FAIR LAWN, NEW JERSEY / Storyteller / Nov 12, 2026 /
November is the perfect time to prepare HVAC systems for winter heating demand. Across New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Massachusetts and Tennessee, the maintenance decisions facility managers make in October and November shape the next six months. A system inspected in fall runs more efficiently and fails less often. It also keeps a facility team from hunting for an emergency contractor in the coldest week of the year.
Brookaire, the Fair Lawn, New Jersey commercial air filter manufacturer and distributor founded in 1974, has published a free fall maintenance checklist for facility managers and HVAC contractors. The full guide is at The Commercial Building Fall Maintenance Checklist: What Facility Managers in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, and Massachusetts Should Address Before Winter.
WHAT THE CHECKLIST COVERS
The guide starts from ANSI/ASHRAE/ACCA Standard 180, the governing minimum practice for inspection and maintenance of commercial building HVAC systems, as summarized by The Tustin Group. It recommends the standard as the reference point for any fall program, ahead of a checklist from a vendor website, Brookaire’s included.
From there, the core items are consistent across published guidance: heating system inspection and startup testing, economizer damper and actuator checks, control sequence and setpoint review, and a look back at the building’s recent service history. The guide adds one item Brookaire sees from the filter side: checking filters against actual pressure drop readings, not the calendar change date.
WHAT SKIPPED MAINTENANCE COSTS
U.S. Department of Energy data, as cited by OxMaint, shows that commercial systems without preventive maintenance “consume up to 20% more energy and fail years ahead of schedule.” The same source credits regular preventive maintenance with a 40 percent reduction in repair costs.
On a large commercial building in the Northeast, a 20 percent energy penalty runs to tens of thousands of dollars a year. The guide frames a fall inspection as a cost that pays for itself in the same season.
MINNESOTA: THE EARLIEST AND HIGHEST-STAKES WINDOW
Of the four states Brookaire serves with this guide, Minnesota has the shortest fall timeline. The Minnesota HVAC Authority calls the pre-heating phase “the highest-priority maintenance window in Minnesota,” and points to design temperatures that fall below negative 20 degrees Fahrenheit in northern regions. At those temperatures, a heating interruption puts pipes and heat exchangers at risk within hours.
The practical point for Twin Cities contractors is scheduling. Technician availability tightens quickly once the first cold snap arrives, so the open window for fall inspections is October and early November.
THE FILTER AND PM VISIT
For commercial buildings along New Jersey’s Route 287 corridor and Pennsylvania’s Philadelphia healthcare corridor, the guide notes that annual filter program reviews line up with the move to heating season. The same site visit that checks the boiler and confirms damper operation is the right visit to confirm filter loading status and reorder for the winter cycle.
In Massachusetts, the guide points to sustained coastal humidity in October and November. Buildings that ran economizers through the month have pulled in moist air for weeks, and filters and coils exposed to that moisture wear faster as heating season begins. For a companion read on how economizer operation changes filter loading, see Brookaire’s fall HVAC changeover guide.
“November is the last clean window before winter heating demand makes HVAC problems expensive,” said Lynne Laake, Marketing Director at Brookaire. “The tasks on the list are familiar to every contractor and facility manager. The question is timing. We are a filter company, so we added the one item we know best: check filters against actual loading, and use the same visit that covers the boiler to reorder for winter.”
WHERE BROOKAIRE SERVES
Brookaire’s Fair Lawn, New Jersey headquarters serves New Jersey and the surrounding Northeast. The York, Pennsylvania distribution center serves Pennsylvania and the Mid-Atlantic. The Lakeville, Minnesota distribution center serves Minnesota and Wisconsin. The Avon, Massachusetts location at 254 Bodwell St, Unit A, Avon, MA 02322 serves Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut. The Knoxville, Tennessee operation serves Tennessee, Kentucky, southern Ohio, Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and Florida.
For contractors managing filter programs across multiple accounts, Brookaire’s customer portal and scheduled job-site delivery support fall filter restocking alongside an existing PM schedule.
ABOUT BROOKAIRE
Brookaire is a third-generation, family-operated manufacturer and distributor of commercial HVAC air filters headquartered in Fair Lawn, New Jersey. Founded in 1974, the company operates distribution centers at 17-02 Nevins Road, Fair Lawn, NJ 07410; 581 Manchester Ct, York, PA 17408; 8095 215th St W, Lakeville, MN 55044; and 254 Bodwell St Unit A, Avon, MA 02322, along with Puremaxx Filtration Solutions in Knoxville, TN, which joined Brookaire in October 2026. Brookaire’s complete product offering includes standard and custom pleated filters, ASHRAE filters, HEPA filters, bag/pocket filters, V-bank filters and V-belts. Its pleated products, including the DeltaPleat premium filter line, are made from 100 percent US-sourced materials. Services include scheduled job-site delivery, job tagging, real-time tracking, a customer portal for multi-site account management, 48-hour custom filter production, and filter disposal pickup.
Brookaire serves HVAC contractors and facility managers across New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Maryland, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Delaware, Washington DC, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Tennessee.
Fall maintenance checklist: airfilters.brookaire.com/commercial-hvac-fall-maintenance-checklist
Fall HVAC changeover guide: airfilters.brookaire.com/the-fall-hvac-changeover-window
Resource library: airfilters.brookaire.com
All locations: brookaire.com/locations
Follow Brookaire:
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/brookaire-company
Instagram: instagram.com/brookaire
Facebook: facebook.com/brookaire
YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UChSapJieifNddxqEyqj1ESQ
###
Media Contact:
Lynne Laake
Marketing Director, Brookaire Corporation
lynne.laake@brookaire.com
(973) 473-7527
