air-conditioning in a school. It needs to be repaired, serviced and maintained by a reputable AC maintenance company. The question is, how much should AC maintenance cost for a school, university or college?
The first thing for us to say – and we apologise for not being more specific – is that every school building is going to be very different. Therefore, it is impossible for us to give a blanket, one size fits all cost. The way it works is we provide a bespoke quote based on the size, layout and requirements of your building. The idea is to provide uniform, cost-effective air conditioning for all the rooms in your school. That’s not something we can give you a guesstimate for without physically visiting your building.
However, when looking around for AC maintenance quotes, there are some questions you should ask that will allow you to determine whether or not you are getting value for money. The features that are included in the maintenance plan, compared with the price you are offered. This lets you be the judge of whether your quote is reasonable or not.
1) What Is The AC Company’s Response Time SLA?
In the worst-case scenario, a school may be forced to close if it’s air conditioning system breaks down on a stifling hot day. Therefore, when evaluating your AC maintenance costs, you need to know that you are covered by a rapid response service in case of an emergency. A reputable company should be able to send someone out the next day for non-critical faults. For system failures and serious problems, however, it isn’t unreasonable to expect a same day SLA, or even two to four hours in some cases. The higher the SLA, the more you are likely to pay, but you should take the potential costs of service disruption into account when assessing the value of your quote.
2) What Is Their Fault-Fix Rate?
The job of an AC maintenance company is to fix faults, so you should try to assess how many faults are fixed within one visit. If their engineers are well trained and supplied with the right parts, this figure should be pretty high. The engineer should also be able to diagnose faults quickly and implement repairs on a rapid basis, so as to avoid disruption to your pupils.
3) Do They Offer PPM (Planned, Preventative Maintenance)?
Prevention is better than cure. So, as important as it is for a maintenance company to get to you quickly and fix faults when they occur, it is arguably even more important that they carry out a regular schedule of cleaning, performance testing and maintenance throughout the year. This will help avoid faults occurring when you most need the air-conditioning to be working effectively – such as the height of summer.
4) Do They Have The Capacity To Provide The Service You Need?
How much you pay will often depend on the type of company you go for. Your cheapest rates locally are likely to be from the ‘one-man bands’; sole traders who serve schools and businesses in a limited, local area. Many of these engineers are well trained and offer a professional service. However, because of the nature of their business, the service they can offer is limited. What is going to happen if you need emergency repairs and you can’t get hold of your provider because they are on another call, or they can’t order in the parts for several days? For a large site such as a school or college, you will be better off partnering with a larger business, even though the rates may be slightly higher. This doesn’t mean you have to sign up with one of the large, national AC companies. There are plenty of medium sized, family-run professional businesses, such as ACE Services, who can provide an excellent service at a lower cost than the big names.