Cools in the morning, gives up by afternoon
A unit at the edge of its capacity, usually from a dirty condenser or a low charge. It looks intermittent, but the cause is constant.
Heating & CoolingPriced as an emergency callout10,702 businesses licensed for it
Commercial rooftop HVAC repair
Rooftop package units do the heating and cooling for most single-story commercial premises: shops, restaurants, gyms, clinics, offices in a strip. When one fails the room goes uncomfortable fast, and faster still if there is a kitchen adding heat. Work covers compressor and refrigerant faults, condenser and evaporator fans, belts and bearings, economizers, contactors and controls, and the filter and coil work that prevents most of it.
Enter your ZIP to see the businesses listed for this trade nearest to your site, with their phone numbers.
- Free to searchno account, nothing to submit
- Public registersevery listing names its source
- License numberswhere the state publishes one
- Directyou call the business yourself
- Our estimate
- $260-$4,200
- Time on site
- 1.5-6 hrs
- Fault patterns covered
- 2
- Licensed for this trade itself
- 10,702
What commercial rooftop HVAC repair costs
Most of these jobs land near $610. The full spread runs $260 to $4,200, and the gap between those two ends is diagnosis against replacement rather than one business being dearer than another.
What moves it: how much of the job is parts, whether the fault is found in the first hour or the third, access to the equipment, and the hour of the day you call. We never speak to the businesses listed here, so there is no rate card behind any of this. It is our own band for the category, and there is no regional index: the figure does not change with your metro.
| How soon you need it | Typical | Range |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled visitBooked in advance, no urgency multiplier applied | $610 | $260 to $4,200 |
| Same dayOur band multiplied by 1.12 | $685 | $290 to $4,705 |
| Emergency calloutOur band multiplied by 1.35 | $825 | $350 to $5,670 |
Our estimate from national cost bands, not a quote from any business. Every row is the same band with the urgency multiplier the site applies everywhere else, so this table can never contradict the headline number. Ask for a written price before the work starts.
Who is licensed to do this work
In California the classification that squarely covers this is C-20 warm-air heating, ventilating and air-conditioning, and the register says who holds it. Every listing on this site shows the classification, the license number and the date we read it, with a link back to the register entry so you can check it against the state rather than against us.
Overlapping classifications exist and are labeled as overlapping rather than as a match: C-38 refrigeration, C-4 boiler, hot water heating and steam fitting, C-43 sheet metal and D-62 air and water balancing. A general building contractor may hold the job and subcontract the trade, which is a real answer and a different one, so the card says which of the two you are looking at.
One thing worth being plain about: CSLB classifications do not distinguish commercial work from residential. There is no separate commercial license to hold and no register field that would prove one. That is why this page describes the equipment rather than the contractor, and why nothing here says a business has been checked out. We read a public record on a stated date. That is the whole claim.
If it is down right now
Everything below is about our mechanism. We hold no hours for any business on this site, have never contacted one, and cannot tell you who is awake, so none of this is a promise that somebody answers.
- Enter the ZIP of your premises. We measure from that ZIP to the address each business filed with its licensing authority and keep everything inside 25 miles.
- The order is distance, nearest first. Nobody buys a position in it and there is nothing here to sell.
- If fewer than three businesses clear the filters, the ring steps out toward 75 miles and the page tells you it widened. The distances you then see are the real ones.
- Each listing carries the phone number the register publishes. You call it yourself. We have no phone line, take no fee and pass nothing on.
- Our band for an emergency callout is the category band multiplied by 1.35. That multiplier is ours and describes our estimate, not a rate anybody has quoted.
Before you pay for a callout
Two minutes of checks that sometimes end the problem
We would rather you did not need a callout at all. These are the checks that end the most calls for this fault.
Try a quick fix first
Some issues resolve without a truck roll. Two minutes now can save the callout.
- 1
Change or check the filters first. A blocked filter causes both the no-cooling and the iced-coil complaint, and it is a five-minute in-house fix.
- 2
Confirm the thermostat is calling and in the right mode. A surprising share of no-cooling calls are a schedule or a mode setting.
- 3
If the breaker tripped, reset it once and note whether it holds. Repeated resets on a shorted compressor cause real damage.
- 4
Say how the roof is reached when you call. Ladder-only access, a locked hatch or a landlord rule about after-hours roof work all change who can take the job.
What the visit actually includes
- Roof-level diagnosis with pressures and temperatures recorded
- Filter replacement and coil cleaning
- Belt, bearing, motor, capacitor or contactor replacement
- Refrigerant leak search and charge correction
- Thermostat and control verification
Diagnosis
How rooftop hvac faults usually present
Written from how these faults actually present on a working premises, not from a manual.
Breaker trips on compressor start
A failing capacitor, contactor or compressor winding. Diagnose rather than reset: a shorted compressor gets more expensive every time it tries to start.
Listed for this trade
Businesses listed for rooftop hvac
Read from public license registers, so there is no ranking here and no distance: this page has no location to measure from. Enter your ZIP to sort by who is nearest to your site.
By location
Commercial rooftop HVAC repair near you
Local pages show which businesses are listed for that metro, how far out they sit, and the local conditions that drive demand.
Counted from the businesses we have imported for each metro center inside a 25 mile radius, and counting only those whose own license classification names this trade. General contractors licensed widely enough to take it on and subcontract it are excluded here, and still appear in a search. A metro reads “none yet” until we load a register that covers this trade there.
All coverage areasQuestions owners ask
Rooftop HVAC FAQs
Short, specific answers. If yours is not here, ask the business you call before you agree to the visit.
Who is responsible, me or my landlord?
Read the lease before you call. Most commercial leases put rooftop units on the tenant for service and on the landlord for replacement, and the line between a repair and a replacement is exactly where those arguments happen. Get the diagnosis in writing either way.
What does a rooftop unit repair cost?
Routine repairs land between $260 and $900. Compressor replacement runs into the thousands, at which point replacing the unit deserves a look. Those are our national bands, not a quote from anyone listed here.
How often should filters be changed?
Quarterly as a baseline, monthly if you have a fryer, a lot of dust or a lot of people. It is the highest-return maintenance task on the roof.
What license does this need?
C-20 in California, warm-air heating, ventilating and air-conditioning. Every listing here shows the classification and license number from the state register.
Related work
Often booked in the same visit
Batching jobs into one mobilization is the cheapest way to buy this kind of work.
Commercial ACWarm air from the vents, weak airflow, condensate leaks and thermostat faults.from $190Commercial heatingNo heat, short cycling, ignition lockouts and unit heater failures.from $210Split systemOutdoor condenser and indoor head faults, error codes, icing and drain leaks.from $200ThermostatBlank displays, wrong readings, schedules nobody set and controls that lost the unit.from $150
Heating & Cooling
Everything else in heating & cooling
Read next
The two rooftop HVAC visits a year that pay for themselves
A spring cooling check and a fall heating check cost $340 to $700, and they are what stand between you and a $9,000 unit replacement.
6 min read
Building a preventive maintenance schedule for a single site
Four buckets, an asset register and a 12-month sequence that keeps repair spend from stacking into one brutal month.
8 min read
How to check a California contractor license before you hire
Three minutes on the state's own lookup, what the result does and does not prove, and the two questions to ask on the phone.
7 min read
Ready when you are
Need rooftop hvac sorted?
Search your ZIP to see the businesses listed for this trade nearest to your site, with the license numbers and phone numbers we hold, then call them yourself.
- Cost to search
- Free
- Account needed
- None
- Who you call
- The business