MaintScope · Pilates studio
Pilates & reformer studio air conditioning
Twenty people working hard in a sealed room put out about the heat of twenty bar heaters. Most studio fitouts were sized on floor area, which is why the system that coped all winter falls apart in its first February. You won't get complaints, you'll get quiet cancellations.
And if it's still running
Know what it's going to cost you — before it costs you
A licenced tech goes through every bit of air conditioning, ventilation and refrigeration you've got, and writes down what condition it's in, what needs doing and when, and what it's realistically going to cost you over the next year and the next five. Plain English, one PDF.
Nothing perishes — but a room that's uncomfortable empties out.
Get a health checkWorked example · Pilates studio · Avoca
What the report actually says
What you’ve got
| Equipment | Age | Condition | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio split systems x2 | ~4 yrs | Action | Sized for the empty room, not a full class |
| Reception/change area split | ~4 yrs | Serviceable | |
| Ventilation | Original | Watch | Minimal fresh air, room gets stuffy by mid-class |
Needs attention now
- Capacity, not condition. Your units are healthy. They’re just too small. Twenty people working hard in a sealed room put out roughly the heat of twenty 100W heaters — that load was never in the original sizing, because the fitout was specced on floor area.
- Fresh air. Stuffiness by mid-class is a ventilation issue, not a cooling one, and no amount of extra cooling fixes it.
- Filters. Heavy occupancy loads filters far faster than a normal commercial space.
Your service year
| When | What |
|---|---|
| Monthly | Filter check (your staff can do this) |
| Quarterly | Filter clean or replace |
| April | Full service |
| Sept / Oct | Pre-summer service and performance check |
What it costs — next 12 months
| Item | Low | High |
|---|---|---|
| Studio splits (2), 2 visits | $720 | $1,120 |
| Reception split | $180 | $280 |
| Quarterly filter service | $240 | $480 |
| Total | $1,140 | $1,880 |
Coming in five years
- Additional capacity — $3,000–7,000 to add a head sized for actual class load
- Mechanical fresh air — $2,500–6,000
- Replacement of existing units — $2,200–4,000 each
Quietly costing you money
A hot class is a cancelled membership. You won’t get a complaint — you’ll get a quiet drop-off in the 6pm summer classes and no explanation. Meanwhile the undersized units run at 100% all summer, which is both the most expensive way to run them and the fastest way to kill them.
What I’d do first
- Get the actual heat load calculated for a full class, not the floor area
- Quarterly filters from now on
- Decide on fresh air before you spend on more cooling
How it works
$150 to come out. Everything else depends on what's there.
- I come out — $150.I go through the lot: what you've got, how old it is, what condition it's in. Takes an hour or two depending on how much is in the place.
- You get it in writing within 48 hours.One PDF. What's there, what needs doing and when, what it should cost you over the year, and what's coming further out.
- Anything that needs fixing, I quote on what I find.I can't price a service off a website — it depends on the unit, the access and what turns up when it's open. You'll get a real number, not a guess.
- If you'd rather not think about it again, I'll handle it.Scheduled servicing across the year, timed around your trade. No lock-in — plenty of people take the report and go it alone, and that's genuinely fine.