Commercial HVAC in Houston, TX lives a harder life than a home system. Rooftop units bake in direct sun over sales floors, kitchens add heat and grease, and buildings full of people pull in moisture most of the year. When a unit quits, the cost shows up as lost customers, spoiled stock and staff sent home early. This page covers the equipment most Houston businesses depend on, how commercial service differs from a house call, the Texas license classes and City of Houston rules that apply, the federal refrigerant duties that fall on owners, and what to ask before you sign a work order or a maintenance plan.
Houston Air & Heating answers calls; it is not a contractor, and nobody from the line will ever be on your roof. Dial (832) 662-4107, tell the automated assistant the property is a business, and explain the symptoms. The call is handed to a locally owned HVAC company, independent of the line, which looks at the equipment, prices the job and invoices your business itself. Business and household calls go through the same way.
How commercial service differs from a house call
Many companies take both kinds of work, yet the equipment, licensing and paperwork change once the building is a business. These differences shape what you should ask.
| Topic | Typical Houston house | Typical business property |
|---|---|---|
| Equipment | Outdoor condenser plus an attic or closet air handler or furnace | Packaged rooftop units, older split systems, ductless units for add-ons and IT rooms, chilled water in towers |
| License class | Class B is plenty | Class B up to 25 tons cooling or 1.5 million BTU an hour heating per unit; Class A above that |
| Run hours | Mostly evenings and weekends | Long opening hours, kitchens and server rooms all day, empty Sundays |
| Getting to the unit | Back yard and attic | Roof hatch, keys, landlord rules, sometimes a crane |
| Maintenance baseline | The equipment maker's instructions | ANSI/ASHRAE/ACCA Standard 180 |
| Refrigerant duties | Outside EPA's newer HFC leak rules | Bigger systems can carry leak repair and record keeping duties |
| Decision maker | The homeowner | Owner, tenant or property manager, as the lease says |
What sits on most Houston commercial roofs
Look down from any freeway overpass at a Houston strip center and you will see rows of boxy rooftop units, called RTUs. Each packs the compressor, coils, fan and frequently a gas furnace section into one cabinet that sits on a raised curb right above the suite it serves. A nail salon may have one. A grocery store or school can have dozens.
Plenty of RTUs include an economizer, which is a damper assembly that lets in outside air to cool the building when the weather is mild. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's economizer training explains how that cuts compressor use. The Gulf Coast catch is humidity: if the damper sticks open or its sensor fails, the unit keeps pulling in muggy outdoor air on a July afternoon, and the store feels as though the compressor is weak. A careful technician checks the economizer before recommending costly parts.
Older buildings and small professional suites often use split systems that resemble an oversized home setup. Additions and IT rooms tend to get their own ductless units. Downtown towers, hospitals and large campuses typically run on chilled water plants, a specialty that only some companies handle. If you know what serves your space, say so on the call so the right technician comes.
Symptoms by type of business
This table can help you put the problem into words on the phone. It does not diagnose anything; a technician on site confirms the cause.
| Business | What you notice | Areas a technician often checks |
|---|---|---|
| Restaurant | Hot, muggy dining room; front door hard to open; smoke drifting from the line | Kitchen hood and its makeup air unit, greasy coils, the RTUs over the dining room |
| Office or medical suite | One corner or exam room never comfortable | Zone dampers, thermostat location, ducts left over from an old floor plan |
| Retail store | Clammy aisles though the thermostat reads normal; rising bills | Economizer, dirty condenser coils, condenser fan motors, door traffic |
| Warehouse or flex space | Office and break room too warm by mid afternoon | Dust-loaded filters and coils, belts, unit sizing for the conditioned part only |
| Any building | Water stains on ceiling tiles | Clogged condensate drains, pans and overflow switches |
Kitchens deserve extra attention. Exhaust hoods remove a great deal of air, and it has to be replaced. If the makeup air unit stops, the building runs at negative pressure and draws hot, humid outdoor air through every gap faster than the rooftop units can handle it.
IT closets are the other special case. ASHRAE recommends keeping air entering IT equipment between 64.4 and 80.6 degrees Fahrenheit, so a closet can be warmer than people might expect, yet it needs cooling every hour of the year. One that depends on the main system goes without it each night and weekend the schedule sets back. Many owners give it a separate unit and a temperature alarm.
Texas license classes for commercial HVAC work
In Texas the state agency that licenses heating and cooling contractors is the Department of Licensing and Regulation, TDLR for short, and the class printed on the license matters once you move past a house. Class B work stops at units of 25 tons of cooling or 1.5 million BTU an hour of heating. Class A carries no size cap. In a building with many units, a Class B holder may still service each one so long as no single unit exceeds the limit. A typical strip center RTU is well within Class B; a central plant serving a whole building is not.
Licenses also carry an endorsement: environmental air conditioning for comfort heating and cooling, commercial refrigeration and process cooling or heating, or both. When the problem is a walk-in cooler, display case or ice machine instead of the comfort system, ask whether that endorsement appears on the company's license.
Contractors must also keep general liability coverage in force. On TDLR's certificate of insurance form the floors are $100,000 for each occurrence with a $200,000 aggregate for a Class B license, and three times that for Class A ($300,000 each occurrence, $600,000 aggregate), with completed work covered. Request a certificate listing your business before work starts, and verify the license on your own; the line does neither.
Verify the license before work begins. Texas requires anyone contracting to do air conditioning, refrigeration or heating work to hold an Air Conditioning and Refrigeration (ACR) Contractor license from the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation (TDLR). Ask the company for its ACR license number, then confirm it on the TDLR license search (opens in a new tab). The line does not check this for you.
City of Houston rules and federal refrigerant duties
Inside Houston city limits
Mechanical work in the City has followed the 2021 Uniform Mechanical Code, with Houston amendments, since January 2024. Before working in the city, a contractor holding a state air conditioning license has to register it with Houston Public Works, renew that registration yearly and file a certificate of insurance naming the licensee. The Houston Permitting Center requires a permit to install, repair or replace a condensing unit on a commercial or residential property, with an inspection, and plan review where the scope calls for it. Questions go to the City's Mechanical Section at 832-394-8850. Sugar Land, Pasadena, Pearland and other suburbs have their own codes and permit desks.
Federal refrigerant rules
Section 608 of the Clean Air Act makes it illegal to knowingly release refrigerant during service, repair or disposal, and only EPA certified technicians may handle it. On larger systems the owner also carries leak repair duties. Repairs are required once the yearly leak rate passes 10 percent for comfort cooling or 20 percent for commercial refrigeration. That rule has long covered equipment with 50 pounds or more of older ozone-depleting refrigerant, and since January 2026 it extends to systems holding 15 pounds or more of most HFCs. Home and light commercial AC and heat pump equipment is exempt from those newer HFC leak repair rules under EPA's regulation, so whether a given rooftop unit is covered depends on its type and charge; ask your contractor. Under the HFC rules those records must be kept for three years, so ask for a copy of every service ticket that lists refrigerant added.
Preventive maintenance plans
Planned maintenance is how most businesses keep emergency calls rare. ANSI/ASHRAE/ACCA Standard 180 spells out the minimum inspection and upkeep tasks for commercial systems so comfort, efficiency and indoor air hold up over time. A rooftop unit maintenance guide from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory makes the owner's case directly, tying regular upkeep to efficiency, reliability and lower running costs.
A solid plan spells out
- Visit dates through the year, with spring before the heat
- Tasks per visit, including drains, belts, coils, filters, electrical readings, economizer and controls
- What costs extra: parts, refrigerant, nights and weekends
- A written report per unit each time
- License number, license class and an insurance certificate
Signs to slow down
- Renewal that rolls over for years with no clear way to cancel
- "Unlimited" coverage with no written exclusions
- A push to replace on visit one, with no repair option priced
- Vague answers about refrigerant records
- Hesitation when you ask about license class
In Houston, condensate drains earn their own line in the plan. Coils on the roof and indoors shed water steadily through the humid months, and one clogged drain can soak ceiling tiles above a register or a desk. Ask how often drains and pans get cleared and whether overflow switches are tested.
Planning for hurricane season and power outages
The Atlantic hurricane season runs June 1 through November 30, right across the hottest months in Houston. Hurricane Beryl in July 2024 showed how long businesses can sit without power after a storm, and how stretched HVAC companies become when power returns and systems all over town need attention at the same moment. Some planning before June pays off.
- Schedule spring maintenance early, while calendars still have room.
- Ask for roof notes. Have the technician flag loose panels, damaged curbs or equipment that looks poorly secured, and pass that to whoever owns the roof.
- Plan the restart. Turning every unit on together after an outage can trip breakers; ask your contractor for a sensible order.
- Check the generator plan. If you have one, find out whether it can carry the IT room's cooling as well as its computers.
- Keep one folder. Unit locations, model numbers, the last service report and the lease clause on HVAC.
Questions for any commercial HVAC company in Houston
Ask them of any contractor, including the one the line connects you with.
- Which TDLR license class do you hold, and does it cover our biggest unit?
- Is that license registered with the City of Houston, and will you pull the permit?
- Which technicians coming out have EPA refrigerant certification?
- Can you send an insurance certificate before anyone goes up top?
- Do any of our systems hold enough refrigerant to fall under EPA leak rules, and will we get the records?
- Can work be scheduled outside our open hours, and what is the rate?
- For a replacement: is it sized from a load calculation, will it sit on the existing curb, is a crane needed, and what labor warranty comes with it, separate from the equipment warranty? Light commercial air conditioners built from January 1, 2025 must use lower global warming refrigerants under EPA's Technology Transitions rule, so the new unit may differ in more ways than size.
Before you call: what to have ready
- The unit and the space. If units have no labels, note the thermostat that controls the problem area.
- The control screen. Mode, setpoint and schedule. A holiday or after-hours schedule left running is a frequent cause of a "dead" system.
- The breaker, once. You may reset a tripped breaker one time. If it trips again, leave it alone.
- Last service. The company and the date filters were last changed.
- Roof access. Hatch or ladder location and any keys, escorts or landlord sign-off needed.
- Your lease. It may put rooftop repairs on the tenant, so check before you approve a big job.
Utility incentives for business equipment
CenterPoint Energy delivers electricity across much of the Houston area and runs efficiency programs for business customers in its Houston electric service area, including a commercial AC tune-up program for units up to 25 tons. Terms and funding change year to year, so ask the company quoting a replacement whether a program is open and whether your equipment qualifies before anything is ordered.
Have the unit, the space and your business hours ready, then call. Say it is a commercial property, and the company you are put through to will ask what it needs to send the right technician.
- Dial the numberAn automated assistant picks up (832) 662-4107 at any hour and asks what you need help with.
- Say what is wrongTell it whether the trouble is cooling or heating, where in the Houston area you are, and what the system is doing.
- Reach a local companyYour call is transferred to an independent, locally owned HVAC company, which gets a short summary of your problem before it answers.
- Work it out with themThat company inspects, quotes, repairs and bills you directly. If nobody can pick up, your name, number and problem are passed on for a call back.
About this line: Houston Air & Heating is a free phone line, not an HVAC contractor. It answers your call and connects you with an independent local heating and air conditioning company, which inspects, quotes and does the work, and which you pay directly. Companies may pay a referral fee. You never pay the line. Read how the line works.
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Business calls across the Houston area
The line takes commercial calls from Houston and its suburbs. Codes and permit desks change at each city line, and the area pages explain those details.
- All Houston-area service areas
- The Woodlands
- Cypress
- Spring
- Humble
- Katy
- Sugar Land
- Pearland
- Pasadena
- League City
- Missouri City
- Kingwood
- Baytown
- Conroe
- Tomball
- Friendswood
- Richmond
- Fulshear
- Fresno