Saddleback Valley Unified School District: HVAC & refrigeration bid work guide

Same-era buildings, same-era failures

Packaged rooftop equipment in a commercial setting commonly has a service life measured in a couple of decades with good maintenance, less with heavy duty cycles or poor care. Classroom units run long hours, in a hot-summer climate, and are often asked to ventilate fully occupied rooms. A campus built in the planned-community era may be on its second or third generation of rooftop equipment, and the next replacement cycle may coincide across many buildings.

The useful discipline here is a condition-based replacement plan. Not every old unit is at the end of its life, and not every young unit is healthy. We look at compressor amp draw and run history, coil condition, heat exchanger integrity, refrigerant circuit history, and cabinet and curb condition, and sort units into three buckets: replace now, plan for next summer, and keep running with attention.

Sequencing a multi-campus replacement program

When a district decides to replace many units, the order matters as much as the equipment choice. Heavy-load rooms (gyms, multipurpose rooms, kitchens) come first because they have the least tolerance for failure. Rooms with standardized units can be bundled so submittals, curb adapters and electrical work are repeated, not reinvented. Where roofs themselves are due for replacement, coordinate so that curbs and roofing are not redone twice.

1. Inventory and condition survey, with photographs and nameplate data.
2. Prioritization by consequence of failure and by condition.
3. Packaging into bids or task orders that match the district's procurement route.
4. Early equipment release for long-lead items.
5. Summer installation, startup and acceptance testing.
6. Closeout with documentation loaded to an asset record.

Bid, quote and service-agreement routes

A multi-year equipment replacement program can be procured in several ways: separate competitive bids per campus or per package, a larger multi-site bid, a job-order contract, or a cooperative purchasing contract that another agency has already competed. Each has trade-offs for the district: separate bids create competition but more administrative work; a larger package attracts bigger contractors but may exclude smaller ones. Which is available depends on the district's board policy and legal counsel, and is subject to change. Confirm current requirements with the agency.

Look at the district's purchasing and facilities pages, and note whether it publishes a long-range facilities plan. Plans of that kind, when public, are the best indicator of upcoming work, though we would not treat them as a bid schedule. Compare with Capistrano Unified, which neighbors this district, and review the project delivery and bidding guide.

Fitting replacements into the break

A replacement program stacks work into the same summer weeks. A contractor needs crews, cranes and equipment ready on specific dates, and the district needs its approvals done earlier than feels natural. We encourage districts to approve submittals in winter so the summer is installation, not paperwork.

In the school year, rooftop swaps on buildings that can be vacated for a day or a weekend are feasible, and refrigeration and water heater emergencies are handled whenever they occur. Communicate shutdowns to site staff in writing, and plan for temporary cooling where needed for server or data rooms.

Compliance items on a school replacement

• DIR registration and prevailing wage for public works, with certified payroll.
• Insurance and bonds per the bid.
• Background clearance for workers on occupied campuses.
• DSA oversight where applicable to school alterations, and Title 24 documentation.
• Refrigerant compliance, including records for recovered and added refrigerant; see our refrigerant compliance guide.

We are license CA #1083101, UA Local 250 union labor, PLA and prevailing-wage ready with certified payroll.

The systems most likely to need attention

In districts at this stage: rooftop and split replacements; refrigerant-circuit problems on older units, where leak repairs add up and replacement becomes the economical choice; cafeteria walk-ins whose condensing units have aged out; ice machines in athletic training rooms; and controls retrofits that bring older campuses under one schedule.

Staging replacements across summers

For a district facing a replacement cycle, our first contribution is an honest condition assessment. We would rather tell you a unit has years left than sell you a replacement it does not need, and we say so in writing with readings behind it. The second-opinion diagnostic is built for this. Once units are replaced, each one gets a record in the DaVinci Portal so the next cycle starts with data. Our maintenance plans keep the new fleet from aging prematurely.

A note on refrigerant transitions and aging equipment

Older rooftop equipment was often built to run on refrigerants that have been phased down or phased out under federal and California rules. When such a unit develops a leak, the cost and availability of the refrigerant can turn a repair into a replacement decision. Reclaimed supplies exist for some refrigerants but are not unlimited, and rules about leak repair and recordkeeping depend on the type and charge size. Check current requirements; our refrigerant compliance guide is a starting point.

In a district with many same-vintage units, this affects planning. If a significant number of rooftop units use a refrigerant that is getting harder to source, there is a case for moving them up the replacement list, not waiting for them to fail one by one. We do not recommend panic replacement; we recommend knowing which refrigerant is in which unit, which is exactly what an inventory should capture.

• Record refrigerant type and charge size on every unit in the inventory.
• Track leak history by unit, so repeat leakers surface.
• Separate leak repair from replacement in budgeting, because the choice may change mid-year.
• Confirm technicians hold the needed refrigerant certifications and keep handling records.

Records that shorten a replacement bid

• An equipment inventory or the right to survey one.
• The bid package, including addenda and any standardized specifications the district uses.
• Roof condition information and any planned re-roofing.
• Preferred manufacturers and spare-parts stocking expectations.
• Summer work dates and approval timelines for submittals.

Contact (714) 594-9194 or begin at bid projects. The Mission Viejo and Lake Forest pages describe how we cover those cities.