A day in the life of Alex Murray: service, maintenance, and decarbonization on rue de Gaspé

What a service day actually looks like

Service work is the part of mechanical contracting that rarely gets a video. The big design-build projects and high-profile lifts get the LinkedIn posts; the day-to-day reality of keeping those systems running for decades after they're commissioned doesn't. This is a small attempt to fix that.

Alex Murray, our Technical Coordinator and refrigeration technician, leaves the Kolostat office for a client on rue de Gaspé in Montréal. The building is one Kolostat originally delivered as a turnkey project more than ten years ago. Today's visit is a ventilation maintenance and repair call.

Why long-standing clients matter

The relationship with this client started with a turnkey install. It's continued through a decade of repairs, maintenance, and — over the last few years — incremental decarbonization work as the original equipment ages out. The pattern is common in our portfolio: a building Kolostat delivered ten or twenty years ago is now a building Kolostat keeps running and decarbonizes. The service motion is what bridges those.

What "decarbonization" looks like in service work

Decarbonization isn't only the big retrofit projects. It's also the choices made on every service call:

• Is this failing component worth replacing with a more efficient alternative?
• Can controls be retuned to reduce runtime?
• Is the refrigerant being replaced a candidate for a lower-GWP option?
• Should this end-of-life unit trigger a broader plant review instead of a like-for-like swap?

Quality service work, repeat client relationships, and incremental decarbonization aren't three separate stories — they're the same story.