Scroll chillers
Modular and packaged scroll machines, common on mid-size office, retail and medical buildings. Staged capacity, multiple circuits, and the controls that sequence them.
Chillers & Central Plants
Chiller Repair & Replacement in Austin, TX
A chiller down in July is not a service call, it is a business interruption. Most Austin HVAC companies subcontract chiller work. We keep it in house — diagnosis, repair, rigging and replacement.
Why This Is Different Work
Central plant work needs plant-level technicians
A chiller is not a bigger air conditioner. It sits at the centre of a loop — pumps, cooling towers or condensers, hydronic piping, valves, VFDs and a controls layer that ties all of it together. When a machine faults, the cause is very often somewhere else in that loop: low flow, fouled tubes, a failing pump, an air-bound line, a miscalibrated sensor.
Technicians who only work packaged equipment troubleshoot the machine. Plant technicians troubleshoot the system. That distinction is the difference between a chiller that runs for another decade and one that keeps tripping on the same fault every August while somebody replaces parts.
512 Mechanical is built around heavy mechanical capability. We carry the tooling for real repairs rather than parts-swapping, we read the whole loop before we touch the machine, and we can take a project from failure diagnosis through equipment selection, rigging, set, pipe, wire and startup without handing you off to three different vendors.
Machines We Service
Chiller types and configurations
Air-cooled and water-cooled, across the compressor technologies common in Central Texas commercial and industrial plants.
Screw chillers
Rotary screw compressors on larger commercial and industrial loads. Slide valve and capacity control diagnostics, oil system service, and compressor rebuild or replacement.
Centrifugal chillers
Large-tonnage central plant machines. Surge diagnostics, purge unit service, bearing and oil analysis, and coordination for eddy current tube testing.
Air-cooled packages
Rooftop and pad-mounted air-cooled units. Condenser coil cleaning, fan and VFD service, refrigerant management and full change-outs.
Water-cooled systems
Machines paired with cooling towers and condenser water loops. Tube cleaning, approach temperature analysis, and full-loop performance work.
Process and critical cooling
Chilled water serving data rooms, manufacturing process loads and medical equipment, where downtime carries a different order of cost.
Scope Of Work
What chiller service with us covers
- Full-loop diagnostics — machine, pumps, towers, piping and controls
- Compressor teardown, rebuild and replacement
- Refrigerant recovery, charging and EPA leak-rate documentation
- Condenser and evaporator tube cleaning and brushing
- Eddy current testing coordination and tube plugging
- Oil analysis, oil changes and filter/drier replacement
- Purge unit service on low-pressure machines
- Starter, VFD and motor troubleshooting
- Safety and limit control calibration
- Chilled water and condenser water pump service
- Crane and rigging coordination for replacement
- Equipment selection, set, pipe, wire, startup and commissioning
Chiller Down Right Now?
We run 24/7 emergency response for central plant failures across the Austin metro. If your machine is locked out, call and get a plant technician on the phone rather than a dispatcher taking a message.
Where the repair will take time, we coordinate temporary cooling and rental chillers so your building keeps operating while the permanent fix happens.
Repair Versus Replace
Honest math on a capital decision
Chiller replacement is a capital project, not a repair, and the decision deserves real numbers rather than a sales pitch. We look at the age of the machine against its expected service life, the cost of the repair in front of you, refrigerant type and future availability, current efficiency against what a new machine would deliver on your actual load profile, and the pattern of service calls over recent seasons.
Sometimes the answer is that a twenty-five-year-old machine with good tubes and a solid shell is worth another compressor. Sometimes it is that you are three years into pouring money down a hole. We will show you the arithmetic either way, and we will put it in writing so you can take it to ownership or a board.
When replacement is right, we handle equipment selection against your real load, crane and rigging logistics, mechanical room access and demolition, piping and electrical coordination, startup, commissioning and operator training. Related work often runs alongside it — see cooling tower service and preventive maintenance agreements.
Where We Work
Serving the Austin metro and Central Texas
Chiller and central plant work across the Austin metro and Central Texas, including facilities in Round Rock, Cedar Park, Georgetown and San Marcos.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
Do you actually service chillers in house, or subcontract them?
In house. Chillers and central plant work are the core of what 512 Mechanical does, which is unusual for a company our size in this market — most Austin HVAC contractors sub chiller work out to a specialist and mark it up. Keeping it in house means one company diagnosing, one company accountable, and no coordination gap between the machine and the loop around it.
How often should a commercial chiller be serviced?
At minimum annually, before cooling season. Most Central Texas facilities are better served by a quarterly or semi-annual program, because our cooling season is long and equipment runs harder here than the maintenance intervals in the manual assume. A typical program includes oil and refrigerant analysis, tube cleaning on water-cooled machines, condenser coil cleaning on air-cooled, safety control checks, and logged operating data trended over time so you can see performance drifting before it becomes a failure.
Can you handle a full chiller replacement including rigging?
Yes, end to end. Equipment selection against your actual load, crane and rigging coordination, mechanical room access and demolition, setting, piping, electrical coordination, startup, commissioning and operator handoff. You deal with one contractor rather than managing a mechanical contractor, a rigger and a startup technician separately.
What refrigerants do you work with?
We service machines across the refrigerants in the Central Texas installed base, and we handle recovery, reclaim and charging under EPA Section 608 requirements with leak-rate tracking documented for your records. If your machine runs a refrigerant being phased down, we will tell you what that means for parts availability and future cost as part of any repair-versus-replace discussion.
Request Service or a Quote
Let's get your building running right
Tell us what is going on and we will get a technician or an estimator on it. For anything urgent, call — that is always the fastest path.
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24/7 Dispatch(512) 316-9646
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Office12108 Roxie Dr Suite D
Austin, TX 78729 -
HoursMon–Fri 8:00a–5:00p
Emergency service 24/7/365
Request service or a quote
Equipment down right now?
Emergency commercial HVAC and chiller response across Austin and Central Texas — nights, weekends and holidays.