Pick one and we will keep it short. Three taps and you are done.
We run calls seven days a week, and we answer the phone around the clock.
Last step. We will call you back to confirm the window.
An emergency deserves a person, not a web form sitting in an inbox. Call the shop and we pick up.
No heat, no water, an active leak, or a backed up main. These move to the front of the line, day or night, weekend or holiday.
Your request is in and somebody will call you back to confirm a window. Here is what we have:
A rooftop unit that quits is a scheduling problem, a tenant problem and a budget problem before it is a mechanical one. We work it in that order.
The question on a commercial job is rarely what broke. It is how long the space is unusable, which tenant calls first, and whether this repair commits you to a bigger one next summer. So this page is written for whoever signs the invoice. We run commercial work out of Woodbridge across the wider DMV metro.
Pull more air out of a kitchen than you put back and the room goes negative. Doors get heavy, the hood stops capturing, and the dining room feels wrong in a way a customer blames on the restaurant. The unit complaining is not always the unit at fault.
Nearly every HVAC site in this market still says R-410A equipment could not be installed after 1 January 2026. That is out of date. EPA published a reconsideration rule on 26 May 2026 at 91 FR 31284, effective 27 July 2026, removing the installation deadline for residential and light commercial air conditioning and heat pump systems whose specified components were made in the United States, or imported into it, before 1 January 2025. Two limits survived. Equipment built in Mexico or Canada before that date but imported on or after it may not be installed, and post-2025 components cannot be assembled into a new R-410A system. That stock is finite inventory, so treat it as a cushion while you plan.
On a failed condenser EPA put it in writing. It declined to change how condensing units are treated, saying that by making no changes to the current regulations an owner can replace the failed condensing unit rather than buy a whole new system, and that it anticipates the transition continuing without needing to restrict repair of R-410A systems. 40 CFR 84.54(e) is where the trap sits. Increasing the cooling capacity in BTU per hour counts as installing a new system, and for a supermarket system the figure is more than 15 percent. A like-for-like swap is a repair. The same swap one size up is a new install, and the current limit then applies.
| What it is | Installing a new one | Leak repair duty, in force since 1 January 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Packaged AC or heat pump inside EPA's residential and light commercial subsector | Nothing at 700 GWP or above since 1 January 2025. No installation deadline at all where every specified component was made or imported before that date | Excluded. EPA does not apply the leak repair requirements to this subsector |
| Variable refrigerant flow serving that same subsector | The 700 GWP limit bites 1 January 2026, with a window to 1 January 2027 for pre-2026 components, and to 1 January 2028 where a building permit approved before 5 October 2023 names the refrigerant | Same subsector exclusion |
| Comfort cooling the subsector exclusion does not reach, 15 lb or more of HFC charge | Check EPA's restrictions-by-sector table for the date that applies | Covered. Leak rate trigger 10 percent, repair inside 30 days, initial and follow-up verification tests |
| Walk-in boxes and other commercial refrigeration, 15 lb or more | Same table. Different subsector, different date | Covered. Leak rate trigger 20 percent |
| Industrial process refrigeration, 15 lb or more | Same table | Covered. Leak rate trigger 30 percent, and 120 days to repair where a process shutdown is needed |
| Anything still running R-22 | None made in or imported into the United States since 1 January 2020. Service runs on reclaimed refrigerant and pre-2020 stock | An ozone rule, not an HFC rule. EPA does not require you to replace the unit |
| Any appliance using a substitute at 53 GWP or below | Below every current limit | Excluded by the rule |
Read the third row again, because that is where commercial work stops looking like housing. The exclusion is written by subsector, not by tonnage, and everything the rules do cover starts at a 15 pound charge. Two things settle what your unit owes: the subsector EPA's rule puts it in, and the dataplate, the manufacturer's plate stating the refrigerant and the charge. Answering that on the phone without reading the dataplate is guessing about a 30-day repair clock. EPA keeps a restrictions by sector table and a phasedown questions page if you want to check us.
No R-22 has been produced in or imported into the United States since 1 January 2020. Service runs on reclaimed refrigerant and on pre-2020 stock, and EPA does not require owners to replace existing equipment. In the May 2026 rule EPA cited a commenter estimate that over 15 percent of the installed base of residential air conditioning is still R-22, and read it as a healthy reclamation market. That figure is national and residential, not a count of rooftop units in Prince William County, but the direction holds. Cheap it is not, because neither source gets replenished.
One warning for whoever opens the bids. EPA says R-22a has been falsely marketed as R-22 or as an R-22 replacement, that it is a hydrocarbon blend whose primary components include propane and butane, and that it is highly flammable and not an acceptable alternative. If a price on an R-22 unit lands well under the others, ask in writing what goes into it.
Most of our commercial service happens before open or after close, planned that way rather than granted as a favour. The code backs that up on emergencies. USBC Section 108.1 lets emergency equipment replacement start, with the permit application filed by the end of the first working day after work begins. We file it. That is a unit changed out over a weekend instead of a space sitting dark until Monday.
Do not expect a gas and electric rooftop unit to slip through as an ordinary repair. The USBC exemption for replacing a mechanical appliance is conditioned on it not being fuelled by gas or oil, and Section 108.1 pulls in mechanical systems, fuel supply systems and any equipment the code regulates. Fees and permit count are the locality's call. The technical code is not: the USBC, now the 2021 edition effective 18 January 2024, carries the 2021 International Mechanical Code as Virginia amends it and supersedes local building codes, so a changeout in Woodbridge and the same one in Alexandria answer to identical requirements. Where the building official cannot inspect within two working days of a request or an agreed date, Section 113.7 requires third-party reports to be accepted, so a county's calendar is not your downtime.
This one blindsides property managers. Where a building's initial building permit was issued before 1 January 1985, the building department may not issue a permit to renovate or demolish until the owner or the owner's agent certifies that the affected portions were inspected for asbestos by someone licensed under Virginia Code 54.1-503, and that either nothing was found or response actions will be taken under the Clean Air Act NESHAP rules and OSHA's 29 CFR 1926.1101. Note the permit date, not the year the building went up. It does not reach buildings of four or fewer residential units unless the work is for commercial development, and it does not apply below 260 linear feet of regulated asbestos-containing material on pipe or 160 square feet on other components. You sign it, not us, so we raise it early.
Worth knowing if you are vetting who can hold the contract at all. Under Virginia Code 54.1-1100 a Class A licence is required where a single contract or project is $150,000 or more, or where work undertaken in any 12-month period reaches $1 million. Class B stops below both, topping out at a single contract under $150,000. So a Class B firm cannot legally sign a $150,000 rooftop replacement, whatever the proposal looks like. 1 Stop Mechanical holds Virginia Class A licence number 2705131990. Two more you can verify rather than trust: no firm holds the Virginia HVAC contractor classification unless a master tradesman qualifies the licence, and the building official must have that licence number before a permit issues.
Technicians handling refrigerant are certified separately by EPA under Clean Air Act Section 608. A rooftop unit is a high-pressure appliance, so Type II or Universal applies, while a low-pressure chiller is Type III. EPA certifies individuals, never companies.
Every property manager wants a year for the spreadsheet. No federal source publishes a service life for a packaged rooftop unit. What circulates in the trade is a service-life table widely attributed to ASHRAE, putting air-cooled condensers at 20 years and a commercial air-to-air heat pump at 15, and we cannot verify which edition of the handbook those came out of. ENERGY STAR gets misused the same way: it says to consider replacing a heat pump or air conditioner more than 10 years old, which is a shopping trigger, not a date of death. Nor does anyone publish what a tune-up buys. DOE and EPA both say maintenance extends equipment life and neither quantifies it, so any number for that was invented.
Documented condition, visit by visit, is what a capital plan can use. ENERGY STAR's line here is blunt enough to quote as it stands: dirt and neglect are the top causes of heating and cooling system inefficiency and failure.
Copeland, which builds the compressors inside much of this equipment, teaches scroll failures around what it calls root cause: the electrical failure is usually the result of a mechanical one that came first. Liquid entering while the compressor runs. Vapour migrating in the off cycle and condensing in the sump, so the scrolls get oil at start-up. Overheating that thins the oil until the surfaces gall, after which the overload opens and pits its contacts. Fit a new compressor without finding which happened and you buy the same part twice.
DOE's commercial water heating standards, from a final rule published 6 October 2023, carry a compliance date of 6 October 2026. DOE has issued an enforcement policy delaying enforcement of the thermal efficiency standards for four classes of gas-fired equipment manufactured on or after 6 October 2026 but before 6 October 2027. The standard is in force. DOE has only said it will not pursue penalties in that window, which is not the standard being suspended.
Scheduled visits sit on the maintenance and tune-up page. The refrigerant rules in their residential form are worked through on AC repair and installation, and how we handle buildings and multiple sites is on the commercial page. Or call (703) 491-6542. Office hours are 7:00 to 17:00, Jon takes the after-hours calls himself, and a real person answers.
One call covers plumbing and HVAC. Talk to somebody who has been doing this for decades.
