The short answer
SBS-NC, LLC services, repairs, and maintains commercial chillers with its own technicians: air-cooled and water-cooled machines with scroll, screw, or centrifugal compressors, and the pumps, cooling towers, and controls around them. We are headquartered in High Point, NC, have worked on chiller plants since 1992, and cover North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee with our own crews (our Florida office operates as SimplyBetterService.com). Every repair starts with a written diagnosis and price; chiller maintenance is quoted per machine after a plant walk-through; maintenance-contract customers get 24/7 emergency dispatch. Call (336) 307-4218. For boilers and cooling towers, see boiler & cooling tower service.
Air-cooled chiller on a commercial rooftop in High Point, NC. Rooftop air-cooled machines take the weather on their condenser coils and fans, which is why coil cleaning, refrigerant leak checks, and fan and contactor inspection are the core of their maintenance visit.
What SBS-NC does on commercial chillers.
Air-cooled and water-cooled chillers from small rooftop scroll machines to centrifugal plants, on equipment we installed and equipment we did not. We are trained on all major chiller brands.
Chiller repair & diagnostics
Chiller preventative maintenance
Replacement & retrofit
The rest of the plant
Chiller types we work on
Air-cooled scroll and screw chillers on rooftops and pads. Water-cooled screw and centrifugal chillers in mechanical rooms, with their cooling towers and condenser-water loops. Our guides explain how each works: commercial chillers, screw compressors, centrifugal compressors, and cooling towers.
Commercial chiller repair: what the call looks like.
A chiller that will not start, will not hold setpoint, or keeps tripping a safety is a building problem within hours, not days. Our technician arrives, pulls the fault history from the controller, tests the machine, and gives you a written diagnosis with a price before any repair begins. Contact us for service call pricing; the trip and diagnostic fee is waived on covered equipment for maintenance-contract customers.
What chiller repair costs. We do not publish flat chiller repair prices because no two machines or failures are alike: a flow switch or a contactor is a small repair, a compressor or a tube bundle is a capital decision. Every chiller repair is quoted per machine after diagnosis, and if the honest answer is that the chiller is near the end of its economic life, we price both the repair and the replacement so you can decide with numbers in hand.
Emergency chiller repair. Maintenance-contract customers reach dispatch 24/7 and get front-of-line scheduling. Non-contract calls are scheduled as route capacity allows, Monday through Friday, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM. Before you call, our guide to a chiller that is not working covers what facility staff can safely check and what to have ready.
How a repair call works
Trips on high pressure
Heat rejection: fouled condenser coils or tubes, a condenser fan down, or a tower not delivering water.
Runs but never reaches setpoint
Capacity: low charge, a compressor unloaded or failed, fouled evaporator tubes, or load the machine was never sized for.
Trips on low pressure or freeze
Flow or charge: a pump or strainer problem, a closed valve, a stuck expansion valve, or a slow leak.
Stop resetting it
One reset to rule out a transient fault is reasonable. After the second trip, running the machine through its safeties is how a small repair becomes a compressor.
Commercial chiller maintenance that keeps July boring.
Nearly every chiller emergency we see traces back to something a maintenance visit would have caught: a fouled condenser, a drifting sensor, a slow leak, a pump on its way out. A chiller maintenance program is a written schedule of what gets checked and when, with every reading logged so drift shows up before a trip does.
How chiller maintenance is priced. Rooftop units and split systems are priced per unit on our commercial HVAC preventative maintenance programs; chillers, cooling towers, and pumps are quoted per machine after a plant walk-through, because a small air-cooled scroll chiller and a centrifugal plant are not the same visit. Water treatment is coordinated as part of the program on water-cooled plants.
Schedule a plant walk-through| How often | Air-cooled chillers | Water-cooled chillers |
|---|---|---|
| Every routine visit (monthly to quarterly in the cooling season) | Log suction and discharge pressures, approach temperatures, amp draw per compressor, and oil level; check condenser fans and contactors; read and record fault history; look for oil at fittings and brazed joints. | The same readings plus condenser and evaporator approach, chilled- and condenser-water flow and temperatures, purge run time on low-pressure machines, and a look at the tower, pumps, and water treatment readings. |
| Seasonal start-up (spring) | Clean condenser coils; confirm charge; test safeties, flow switch, and crankcase heaters; verify setpoints and staging; confirm the chilled-water pump and strainer before the machine is asked to run. | Fill and clean the cooling tower, confirm condenser-water flow and treatment, test safeties and flow switches, verify starter and VFD operation, and run the machine under load with readings logged against last year's. |
| Annual | Refrigerant leak check of the full circuit; oil analysis on screw machines; electrical inspection with connections torqued and insulation checked; inspect coil fins, fan motors, and bearings; calibrate sensors and transducers. | Oil and refrigerant analysis; brush or clean condenser tubes (annually, or more often where water treatment struggles); electrical and starter inspection; vibration check on centrifugal machines; sensor calibration; purge-unit service. |
| Every 3 to 5 years, or per the manufacturer | Motor insulation testing; compressor teardown or valve inspection on screw machines where the manufacturer calls for it; refrigerant phase-out and remaining-life assessment. | Eddy-current testing of condenser and evaporator tubes; motor insulation testing; starter and bearing inspection; a written condition assessment to support a repair-versus-replace decision. |
General industry practice consistent with ANSI/ASHRAE/ACCA Standard 180; the manufacturer's maintenance schedule for your specific machine takes priority, and the walk-through sets the final cadence for your plant. A chiller on a process or 24/7 load is checked monthly or more; a comfort-cooling chiller that sits idle all winter is checked at start-up and through the cooling season.
When a chiller should be replaced instead of repaired.
Replace when the quoted repair is more than 40 to 50 percent of a new machine and the chiller is past two-thirds of its expected life. Lean toward replacing if it runs on a phased-out refrigerant, has a history of repeated compressor or motor failures, or would use 30 percent or more energy than a current machine at part load. Repair when the machine is inside its first two-thirds of life, the failure is isolated, and the tubes, motor, and controls are sound. The numbers below are planning figures from our chiller lifespan guide.
| Chiller type | Typical life | What usually ends it |
|---|---|---|
| Air-cooled scroll | 15–20 years | Compressor failures from low charge or short-cycling; corroded condenser coils |
| Air-cooled screw | 15–20 years, sometimes longer | Screw compressor or motor failure; oil breakdown from high discharge temperatures |
| Water-cooled screw | 20–25 years | Tube fouling and scale from poor water treatment; bearing wear |
| Water-cooled centrifugal | 25–30+ years | Motor or bearing failure; surge damage from drifted controls |
The worst chiller replacement is the one scheduled by a July failure. If your machine is in its final third of life, a written condition assessment with tube testing and oil analysis turns a future emergency into a budgeted project with lead times you control. Energy is often the hidden half of the math: a 20-year-old chiller can use 30 to 40 percent more energy than a current machine at part load, where chillers spend most of their hours.
Chiller service across North Carolina and the Southeast.
Our shop is in High Point, which puts a technician inside thirty minutes of most Triad mechanical rooms, and our own crews cover the rest of the footprint. The chiller plants we maintain include university, manufacturing, and multi-tenant plants in High Point.
High Point, NC
Home base. University, furniture-manufacturing, warehouse, and multi-tenant chiller plants.
Greensboro, NC →
Office towers, medical buildings, distribution centers, and process cooling.
Winston-Salem, NC →
Downtown offices, research and lab space, schools, and industrial plants.
Charlotte, NC →
Multi-site retail, office, and institutional plants in the Charlotte metro.
Raleigh, NC →
Raleigh, Durham, Cary, and Research Triangle Park.
Columbia, SC →
Columbia and the Midlands; SBS-NC is licensed in South Carolina.
Also Burlington, NC, Atlanta, GA, and the rest of our six-state service area.
Commercial chiller service FAQ.
Chiller down, or due for a real inspection?
Call for a repair, or schedule a plant walk-through and get the maintenance scope in writing.