The plant on the roof is an asset, not a surprise
Silvergate maintains heating, cooling and ventilation for premises that cannot afford to shut — and for the houses of the people who run them. Both get the same instruments and the same written record.
Maintained against a list, not against a memory
The first visit to a new site produces a written asset list: what is installed, where, what it serves, its real age from the serial number, and what stops trading if it stops. Everything after that is measured against it.
Planned maintenance
Two visits a year on most sites — one before cooling, one before heating. Fixed content, readings recorded per unit, signed off per unit. The file shows a trend rather than a stack of invoices.
Breakdowns
Diagnosed and quoted before parts are ordered. Where a unit is on your asset list, the model and refrigerant are already known, which is the difference between one visit and two.
Ventilation & extract
Kitchen canopies, workshop extract, and the make-up air that has to replace what you throw out. A building extracting hard with no make-up path pulls at every flue in it.
Rooftop units
Coils, belts, bearings, economisers, condensate and the curb itself. Most of what shortens an RTU’s life is not inside it.
Fit-out & commissioning
Ductwork and controls for the layout you are actually building, airflows balanced and recorded, and the figures handed to you. A building nobody commissioned never performs and nobody finds out for two years.
Taking a unit on
Before you sign a lease we will look at the plant and tell you its real age and condition. It is a cheap visit and it has changed a negotiation more than once.
The same instruments, a smaller building
Houses are not a sideline here and they are not quoted differently. A furnace in a bungalow gets combustion tested with the same analyser as a rooftop unit, and a cold bedroom gets the airflow measured rather than argued about.
No heat, no cooling
Diagnosed from the cheap end — power, thermostat, filter and airflow, then ignition and flame sensing, then the gas valve and board. The expensive parts are checked last because they fail least.
Evaporative cooling
Still the right machine in a lot of Pueblo houses. Serviced properly, and replaced with refrigerated cooling only when there is a reason — not because it is old-fashioned.
A room that never keeps up
Almost always ductwork rather than equipment. We measure static pressure and the airflow at that register, which turns an argument into two numbers.
Replacement
Sized from a heat loss calculation and what the existing ducts can carry, not from the rating on the old unit. Units fitted before about 2000 were routinely much too big.
You do not have to open anything to spot most of it
Standing water round a curb. A panel that has been off since the last visit. A coil packed with cottonwood. An economiser hood hanging open in February. Every one of them is visible from where you are already standing when you go up for something else.
Tick what you can see
Twelve observations. Each one you tick writes out what it usually means, whether it is a today problem or a list problem, and whether it is even a heating contractor’s job — four of the twelve are a roofer’s or an electrician’s.
Why it is on the website
Because a facility manager who can describe what they saw gets the right van, the right part and the right price. Vague call-outs cost everybody money, and most of them cost you twice.
What this website will not tell you
Not modesty. Each one would be a number we invented.
| Not stated | Why |
|---|---|
| A price | A belt and a failed compressor are not the same visit. You get a fixed figure on the phone once we know what is installed. |
| A response time | We will not promise two hours on a July afternoon when half the county has lost cooling. |
| A saving | “Cut your energy bill by 30%” depends on your building, your hours and your tariff. It cannot be known from a web page. |
| How long it will last | Two identical rooftop units on two identical roofs last very different lengths of time. The serial gives you the age; nothing gives you the future. |
Asked often enough to answer here
Do you only work on commercial premises?
No. The name says Facility Works because that is where most of the planned work is, but houses are a real part of what we do and they get the same instruments — the same combustion analyser and the same manometer. The homes page is written properly, not as an afterthought.
What is an asset list and why do you start with one?
A written page per unit: where it is, what it serves, its make, model, serial and refrigerant copied off the plate, its real age decoded from the serial, its condition, and what stops trading if it stops. It means the part is ordered on the first call rather than the second visit, and it stops anyone telling you a nine-year-old unit is twenty.
My evaporative cooler makes the house feel muggy. Is it finished?
Usually not. A cooler brings outdoor air in, so it needs a window or a relief opening left open for that air to leave again. When the relief path gets closed up — which happens by accident far more often than people expect — the house goes humid and the cooler gets blamed. That is worth checking before anybody prices refrigerated cooling.
Does the altitude change how my furnace should be set up?
It can, and it depends on the model. Pueblo is at roughly 4,700 ft and the input rating on the plate is a sea-level figure. Some manufacturers require an orifice kit above a stated elevation, some specify a manifold pressure change, and some certify the appliance across a range with no change. It is written in that model’s own installation instructions, so we read the model number and check.
The air conditioning needs gas every year. Is that normal?
No. Refrigerant is not consumed — a system losing it has a leak, and an annual top-up is paying for the same fault over and over. Finding the leak is the job. The plate on the outdoor unit gives the refrigerant type and the factory charge.
Which areas do you cover?
Pueblo, Pueblo West, Blende, Salt Creek, Vineland, Avondale, Boone and Colorado City.
Where we are
951 US-50, Pueblo, CO 81008. Monday to Friday, 7am to 4.30pm.
We cover Pueblo, Pueblo West, Blende, Salt Creek, Vineland, Avondale, Boone and Colorado City.