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 — the management company — was handling fourteen units in Seacrest Beach and a handful of adjacent properties. They had been using two different HVAC contractors with inconsistent scheduling windows, 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 three of the fourteen 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.
Emergency response. Occupied units get coordinated repair support for daytime calls. After-hours calls for genuine failures (no cooling, not a thermostat setting issue) get a tech on-site as soon as scheduling allows. 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 $185 per unit per year, covering both the 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 $640 — 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 scheduling windows, or no pre-season protocol, we should talk. Contact us — we can outline what a service agreement for your portfolio would look like.