Buildings that get hot, and the people who have to work in them
Compton is warehouses, production floors, vehicle bays and kitchens, and it is also streets of houses with a condenser on the side wall. We do both. What we bring to either is a thermometer, a manometer and a written record — and a clear statement of where our trade ends.
- Airflow measured, not estimatedStatic pressure and airflow on every diagnostic visit, whatever the call was about.
- Temperature logged over daysA heat complaint is settled by a log, not by one reading taken while we are standing there.
- We are not a safety consultantWe will not certify compliance with anything. We install, measure and document.
California’s indoor heat rule, in one paragraph
Since July 2024 California has had an indoor heat illness prevention standard — section 3396 of title 8 — covering most indoor workplaces. In outline: it begins to apply when the indoor temperature reaches 82°F, it requires cool-down areas kept below 82°F, and it brings in further control measures at 87°F, or at 82°F where people wear clothing that restricts heat removal or work near high radiant heat. There is a separate, older outdoor standard.
Those figures are from the standard itself, and we are quoting it rather than interpreting it. Read the text, or ask a safety consultant. We are not one, and nothing on this website is compliance advice.
- Measure and log the temperature where people work, across a working day and across a week.
- Measure airflow, static pressure and the ventilation actually reaching the floor.
- Install and repair the equipment — cooling, ventilation, destratification, spot cooling, evaporative plant where it suits the building.
- Give you the readings in writing, dated, so somebody qualified can decide what they mean.
What we cannot do: tell you whether you comply, write your plan, train your staff, or sign anything. That is a different profession and we would be no good at it.
Premises
Distribution and storage buildings along Alondra and Rosecrans, light production floors, vehicle bays, commercial kitchens, offices above shops, and the small industrial units that make up most of this city’s working stock. Some of them have plant on the roof that predates the tenancy; a good number have a roof full of units and no drawing of what serves what.
We survey what is there, measure what it delivers, and write it down in a form a facilities manager, a landlord or a tenant can all use.
Houses
Post-war single-storey houses with the original ducts in a hot attic, additions cooled by a window unit that was never going to cope, and garage conversions that nobody sized anything for. Compton summers are hot enough that an undersized or leaking system is a real problem rather than an inconvenience.
Houses get the same method: find everything, measure it, price a repair before anybody mentions replacement.
What we are called out to do
- Diagnosis with instruments
Static pressure, airflow, refrigerant charge against the manufacturer’s target, temperature split, combustion on anything that burns gas. Written down with the date and the conditions.
- Temperature logging
Data loggers left in the building for a week, at the height people actually work at, so a heat complaint is settled with a record rather than an argument.
- Repair, priced before replacement
What it is, what it costs, and what it does not fix. Replacement gets discussed after a repair has a number against it.
- Rooftop and split system replacement
Sized from the load the building has now. On a warehouse that means the roof, the doors and the racking, not the plate on the old unit.
- Ventilation, destratification and spot cooling
Moving the air that is already there is frequently cheaper and more effective than cooling more of it. We will measure both options and put figures against each.
- Planned maintenance
The same readings on every visit, for premises and for houses, so a slow change shows up before it becomes a breakdown in August.
It is 90°F on the mezzanine. What actually happens next?
Five kinds of space that get hot, crossed with the four reasons people ring us about it — an obligation to staff, damage to stock or equipment, plain comfort, or because it is their own house. Each combination gets one instruction, an honest account of what the building will and will not allow, and a clear line about which parts of the problem are not ours to solve.
What we will not do
This list exists because the indoor heat standard has produced a market in people selling equipment on the back of a regulation. We would rather be plain about what we are.
- We do not certify compliance. Not with the indoor heat standard, not with anything else. We can hand you dated temperature and airflow readings. Whether they satisfy an obligation is for a safety professional or a lawyer to say, and we will not say it for them.
- We do not write heat illness prevention plans or train staff. Both are required of employers, neither is a heating and cooling job, and doing them badly would be worse than not doing them.
- We do not sell equipment by quoting a regulation at you. If cooling is the right answer we will show you the measurements that say so. If moving air, changing a schedule or shading a roof does the job for less, we will say that instead.
- We do not make health claims. We measure temperature, humidity, airflow and ventilation. What a reading means for a particular person is a medical question and not ours.
- We do not quote a price before we have seen the building. A figure given on the phone is a guess dressed as a quote, and on a warehouse it is never close.
- We do not publish reviews, ratings or a founding date. None appear on this site because we are not going to invent any of them.
- Until it is on this page, treat the site as unfinished and ask us on the telephone.
Asked often enough to write down
Can you make our building compliant with the indoor heat standard?
No, and nobody selling you equipment can honestly say otherwise. California’s indoor heat illness prevention standard places obligations on employers that go well beyond temperature — a written plan, training, water, cool-down areas, acclimatisation and record keeping. What a heating and cooling contractor can supply is a part of the evidence: dated temperature readings taken where people actually work, the airflow and ventilation figures alongside them, and the equipment to change those numbers. Whether the result satisfies the standard is for a safety professional to assess. We will not assess it and we will not sign anything.
It is 95 degrees in our warehouse. What is the first thing we should do?
Leave data loggers at working height for a week before pricing anything. In a tall building the air at the roof can be very much hotter than the air people are standing in, and the single most common mistake is buying capacity sized against the wrong number. A week of data usually shows the problem is two hours long and in one part of the floor, which is a far cheaper problem than the one everybody assumed. From there, destratification fans, ventilation, roof treatment and spot cooling at the pick faces are all worth pricing before whole-building cooling.
Our kitchen is unbearable. Is that a cooling problem?
Usually it is a balance problem. Hoods pull a large volume of air out of a kitchen, and if nothing is deliberately putting air back in, the kitchen draws its replacement from the dining room and from the street. The line gets hotter, the front of house becomes impossible to control, and any cooling you add is pulled straight out through the hood. We measure make-up air against hood exhaust first. We do not clean hoods or certify fire suppression — separate licensed trades — and we will tell you who does.
Does any of this apply to my house?
No. The indoor heat standard is about workplaces and employers, and it has nothing to do with a private home. If somebody knocks on a residential door citing heat regulations, they are selling. What does apply to a house is the ordinary set of questions: whether the system is the right size, whether the attic ducts leak, whether air is reaching the room, and whether the equipment is working. All of those are measurable and all of them are on the homes page.
Why do you keep saying you are not a safety consultant?
Because the standard has produced a market in contractors implying they can handle the whole obligation, and they cannot. Plans, training, acclimatisation procedures and record keeping are the employer’s duty and a safety professional’s field. We are good at measuring buildings and installing equipment. Saying so plainly costs us some work and it is the only honest position available.
Will you give a price over the telephone?
No. On a commercial building a telephone figure is never close, and on a house it is a guess dressed as a quote. What we will tell you on the telephone is what we would measure, whether the job needs loggers left in the building, roughly how long the first visit takes and what that visit costs, so there is no surprise in either direction.
Which areas do you cover?
Compton, Carson, Lynwood, Paramount, Gardena, Long Beach, South Gate and Willowbrook.
1406 E Alondra Blvd, Compton
1406 E Alondra Blvd, Compton, CA 90221. Monday to Friday, 7am to 4.30pm.
We cover Compton, Carson, Lynwood, Paramount, Gardena, Long Beach, South Gate and Willowbrook.