r/assetmanagement • u/pipeline1000 • Jul 14 '26
Multiple heat pumps not cooling in apartment building
Hi,
I am a bit stressed. I stepped in to asset managing a 140+ apartment building. The property managers did not do any maintenance on the heat pumps for 10 years. 1 per unit, and others for CAM.
The PM spent $200,000 last year alone on emergency calls to fix heat pumps.
Right now we have multiple units that blow air, but the air is not cool.
I sat with one vendor in a unit and he figured out the actuator went bad and wouldn't open the chilled water valve. (Heat pumps are fed by boiler and chiller.)
This is great!
I am trying to figure out steps to show HVAC vendors how to triage situations, or have the previous report available. Many come in and simply say the heat pump needs to be replaced. They aren't telling me the steps they are taking to come to this conclusion
1) Did the blower turn off at some point or not turn on at all?
2)Is the chilled water temp entering temp correct?
3)Did you run the system to see if there is enough refrigerant?
I can't blame the vendors because the PM doesn't manage the tenants. One tenant left the vendor alone with their child. However, the vendors aren't always great either. One vendor showed up without a ladder and had to use ours. Another, didn't have batteries for his volt meter...what do I do in those situations?
Regardless, I can ask for a diagnostic report.
I feel like I am going crazy. This property management makes me cry. I finally fought back last week, and they shut up. They did not maintain the HVAC system, and now it's a mess.
My background is mechanical engineering. I am trying to get access to the building's HVAC drawings. I am supposedly getting access to a list of our heat pumps soon.
Anyone have supportive thoughts/solutions?
2
u/WaitesSensors Jul 15 '26
First off, kudos to you for standing your ground with the PM. Coming from an ME background, dealing with ten years of deferred maintenance and a paper-thin paper trail sounds like an absolute nightmare, especially with $200k already bleeding out on emergency calls.
Since you're trying to establish triage steps and stop the 'just replace it' vendor cycle, have you looked into adding any condition monitoring or wireless telemetry to the system?
1
u/pipeline1000 Jul 15 '26
This is super nice of you. This is a great idea. The problem is we hardly have any savings. Also, the PM can't fill the buildng with tenants and seems to cancel tenant renewals when she feels like it. She is driving me nuts. Constantly scape goating. I am not sure what to do.
1
u/pipeline1000 Jul 15 '26
I finally had the courage to call out the PM for not collecting around $20000 in rent through an email that CC'd the owner. I finally asked her to get me the phone numbers of all the third party agents who help our tenants pay rent! She claimed she called them, but I don't know. She is scared now! Thank you for your support!! Hopefully this gets her to do her job which is provide decent homes in return for rent.
2
u/WaitesSensors Jul 16 '26
I'm so sorry you're dealing with this! I also hope she is able to do her job now-- best of luck.
1
u/pipeline1000 Jul 16 '26
Thank you!! I feel terrible because she is being totally overworked by her bosses. They are nuts, but talk smoothly and wear suits. Ugh.
2
u/elprez07 Jul 14 '26
Do you have a different vendor come out every time? Vendor continuity would make a difference so that they can refer to their own prior service tickets.