In a commercial setting, air conditioning isn’t a comfort item — it’s infrastructure. When the system fails in a Brisbane restaurant in January, service stops. When a retail floor hits 30°C, customers leave. When a server room loses cooling, you’re looking at hardware damage and downtime. And when an office is uncomfortable, productivity and staff retention both suffer in ways that cost far more than the electricity bill.
We design, install, service, maintain and repair commercial air conditioning across Brisbane and South East Queensland. Our clients include offices and professional suites, retail tenancies and shopping centre stores, restaurants, cafes and commercial kitchens, medical and dental practices, childcare and aged care facilities, gyms, warehouses, workshops, server and comms rooms, body corporates and strata buildings.
We work to commercial standards throughout: ARCtick-licensed refrigeration, QBCC-licensed electrical, full public liability and workers compensation cover, site inductions, SWMS documentation, and after-hours scheduling so installation and major service work doesn’t interrupt trading.
Commercial systems we work with
- Ceiling cassettes — four-way airflow, the standard choice for offices, retail floors and consulting rooms.
- Ducted commercial systems — concealed fan coils serving multiple zones through ceiling outlets.
- VRV / VRF systems — multiple indoor units of different types on a single refrigerant circuit, with independent control. The efficient choice for multi-tenancy buildings and larger offices.
- Package units — self-contained rooftop or ground-mounted systems for warehouses, halls and large open spaces.
- Under-ceiling and bulkhead units — where ceiling void is limited.
- Precision and split cooling for server rooms — including 24/7 duty and redundancy configurations.
- Kitchen and exhaust make-up air integration — balancing cooling against extraction in hospitality.
Benefits of Professional Commercial Air Conditioning
- Protects revenue. Reliable cooling keeps customers in your venue and staff at their desks. In hospitality and retail, a failed system on a hot Saturday is measurable lost trade.
- Controls operating cost. Commercial systems are among the largest line items on a Brisbane energy bill. Correct sizing, zoning, scheduling and maintenance routinely cut consumption by 20–30%.
- Supports WHS compliance. Queensland work health and safety obligations require a safe working environment, which includes thermal comfort and adequate ventilation.
- Designed for real occupancy loads. Commercial spaces are driven by people, lighting, kitchen equipment, computers and solar gain through glazing — not floor area. We calculate properly.
- Zoned control across tenancies and areas, so you condition the trading floor without paying to cool the storeroom.
- Minimal disruption. After-hours and weekend installation and major servicing, staged works, and temporary cooling where required.
- Documented asset management. Asset registers, condition reports and lifecycle planning so equipment replacement is a budgeted capital item rather than an emergency.
- Priority response agreements with guaranteed attendance windows for critical sites.
Our Commercial Process
Site survey and load assessment
We attend your premises and assess occupancy, hours of operation, equipment heat loads, lighting, glazing and orientation, ceiling void, structural capacity, electrical supply and existing infrastructure. Brisbane’s climate and western sun are factored into the calculation.
System design and options
You receive a designed solution with equipment schedule, zoning layout, indoor and outdoor unit locations, controls strategy, estimated energy consumption and staging options. Where relevant we present two or three approaches — for example VRF versus multiple cassette systems — with honest capital versus running cost comparison.
Detailed quotation and documentation
Fixed price with a clear scope, inclusions and exclusions, along with insurance certificates, licences, SWMS and any documentation your building manager, landlord or body corporate requires.
Approvals and coordination
We liaise with building management, body corporates and landlords on plant locations, roof access, penetrations, noise limits and after-hours work permits.
Installation
Scheduled around your trading hours. Site protection, staged works to keep areas operational, crane or rooftop plant placement where required, full electrical work, refrigeration pipework, ductwork, controls and BMS integration where applicable.
Commissioning and balancing
Nitrogen pressure testing, deep vacuum, weighed refrigerant charge, airflow measurement and balancing at every outlet, controls configuration and full performance verification under load.
Handover and training
Operation and maintenance manuals, as-installed documentation, warranty registration, and training for your facility manager or staff on controls, scheduling and filter maintenance.
Ongoing maintenance agreement
Scheduled preventive maintenance, condition monitoring, priority breakdown response and annual asset condition reporting.
Indicative Commercial Costs
AUD including GST. Commercial pricing varies widely with access, plant location, electrical capacity and building requirements — all commercial work is quoted after a site survey.
Installation | Typical application |
Ceiling cassette, 5–7 kW | Small office, consulting room |
Ceiling cassette, 10–14 kW | Retail tenancy, larger office |
Multiple cassettes, 4–6 units | Medium office fit-out |
Ducted commercial, 15–20 kW | Office suite, medical practice |
VRF system, small (6–10 indoor units) | Multi-room office |
VRF system, large (15–30 indoor units) | Multi-floor or multi-tenancy |
Package unit, 20–30 kW | Warehouse, hall, gym |
Server room split, 5–10 kW with redundancy | Comms room |
Kitchen and hospitality cooling package | Restaurant, cafe |
Service and maintenance | Indicative cost |
— | — |
Commercial service, per cassette or package unit | $280 – $600 |
Quarterly maintenance agreement, per unit | $600 – $1,200 per year |
Monthly critical maintenance, per unit | $1,800 – $3,600 per year |
Business hours breakdown attendance | $150 – $280 |
After-hours commercial breakdown attendance | $280 – $700 |
Contracted priority response | negotiated under agreement |
Duct cleaning, commercial | $1,200 – $6,000 |
Asset audit and condition report | $600 – $2,500 |
Common additional items: crane hire for rooftop plant ($1,200–$5,000), structural roof platforms ($1,500–$8,000), three-phase supply or switchboard upgrade ($2,000–$15,000), BMS integration ($2,000–$12,000), acoustic screening for plant ($1,500–$6,000), and after-hours labour loading.
Brands We Install and Service
- Daikin — the dominant commercial VRV platform in Australia, with excellent controls and service support.
- Mitsubishi Electric — outstanding City Multi VRF range and high efficiency.
- Mitsubishi Heavy Industries — strong commercial VRF and package range, robust in high ambient conditions.
- ActronAir — Australian designed and manufactured for Queensland conditions; excellent commercial packaged and ducted equipment with strong local parts support.
- Carrier — long-established commercial range including large package and chilled water plant.
- Fujitsu — reliable commercial VRF and cassette range at competitive pricing.
- Panasonic — good commercial VRF with strong filtration options for healthcare settings.
- LG — Multi V VRF with capable controls and BMS integration.
- Samsung — DVM VRF systems with modern control platforms.
Service Areas
Commercial air conditioning across North Brisbane, South Brisbane, East Brisbane, West Brisbane, Brisbane CBD, Indooroopilly, Toowong, Chermside, Carindale, Sunnybank, Logan, Ipswich, Redlands and Moreton Bay. We handle multi-site portfolios spanning several of these regions under a single agreement with consolidated scheduling and reporting.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you install without shutting down my business?
Yes, and this is standard for us. Most commercial installation and major service work is scheduled after hours, overnight or on weekends. Where a staged approach is needed we keep parts of the premises operational throughout, and we can supply temporary cooling for critical areas.
How do I know what capacity my premises needs?
Commercial load is driven by occupancy, equipment, lighting and glazing rather than floor area, so rules of thumb are unreliable. A busy cafe with cooking equipment and a glass shopfront needs vastly more capacity per square metre than a quiet office of the same size. We perform a proper heat load calculation during the site survey.
What is VRF and do I need it?
VRF (variable refrigerant flow, sometimes VRV) runs many indoor units of different types from a single outdoor unit on a shared refrigerant circuit, with each indoor unit independently controlled. It’s highly efficient at part load, saves plant space, and suits multi-room and multi-tenancy buildings. The capital cost is higher than individual systems, so it makes sense above roughly six to eight indoor units or where plant space is constrained.
How often does commercial air conditioning need servicing?
Quarterly is the standard for offices and retail. Hospitality, commercial kitchens and high-occupancy premises usually need it more often because grease and dust load the coils and filters faster. Server rooms, medical storage and other critical applications warrant monthly attention.
Are there compliance requirements I should know about?
Queensland WHS obligations require a safe working environment including thermal comfort and ventilation. Systems containing larger refrigerant charges carry leak-checking and record-keeping obligations under Australian refrigerant regulations. Food premises, healthcare, childcare and aged care each have additional air quality expectations. Documented preventive maintenance is the practical way to satisfy all of these, and we provide the records.
Can you take over maintenance of an existing system?
Yes. We start with an asset audit — documenting every unit’s make, model, age, refrigerant type and condition — then propose a maintenance schedule and flag anything approaching end of life so you can plan capital expenditure rather than react to failures.
Do you offer guaranteed response times?
Yes, under a maintenance or priority response agreement. We tailor response windows to criticality — for example, four hours for general commercial and one to two hours for server rooms, medical premises and hospitality during trading.
How can we reduce our commercial energy costs?
The biggest wins are usually correct scheduling and setpoints, zoning so unoccupied areas aren’t conditioned, keeping coils and filters clean, upgrading old fixed-speed equipment to inverter or VRF, and addressing building fabric issues like uncontrolled glazing and open doors. We include an efficiency assessment in commercial audits.
Do you work with body corporates and building managers?
Yes, regularly. We handle common property plant, coordinate approvals for tenant installations, provide documentation for committee meetings, and manage noise and appearance requirements for external plant.
Who is responsible for air conditioning in a leased tenancy — me or the landlord?
It depends on your lease. Typically the landlord owns base building plant while the tenant is responsible for supplementary systems and often for maintenance of the equipment serving their tenancy. We can review the equipment and advise what falls where, and we invoice whichever party is responsible.
