Rooftop unit monitoring that hears what the equipment is telling you
RTUs are built to hide problems. They sit out of sight on the roof, compensate silently as parts degrade, and hold setpoint right up until the day they cannot. Elite Energy Management reads what your units are already reporting, every 60 seconds, and turns it into warnings you can act on.
The roof is where problems go to grow
Nobody visits a rooftop unit until something is wrong. Between quarterly filter changes, an RTU can develop a slipping belt, a weakening capacitor, a refrigerant leak, or a failing contactor, and every one of those shows up in the data weeks before it shows up in the space.
Out of sight, out of mind, out of budget
RTUs get attention twice a year on a preventive schedule and immediately after they fail. The weeks of degradation in between, when a cheap fix is still possible, pass unobserved.
RTUs compensate until they collapse
Staging harder, running longer, cycling more often: a struggling unit uses its own capacity headroom to hide the problem. Comfort is the last thing to go, so comfort is the worst possible alarm.
Small faults cascade into compressor failures
A loose belt or low charge forces longer, hotter compressor runs. What starts as a $200 adjustment can end as a $5,000+ compressor replacement if it runs long enough.
Runtime is invisible on a utility bill
The bill shows the building's total. It cannot show that one unit ran its second compressor stage nearly nonstop while producing almost no cooling.
What we watch on every unit
The thermostats and controllers you already own report far more than setpoint. Elite Energy Management collects those readings every 60 seconds and evaluates each unit against its own healthy baseline, weather normalized, so a brutal August afternoon does not look like a fault and a mild April afternoon does not hide one.
- Cooling output: how much temperature drop the unit actually delivers across its coil, and how that trends over weeks.
- Compressor staging and runtime: how hard and how often the unit works to hold setpoint, including second stage overuse and short cycling.
- Capacity degradation: how much cooling ability the unit has lost versus when it was running well, the key input to repair or replace decisions.
What Elite Energy Management does differently
Connect once through your existing EMS or smart thermostats and every unit starts reporting. AI models learn each unit's normal behavior, then flag drift with a plain English explanation and a recommended next step.
A health score per unit, updated nightly
Every RTU gets a 0 to 100 health score. Running well means it is fine. Monitoring means we are watching a developing trend. Action needed means schedule a service call. No interpretation required.
Warnings days to weeks before failure
Our AI models flag behavioral drift early. In real world cases the platform has flagged developing failures 1 to 9 days before they surfaced, turning emergencies into planned service calls.
Plain English, not sensor codes
Every warning explains what the unit is doing in operator language, what it likely means, and what to do next, so the ticket you hand your technician already contains the diagnosis to verify.
Cost per unit, per day
Set your utility rate and see what each unit costs to run. Units that work hard and produce little stand out immediately, with a dollar figure attached.
The unit was burning electricity and producing nothing
At a commercial site in Tucson, a dining room RTU was running at 99.6% second stage compressor with 0.6 degrees of cooling output. The thermostat had no idea. Elite Energy Management flagged it 9 days before the technician arrived, and the fix was a loose compressor belt, tightened in 15 minutes. Left alone, the cascading damage could have destroyed the compressor entirely.
No new hardware. No installation visits.
We integrate with the equipment your locations already have, including eViewIoT, Pelican Wireless, Honeywell Resideo, ecobee, and Sensi. If you do not have an energy management system yet, we partner with eViewIoT to get you connected. Data starts flowing in hours, and the AI starts learning your equipment on day one.
- No new sensors and no roof work. We read from the thermostats and controllers already on your units.
- Monitoring is read only. We never take control of your equipment or change your setpoints.
- Pricing starts at $5 per unit per month, with your first health scores within days of connecting.
Common questions about RTU monitoring
No. We connect through your existing energy management system or smart thermostats, including eViewIoT, Pelican Wireless, Honeywell Resideo, ecobee, and Sensi. The data your controls already produce is enough to detect most developing failures.
The platform detects behavioral changes: falling cooling output, second stage overuse, short cycling, abnormal runtime, and gradual capacity loss. Those patterns precede many common RTU failures, including belt, capacitor, refrigerant, and airflow problems.
Every unit is evaluated against its own history, adjusted for outdoor conditions. A unit working hard on a 110 degree afternoon is normal. The same workload on a 78 degree morning is a warning.
Age does not matter, controls do. If the unit is on a compatible thermostat or EMS, we can monitor it. Older units often benefit most, since they are the ones closest to expensive failures.
You get a plain English alert naming the unit, what changed, and a recommended next step. Your dashboard keeps the unit flagged with its history, so your maintenance provider arrives knowing exactly what to verify.
Your units are already talking. Start listening.
Start a free 30 day pilot. No hardware, no commitment, and your first health scores within days of connecting.
Start free 30 day pilot