🧰 Whatever Breaks: Asset Tracking Across HVAC, Electrical and Plumbing

Ask a building maintenance tech what they look after and the honest answer is "whatever breaks". Four rooftop units, a boiler, two booster pumps, a domestic water heater, the kitchen exhaust fan, a sump pump, and a distribution panel nobody has opened since the last tenant fit-out. One person, one set of keys, one phone.

The software sold at that person is usually built for one trade. It has a refrigerant field and nowhere to put a pipe size, or it has a work-order queue and nowhere to put a serial number. So the pumps end up in a spreadsheet, the panels end up in a camera roll, and the only complete list of what is in the building is the one in somebody's head.

A mixed-trade asset list is only worth keeping if one record shape fits all of it. Here is what that record has to hold, and which parts of it are worth the typing.

The record underneath is not an HVAC record

Strip the trade off and every asset is the same six things: what it is, where it is, what it says on the plate, what is fitted to it, what has been done to it, and when it is due again. Manufacturer, model number, serial number, a location inside the building down to floor and room, photographs, the parts on it, and a date-ordered service log. None of that is specific to a compressor.

The specifications are where a single-trade tool falls down, so on the phone they are added per piece of equipment rather than shown as one long form. Switch on the fields that unit actually has and leave the rest off:

• ▸ Rotating equipment — horsepower, motor RPM, load amps (FLA/MCA), locked rotor amps, capacitor rating in microfarads and capacitor voltage. That covers a condenser fan, a circulator, an exhaust fan and a booster pump equally.
• ▸ Wet side — GPM and pipe size. With the flow rate and the line size on the record, somebody can price a replacement without driving back to look at the pump.
• ▸ Fired equipment — fuel type and gas pressure in inches of water column, alongside input BTU and output BTU. A water heater and a furnace take the same four fields.
• ▸ Electrical — voltage, phase, MCA and MOP. Those size the wire and the breaker, and they fade first on a plate left in the weather.
• ▸ Air side — CFM, static pressure and duct size, for a supply fan, an exhaust fan or an air handler.
• ▸ Your own numbering — an asset tag number field, because a building that already has EQ-1042 stenciled on the cabinet should not be renumbered to suit an app.

When the field you need is not on the list

There is a CREATE CUSTOM FIELD button on the equipment record. Name the field, type the value, and it saves against that unit alongside the built-in specs. Backflow preventer size, elevator car number, transformer kVA, grease trap capacity: anything the built-in fields do not cover.

The equipment type is not a fixed menu either. On the phone it is a plain text box: you type Booster Pump, Water Heater, Distribution Panel, Sump Pump, whatever the thing actually is. On the web dashboard the same field is a picker. It opens with the HVAC types — RTU, split system, furnace, air handler, boiler, condenser, mini split — and ends with Other, which reveals a Custom Equipment Type box that does the same job.

The HVAC-only fields sit unused on a record that does not need them. A panel has no refrigerant, and nothing asks you for one.

Sizes belong on the part, not on the spec sheet

People look for filter size in the specification list. It is not there, and that is deliberate. Filter sizes and belt sizes are not specifications of the unit. They are parts fitted to it, so they are recorded under Installed Parts on the equipment rather than in the specification list.

The reason is stock. A size recorded as a part matches your inventory and draws from it, so the 20x25x2 on the air handler comes off the 20x25x2 count on the van. A size typed into a spec field is just text, and nothing can count it.

It works the same way across trades. A pump seal, a panel breaker, a water heater anode rod and a drive belt are all parts on a unit, each with a part number, a size and a quantity you hold. Building a filter list across a whole portfolio works because of that, and so does checking whether the spare is already on the van before you drive.

Use the barcode the equipment already has

Most facilities equipment is already labeled by somebody — a manufacturer barcode on the cabinet, an asset sticker from a previous system, a property-management tag on the panel door. You do not have to print a second one on top of it.

Every equipment record carries a QR / BARCODE CODE field. Scan the label that is already there and it fills the field. From then on, scanning that label opens that record. The camera reads QR, Code 39, Code 93, Code 128, Data Matrix, PDF417, EAN-8, EAN-13, UPC-A, UPC-E, ITF-14, Codabar and Aztec, so an existing warehouse or property tag works as it is.

A scanned code is matched in a fixed order: the linked code on a unit first, then the linked code on a part, then an exact serial number, then the asset tag. So a code you never got round to linking still finds the unit, as long as the number printed on it is the serial you typed in.

Where nothing is labeled, print your own. Text and JSON tags carry their data on the sticker itself and are free, which makes them the right choice for a windowless mechanical room. The hosted live-link tags are Pro.

What to record on each kind of asset

Nobody has time to fill in every field on every unit, and a half-filled record is not a failure. Here is what earns its keep, by the kind of thing you are standing in front of.

One PM calendar, not three

Build one mixed list and the due dates stop living in three places. A filter change, a belt inspection, a pump seal check, a water heater flush and an infrared scan on a panel are all the same kind of record: an interval, a last-completed date, and a next-due date the phone works out for itself.

PM scheduling is free, and the phone schedules the reminder itself instead of a server sending it, so it fires whether or not the device has a connection. Completing a PM writes a maintenance log against that unit, so the PM history and the repair history are one list instead of two.

The preventive maintenance scheduling page covers the intervals and what a completion actually writes.

What the AI nameplate scan will and will not read

Photographing a plate is faster than typing it, and the scanner reads mechanical equipment plates generally, not just HVAC ones. It handles motor plates, capacitor labels, filter frames and belt markings. It reads text at any orientation, because labels are not always mounted upright. It treats a date handwritten on a tank or a water heater casing as an install date rather than a manufacture date.

It returns manufacturer, model and serial, voltage, phase, horsepower, RPM, FLA, MCA, MOP, LRA, capacitor rating and capacitor voltage, fuel type, gas pressure, input and output BTU, refrigerant and factory charge, SEER, and filter and belt sizes. It does not return GPM or pipe size. Those are rarely printed as a labeled field on a pump plate, so you type them.

A value it could only half read comes back blank rather than reconstructed, which is the behavior you want on a serial number. The scan itself needs a connection, because the model runs in the cloud. For the longer version, see how the nameplate scan works, and where it still gets things wrong. Ten AI scans are free; after that, scanning is part of Pro.

What this costs

Entering the work is free on every tier, and it works with no signal because every record is written to a database on the phone before anything else happens: buildings and property owners, equipment records with all of the fields above, custom fields, parts and their sizes, photographs, maintenance logs, work orders, PM schedules and their reminders, refrigerant logging with the leak-rate math, invoicing in the app, barcode and QR scanning to reach your own units, and importing a spreadsheet you already keep. The CSV mapper recognizes asset tag and barcode columns, and GPM, pipe size, fuel type and gas pressure, not only the HVAC ones.

Pro is the connected half and the desk half: cloud sync, the web dashboard, every PDF and CSV report or export, sending a record straight to another technician, the hosted live-link QR tags, and AI scanning past the first ten. The current price is on the pricing page.

That split matters more on a mixed portfolio than on a single-trade one, because entering the data is what costs you time, and that part is free. If you stop paying, the list you built is still on the phone and still readable; what stops is the syncing, the reporting and the desk tools.

Can one app track HVAC, electrical and plumbing assets together?

Yes. The equipment record is a general one — a name, a type you type yourself, manufacturer, model, serial, a location inside a building, photos, the parts fitted to it and a date-ordered service log. The specification fields are added per piece of equipment. They include GPM, pipe size, fuel type, gas pressure, horsepower, motor RPM, capacitor rating, voltage, phase, FLA/MCA, MCA, LRA and MOP, so a pump, a water heater and a panel are tracked the same way a rooftop unit is. The HVAC-only fields are left off a record that does not need them.

What if the field I need does not exist?

There is a CREATE CUSTOM FIELD button on the equipment record. You name the field and type the value, and it saves against that unit alongside the built-in specifications. That is where things like backflow preventer size, transformer kVA or tank capacity go.

Can I use the barcodes already on my equipment instead of printing new tags?

Yes. Each equipment record has a QR / BARCODE CODE field that you fill by scanning the label already on the machine. The camera reads QR, Code 39, Code 93, Code 128, Data Matrix, PDF417, EAN-8, EAN-13, UPC-A, UPC-E, ITF-14, Codabar and Aztec. A scanned code is matched against the linked code on a unit first, then a linked code on a part, then an exact serial number, then the asset tag.

Where do filter and belt sizes go?

On the part, not in the specification list. Sizes are recorded under Installed Parts on the unit so they match your inventory and draw from stock. That is what makes a filter or belt list across a portfolio possible. The same applies to a pump seal, a breaker or an anode rod.

Does the AI nameplate scanner work on equipment that is not HVAC?

It reads mechanical equipment plates generally, including motor plates, capacitor labels, filter frames and belt markings. It maps a date handwritten on a tank or water heater casing to the install date. It returns manufacturer, model, serial, voltage, phase, horsepower, RPM, FLA, MCA, MOP, LRA, capacitor rating, fuel type, gas pressure, BTU input and output, refrigerant and charge, SEER, and filter and belt sizes. It does not return GPM or pipe size, so those are typed. The scan runs in the cloud, so it needs a connection.

What is free and what needs Pro?

Free: buildings and property owners, equipment records with every specification field plus custom fields, parts and their sizes, photographs, maintenance logs, work orders, PM schedules and reminders, refrigerant logging, invoicing in the app, barcode and QR scanning to reach your own units, and CSV import. All of it works with no signal. Pro: cloud sync, the web dashboard, every PDF and CSV report or export, sending a record to another technician, the hosted live-link QR tags, and AI scanning after the first ten scans.

Jonathan Curtis

HVAC Technician & Founder · Equipment Tracker Pro

Jonathan Curtis is an HVAC technician and the founder of Equipment Tracker Pro. He built the app to solve real problems he encountered in the field, including the daily frustration of faded nameplates and administrative double-entry.