Racks, condensing units, walk-ins · compliance-first
Refrigeration runs on the same equipment record as HVAC, but the stakes are different: a failed walk-in at a grocery account is inventory loss on a clock, not a comfort complaint that can wait until tomorrow. Thermal tracks the unit, the charge, and the SLA that decides who gets the call.
What it is
Refrigeration service in Thermal uses the same equipment spine as commercial HVAC — a walk-in cooler, a rack system, or a display case gets a serialized record with refrigerant type, charge, and full service history, tied to the site and the agreement that covers it. There is no separate refrigeration module to learn, and no second set of books a shop that runs both has to reconcile.
What's different is the pain. Refrigeration work is compliance-first — refrigerant handling is EPA-relevant in a way most HVAC calls aren't, and the phase-down schedule makes an accurate per-unit record a business necessity, not a bookkeeping nicety. And it is time-sensitive in a specific way: the response SLA on a rack system is part of the contract, and the emergency call can't wait in the same queue as a routine comfort call.
That combination is why this page argues from the compliance queue and the SLA clock rather than from margin math. A refrigeration account that gets the record right and answers the emergency call on time keeps the store's product in the case — which is the whole job.
What a refrigeration account carries in Thermal, by class. Racks and low-temp cases don't get the same treatment as a comfort system — the record has to prove what's in the loop, what the charge is, and what the SLA says about getting there in time.
| Asset class | On the record | What it drives |
|---|---|---|
| Refrigeration rackRCK | Compressors, refrigerant type and charge, head pressure readings, service events | Compliance record, emergency dispatch, covered vs. billable |
| Condensing unitCDU | Nameplate, refrigerant charge, filter history, site and branch | PM route, failure pattern, agreement coverage |
| Walk-in / coolerWIC | Box and door specs, refrigerant, temperature readings, parts fitted | Emergency response SLA, repeat-failure history, coverage status |
| Low-temp display caseLTC | Nameplate, refrigerant, defrost cycle data, service history | PM frequency on the agreement, warranty claim, replacement quote |
If your refrigeration list currently lives as a binder at the shop and a few files on the service manager's laptop — that's the normal starting point. Migration covers how it gets in and who does the work.
Not a generic HVAC list with the word swapped. These are the problems that show up when the asset is food, the clock is inventory, and the compliance record has to hold.
The tech opens a rack system and can't tell what's in the loop — the refrigerant log is a paper binder, and the last entry is from before the last crew change.
Refrigerant type and charge are captured on the equipment record itself — the same field a technician checks before opening a rack system, not a separate compliance log kept somewhere else.
EPA-relevant records get assembled by hand when someone asks for them — a week of digging through service history whenever an audit or a phase-down question lands.
Refrigerant type, charge, and every service event are captured on the record a compliance-minded operation needs to produce. Thermal captures the underlying data; it is not a certified regulatory filing service.
A walk-in fails on a Thursday afternoon, and the call sits in the same queue as the routine comfort calls booked for the week.
A failed walk-in or rack system surfaces above the routine queue with its own marker, and the agreement's SLA clock tracks the response — the customer's history is already open when the dispatcher picks who takes it. See dispatch for how that works, and it's the same history that shapes mean time to repair, callback rate, and first-time fix rate on a cold-aisle account.
Three boundaries worth knowing before a demo. Two of them are deliberate.
Thermal models the equipment and the visits; it does not run the building automation or the cold-room controller. If your work is primarily controls engineering on the plant side, the record here is the service and compliance layer, not the controller.
Thermal captures the refrigerant data a compliance-minded operation needs — type, charge, service events — but it is not a certified regulatory filing service, and it doesn't file on your behalf. The agreements page covers the SLA tracking that sits beside it.
There's no logo wall on this page because we don't have one worth showing yet. What we can do is run your own refrigeration account through the product on a call. The security page is written to be forwarded to whoever signs off.
Commercial HVAC and refrigeration often run as one shop. The commercial HVAC page covers the comfort side of that blend.
Every claim above is a page you can go read. Nothing on this page is a capability that only exists for refrigeration.
Answered at the level of detail they're actually asked at.
No — same equipment schema, same platform. A refrigeration unit gets the same serialized equipment record as an HVAC unit, with refrigerant type and charge tracked the same way.
Thermal captures the underlying records a compliance-minded operation needs — refrigerant type, charge, and full service history on the equipment record. It is not a certified regulatory filing service.
An emergency work order surfaces above the routine queue with its own marker and the customer's history already open, so the dispatcher can assign it immediately instead of digging through the day's board.
Yes — SLA tracking is part of the service agreement engine, the same one that covers HVAC accounts, so a refrigeration contract's response commitment is tracked against the same record as its coverage and pricing.
Yes — that's the normal case. A walk-in and a rooftop unit share the same equipment spine, so a mixed shop keeps one customer record, one dispatch board, and one service history instead of running two systems side by side.
An emergency refrigeration call carries its own marker that lifts it above the routine queue, opens the customer's history for the dispatcher, and starts the agreement's SLA clock — so it's handled on priority instead of by arrival order.
The rack nobody can prove a charge for, and the SLA that's been a guess. We'll build the record on the call.