Maintenance and Repairs

September 10, 2025 Published by Toronto and Area Chapter - By Luz Haddad

A Call to Proactivity

From the Summer 2025 issue of CCI Toronto Condovoice Magazine.

Rethinking HVAC and community in the high-rise era

There’s a particular kind of chaos that settles into a high-rise suite after disaster strikes — not loud, but thick with tension. The fans are humming, the drywall is torn out, the floors are soaked, and the air is heavy with questions no one wants to answer. We — the contractors — are called into this storm. After the damage. After the trust has cracked. When blame ricochets between floors and paperwork faster than the water ever did.

But HVAC in high-rise living isn’t just about heat and air. Not anymore. It’s about safety, fairness, and foresight. It’s about the quiet systems that shape how people breathe, live, and age. And most of all, it’s about the invisible decisions — the ones no one sees — that decide who pays the price.

Let me tell you a story…

A homeowner, uninsured and unaware for reasons beyond our judgment, discovers his aging fan coil has been leaking for days. Water seeps down five floors. Walls and flooring are destroyed. The emergency response alone? Over $25,000. Renovations? Another $45,000. The property manager calls in a restoration company — one they work with often. The insurance company later reviews the case and confirms the homeowner’s suspicion: the bill was tripled beyond market value. Someone is profiting. But not the homeowner.

The homeowner pushes back. Questions the numbers. Questions the loyalties. The response? A deflection — blame is passed to the HVAC contractor who last serviced the unit four months prior. Never mind that the fan coil was over 15 years old. Never mind that no transfer of liability or upgrade was made. The contractor becomes a convenient scapegoat.

This is how the game is played

And this is why the system needs to change.

Because this isn’t just a technical failure. It’s a systemic gap — a space where confusion festers and miscommunication flourishes. In the absence of clear guidelines, education, and transparency, decisions are made quickly and often unfairly. Homeowners are left in the dark. Managers are left juggling liabilities. And contractors are caught in a web they didn’t weave.

What if there’s a gentler, wiser way forward? What if we’ve been moving through the noise, the blame, and the breakdowns for so long that we forgot: we’re allowed to build something better?

What if — instead of patching problems — we nurtured solutions that last? Imagine a way where:

• Education becomes protection — giving residents the tools to understand what they own, how it works, and how to spot fraud before it’s too late.
• Contractors are community partners — professionals who prioritize transparency, fair service, and longterm trust, even in an environment that often rewards the opposite.
• Decision-making becomes more transparent — with vetted service providers, clear scopes of work, and open dialogue between all parties involved. • Comfort is not a privilege, but a right — clean air, safe systems, and fair access to services for all, not just the insured and informed.

We must stop waiting for the leak. We must stop blaming the last person who touched the unit. We must stop treating infrastructure as an afterthought and start treating it as a pillar of ethical living.

Proactivity isn’t just smart — it’s just. And justice, in the HVAC world, looks like informed decisions, transparent pricing, ethical partnerships, and systems designed to serve everyone, not just the ones who know how to fight.

To the boards doing their best with limited guidance, to the property managers under constant pressure and carrying invisible yet devastating weight — often struggling to recognize trustworthy contractors amidst a sea of promises — and to the residents who’ve learned to live with less — we say: you deserve better.

Let’s stop calling it a luxury. Let’s start calling it what it has always been: a human right.

It’s time to rethink HVAC. It’s time to rise with the people. It’s time to answer the call to proactivity. Because at the end of the day, the systems we live with are a reflection of the standards we accept.

And it’s time — truly time — that the condo community stands together to demand more. More honesty. More care. More courage. More foresight.

Not just from others, but from ourselves.

Because better isn’t only possible — it’s necessary.

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Luz Haddad, BA.Com, B.ED 4Seasons HVAC Solutions