May 8, 2026 — Austin, TX

Texas summer doesn’t ease in — it shows up. By late May, daytime highs in Austin start climbing into the 90s, and commercial AC systems that limped through a mild spring suddenly find themselves running 12, 14, sometimes 16 hours a day under peak load. The systems that make it through the summer without a midday breakdown are almost always the ones that got serviced in April or May.

If you operate a restaurant, retail space, medical or veterinary facility, or any commercial building in the Austin Area, this is the window for a pre-summer tune-up. Once the heat sets in, our schedule fills with emergency calls — and so does every other commercial HVAC company in town.

Why pre-summer tune-ups matter for commercial buildings

Commercial HVAC systems do far more work than residential units. They run longer hours, handle higher occupant loads, and are often expected to maintain tight temperature and humidity bands for food safety, equipment longevity, or comfort-driven retail experiences. A 5-ton rooftop unit serving a busy restaurant kitchen is under far more strain in July than the same unit serving a quiet office.

The cost of a summer breakdown isn’t just the repair bill. It’s the lost dining revenue while the dining room hits 85°F. It’s the spoiled inventory in a back-of-house storage area. It’s the customers who walk out and the employees who can’t safely work the line. Pre-summer service is cheap insurance against all of that.

A pre-summer commercial AC tune-up checklist

Here’s what a thorough pre-summer tune-up should cover on a typical commercial rooftop or split system:

• Refrigerant charge check. Low charge from a slow leak is the single most common cause of mid-summer underperformance. Pressures should be verified against manufacturer specs at expected outdoor temperatures.
• Condenser coil cleaning. A dirty condenser coil can drop efficiency 20% or more. Austin’s spring pollen, cottonwood, and dust load up coils fast.
• Evaporator coil inspection. Biological growth, dust accumulation, and drain pan rust all show up here.
• Condensate drain flush. Clogged drains are a top cause of summer ceiling leaks and emergency shutoffs from float switches.
• Electrical connection tightening. Heat causes connections to expand and loosen over time. Loose connections are how compressors and contactors burn out.
• Capacitor and contactor testing. Capacitors degrade gradually and almost always fail on the hottest days. A weak capacitor caught in May is a cheap part swap; the same capacitor failing in July is a four-hour emergency call.
• Belt and motor inspection. Cracked belts, worn bearings, and dry motor mounts get caught here.
• Filter replacement. A clogged filter forces the system to work harder and often masks bigger airflow problems.
• Thermostat and BMS verification. Programmable thermostats and building management schedules drift over time. Verify setpoints, schedules, and sensor accuracy.
• Airflow and temperature split measurement. A properly tuned system should produce an 18–22°F split between return and supply. Anything outside that range points to a problem.

For larger facilities, a full tune-up should also include economizer operation, outside-air damper function, VFD performance on variable-speed equipment, and any chiller or boiler interlocks tied to the AC system.

AC down or running rough? Call 512-992-5537 — we run 24/7 emergency service across Austin and the surrounding area, and we’ll get a tech out fast.

What we typically find in a pre-summer tune-up

Even on systems the operator believes are running fine, here’s what shows up regularly:

• Refrigerant charge that’s 10–15% low from a slow leak nobody noticed.
• Capacitors reading well below their rated microfarad value — weeks or days from failure.
• Condenser fan motors with worn bearings producing more heat than airflow.
• Drain lines partially blocked, days away from triggering a float switch.
• Filters that haven’t been changed since fall.
• Programmable thermostats running on stale schedules — cooling empty buildings overnight, not cooling occupied ones during morning prep.

None of these are emergencies on the day we find them. All of them turn into emergencies under July load.

The cost of skipping the tune-up

Operators who put off pre-summer service almost always pay more than they would have. A routine tune-up regularly prevents:

• Emergency-rate after-hours service calls during heat waves.
• Compressor replacements caused by running on low refrigerant or a failing capacitor.
• Inventory loss when a back-of-house cooler or HVAC failure cascades.
• Lost revenue from dining rooms or retail floors that have to close mid-shift.
• Energy bills that creep up 15–25% as efficiency degrades.

If you have multiple locations, a preventative maintenance contract spreads the cost across the year and gets your sites prioritized when peak-season calls start coming in.

Schedule before the heat sets in

May is the right window. June fills up. July is reactive. We’re factory authorized for Daikin, Goodman, Carrier, and York, and we service every major commercial HVAC brand on the market — rooftop units, split systems, mini-splits, and packaged equipment. If your system needs more than a tune-up, we also handle commercial HVAC repairs and new HVAC installations.

Call Setpoint Services at 512-992-5537 to schedule a pre-summer commercial AC tune-up. We serve Austin, Pflugerville, Round Rock, Georgetown, Cedar Park, Leander, Hutto, Taylor, Kyle, Buda, Jarrell, Temple, Belton — and surrounding Austin Area communities.

Setpoint Services — commercial HVAC and refrigeration done right.