Maintenance Agreement Visit Scope Discipline

Purpose

The agreement visit is the only work this shop sells before it knows what it will find, and it fails in two opposite directions from one cause. A tech running long absorbs an uncovered repair to be pleasant, which teaches that customer the agreement covers repairs and turns renewal into an argument the office loses. A tech running short marks covered tasks done that were never run, and that surfaces a season later when a covered component failed and the record says it was serviced, which is a document the shop wrote against itself.

Both come from nobody reading the agreement's task list on site. This procedure makes the covered list a physical input to the visit and gives every finding outside it a named disposition before the tech leaves the driveway.

Safety actions that gate this procedure

• Personal carbon monoxide monitor on before entering any mechanical space where a fuel-fired appliance will run, ambient reading recorded with the appliance off.
• Cover, panel and disconnect work is done by a qualified person under 29 CFR 1910.333(b)(2), de-energized where the check can be made dead; where a live reading is unavoidable the meter is proved on a known live source before and after, per NFPA 70E-2021, 120.5.
• Pulling a loaded filter or brushing a coil liberates settled dust and biological growth into the air the tech breathes. Bag the filter at the rack, and wear respiratory protection matched to that route under a written program per 29 CFR 1910.134. No program, no cleaning: the task is rebooked.
• A condenser fan starts on a call the tech did not make. Open the disconnect and let the blade stop before a hand goes over the fan guard.

Scope

Covers the recurring visit under a residential or light-commercial maintenance agreement: reading the covered list, running it, recording a value in every slot, and dispositioning anything found outside it.

Does not cover the technical method for any individual task. The annual maintenance, pre-season cooling tune-up, combustion analysis and condensate drain service SOPs own those and are called out rather than restated. Does not cover writing, pricing or renewing the agreement, or an emergency call taken under its response terms, which runs under the no-heat or no-cool response SOP.

Roles and responsibilities

Procedure

1. Read the signed covered list and last visit's record before you get out of the truck, and build the running order from it. Note every covered task, every consumable named by size and type, every open item from last season, and which tasks are gated by others: combustion readings need a warm appliance, static pressure needs the new filter already in. Acceptance: a written running order in which no gated task sits before its gate. What wrong looks like: starting from memory of what a tune-up usually includes, which is how a shop performs an unsold coil cleaning on one account and skips a sold one on the next. Stop rule: no signed list on the ticket, call the office for it before starting; if the list will not fit the booked duration at a working pace, call the service manager now rather than at the end. Hazard: none, it is reading in the truck.

2. Verify the equipment on site is the equipment on the agreement, by count and by model. Read every rating plate. Acceptance: unit count and model numbers match, or a discrepancy is written with a plate photo. What wrong looks like: a system added since signing and serviced free every year since, or a listed unit replaced with one taking a different filter. Stop rule: a unit not on the agreement is photographed and reported, not serviced, until the office confirms coverage. Hazard in this step: reading plates puts you at the outdoor unit and into attics and crawlspaces, so the outdoor disconnect stays untouched and attic access follows the platform and lighting rules of the attic access SOP.

3. Run the covered electrical tasks with the equipment isolated, and write the reading, not the word. Capacitor microfarads against the value and tolerance printed on the can, contactor contact condition, connection tightness. Acceptance: every value written as a number with its unit as it is read, each capacitor judged against its own printed tolerance rather than a remembered rule. What wrong looks like: "capacitor OK" in the slot, which tells next season's tech nothing about drift. Stop rule: a capacitor outside its printed band is classified in step 5, not swapped on reflex. Hazard in this step: a run capacitor holds a charge after the disconnect opens, so it is discharged with an appropriate resistor before a probe or a hand reaches the terminals, the task under 29 CFR 1910.333(b)(2) with live-dead-live per NFPA 70E-2021, 120.5.

4. Run the covered airside and wet-side tasks and install the covered consumables. Filter to the size and type the agreement names, drain serviced per the covered scope, pan and float condition observed. Acceptance: the drain carries a measured pour and the water level device interrupts the equipment, recorded as pass or fail rather than as "serviced". What wrong looks like: a filter one size down wedged into the rack with a gap at the edge, which measures like a clean filter and lets the coil load anyway. Stop rule: correct filter not on the truck, the old one goes back in and a dated return is booked, never a substitute size. Hazard in this step: withdrawing the loaded filter and clearing the drain disturb settled dust and wet biological growth, so the filter is bagged at the rack and any clearing producing a spray carries the respiratory control matched to that route under 29 CFR 1910.134, not a rag over the face.

5. Classify every finding outside the covered list into one of three classes, in writing, before acting on it. Safety class: unsafe to leave running. Covered-repair class: the agreement's terms include it. Recommendation class: real, not urgent, not covered. Acceptance: every finding carries one class, one photo and one sentence of measured evidence; zero sit unclassified. What wrong looks like: doing a recommendation-class repair inside the visit window because it was only twenty minutes, which the customer then expects annually. Stop rule: no uncovered work without the service manager's authorization on the ticket, and a safety-class finding stops the visit and goes to them by phone first. Hazard: none, the equipment stays as you found it.

6. Start the system, take the running readings, and prove the protections you disturbed still work. Temperature rise against the range on the rating plate, total external static against the plate maximum, amp draws against rated load amps. Acceptance: every running value inside its published range, the water level device again proven to interrupt the unit after the drain work, every panel closed and latched, and no ambient carbon monoxide rise on the personal monitor through the run. Stop rule: a CO rise with the appliance firing stops the run, the appliance is shut off at its gas valve and the space ventilated before anything else is measured. Hazard in this step: fuel, electricity and motion go back in here with the tech and the customer both present, so stand clear of the blower door and fan guard at start, stand to the hinge side rather than square in front when closing a disconnect, and treat first firing as the moment a fault you did not find announces itself.

7. Brief the customer against the classes and close the record before you leave the driveway. Say what was covered and done, read the safety and covered-repair findings by name, and state that recommendation items arrive as a quote from the office. Acceptance: the customer has heard every safety and covered-repair finding out loud, and the ticket carries their acknowledgement of the visit and the open items with classes. What wrong looks like: a verbal "the coil could use a cleaning sometime", neither a quote nor a record, which returns next season as "nobody told me". Stop rule: a declined safety-class recommendation is written in the customer's own words, and equipment shut off stays off rather than being restarted as a favour. What the shop banks is a dated record that the customer was told; what the signature proves about waiver is a question for the shop's own attorney. Hazard: none, the equipment is in its final state.

The record this produces

One visit record per agreement per visit: the covered task list with a measured value or pass/fail beside every line, consumables installed by size and type, the equipment count and model verification, each finding with class, photo and evidence sentence, running readings against their published ranges, any covered task deferred with its reason and rebook date, and the customer acknowledgement.

Three readers use it later. Next season's tech, who compares this visit's capacitor and static readings against last season's and sees drift rather than a snapshot. The service manager at renewal, who can show what was delivered rather than argue it. The office, which turns recommendation findings into quotes.

Worked pass: two-system residential account, autumn visit

Covered on both systems: filter, drain service, electrical inspection, combustion check on the furnace, running readings. Booked at three hours.

Step 1 read the list: eleven covered tasks, two open items from spring, both drain related, with both static readings placed after their filter changes. Step 2 found three units on site against two on the agreement, so the garage mini split added in July was photographed, reported and not serviced.

Step 4 FAILED upstairs. The agreement names a 20 by 25 by 4 media filter; the truck carried the 1 inch. Under the stop rule the old media filter went back in rather than a 1 inch fitted into a 4 inch rack, and a return was booked for the following Tuesday. The consequence is legible in the numbers: total external static upstairs read 0.71 in w.c. against a plate maximum of 0.80 in w.c., recorded with a note that it was taken on a filter at the end of its life, so it is not this season's baseline and is not compared against spring's 0.52 in w.c. as though it were.

Step 3 measured the downstairs condenser run capacitor at 42.1 microfarad against a can marked 45 with a printed tolerance of plus or minus 6 percent. Six percent of 45 is 2.7, so the band runs 42.3 to 47.7, and 42.3 minus 42.1 puts the reading 0.2 microfarad below its own lower bound. Covered-repair class, classified at step 5, not swapped at step 3.

Step 5 produced four findings: the capacitor (covered repair), an outdoor unit closer to a fence than the manufacturer's stated clearance (recommendation), a flue connector joint with visible separation (safety), and the mini split, a coverage question rather than a technical one. The safety item went to the service manager by phone from the driveway before anything was touched. Step 6 therefore ran on the downstairs system only, with the furnace left unfired and the combustion portion of the covered list recorded as deferred with its reason rather than as done. Step 7 read all four findings to the homeowner by name and left the furnace off in writing.

What the failure teaches: the stock error cost twenty minutes and one return trip. Handled the other way it would have produced a static reading nobody could interpret, a coil loading through the bypass all season, and a record saying the filter was changed.

References

• The signed maintenance agreement's own covered task and consumable list, the controlling document for scope on every visit
• Equipment rating plate for temperature rise range, maximum total external static pressure and rated load amps
• 29 CFR 1910.333(b)(2), electrical safe work practices for general industry, with NFPA 70E-2021, 120.5 for the proving sequence in steps 3 and 6
• 29 CFR 1910.134, respiratory protection program requirements gating the filter and coil work in step 4
• See related: Condensate Drain Service and Overflow Prevention; Pre-Season Cooling Tune-Up; Gas Furnace Combustion Analysis and Tuning