An Interview with the Man Who Can See the Pattern but Can't Fix It

The Man Who Can See the Pattern but Can't Fix It

Sal Caldera is not a real person. He is a composite character grounded in documented conditions: the regulatory framework governing rental cooling in Phoenix, the capital expenditure structures of corporate property management, federal data on energy insecurity, and the physical realities of aging multifamily housing stock in the Sun Belt. Every institutional detail, legal requirement, and statistic referenced in this interview is real. Sal is the guy who'd know all of them by heart. We interviewed him anyway.

The median age of America's rental housing stock is now 45 years, older than at any point on record.¹ Roughly 41 percent of rental units nationwide needed at least one repair in 2024, at a collective estimated cost exceeding $70 billion.¹ In Phoenix, where summer afternoons routinely exceed 110°F, a city ordinance requires landlords to maintain indoor temperatures at or below 82°F in all habitable rooms. Arizona law gives landlords two to five business days after tenant notice to fix or replace a broken cooling system.² In 2024 alone, Phoenix investigated approximately 200 complaints of broken AC.³

Between the tenant sweating in Unit 14B and the investor reviewing quarterly NOI targets, there is a person who fields the call, diagnoses the failure, documents the repair, and already knows the repair won't hold. We sat down with Sal Caldera, maintenance supervisor at a 260-unit workforce housing complex in Phoenix, to talk about what the work order sees that the budget doesn't.

You've been at this property for sixteen years. The ownership has changed three times. What stays the same?

Sal: The pipes. [laughs] The pipes stay. The concrete stays. Building C's western exposure stays. I've had three different companies' logos on my shirt and the same compressor giving me trouble in 2-217. That unit, I could draw you its refrigerant lines from memory. Three owners, four property management companies, and that unit has been on my board every July since Obama's first term.

When people talk about climate adaptation in housing, they usually mean policy or technology. You're talking about a specific unit.

Sal: Because that's where it actually happens. In 2-217. Third floor, west-facing, afternoon sun hits that wall starting around one o'clock and doesn't let up until seven. The system in there is, I want to say twelve years old now? Original install on the last renovation cycle. Manufacturer rates it for maybe fifteen years, and that's under normal load.⁴ But "normal load" was specced for a climate that doesn't exist anymore. I don't know a politer way to put it. That unit runs flat out from May to October. Flat out. The compressor does not rest. So I can replace the capacitor, recharge the refrigerant, clean the coils until they shine. I'm buying time. I know it, the system knows it, and honestly the tenant probably knows it too because she's called me four times since April.

What can you authorize on your own versus what has to go up the chain?

Sal: I can fix what's broken. I can swap a part for an equivalent part. Capacitor, fan motor, filter, thermostat. If I'm replacing the same thing with the same thing, that's an operating expense, comes out of my maintenance budget. The moment I'm talking about replacing the system, the whole condensing unit, the air handler, the whole package, that's a capital expenditure. That goes to the property manager, who sends it to the regional manager, who puts it in front of whoever's making asset-level decisions for the portfolio.⁵ My compressor in 2-217 is competing with a roof in Tucson and a parking structure in Tempe. And the roof in Tucson, I promise you, has better paperwork.

How long does that approval process take?

Sal: Longer than two to five days.

Which is the legal window in Arizona.

Sal: Which is the legal window. So here's what actually happens, and this is the part people outside this job never see. I get the call. Tenant says it's 90 degrees in her apartment. I go up, confirm the system is struggling, do what I can. If I can get it limping, I document the repair, document the temperature, note that the system needs replacement. That note goes into a work order. The work order goes into the system. The property manager sees it. But the property manager can't authorize a $6,000 replacement either.⁶ So the property manager submits a capital request. And now we're in a different time zone. Budget time, not emergency time.

Meanwhile, I'm the one whose phone number the tenant has.

You mentioned documenting the temperature. Talk about what work orders actually contain.

Sal: Everything. Date, time, unit number, what the tenant reported, what I found, what I did, parts used, time spent. And I always note the indoor temp when I arrive. That's not required by the company. That's me. Because if this ever goes sideways, if someone gets sick, if there's a code complaint, that work order is the record. It proves we responded. It also proves the pattern. And this is the thing nobody upstairs loves to hear. I can pull up Building C and show you: fourteen AC calls in sixty days, eight of them repeat units, five of them systems I've flagged for replacement.

Does anyone upstairs look at work orders that way, as pattern data?

Sal: The expense reports go up. The temperature in 2-217 does not.⁷

Let's talk about what you know would actually help but can't do.

Sal: Oh, you want the list? I keep the list. Window film on every west-facing unit. Cuts solar heat gain through glass by up to 78 percent.⁸ I've gotten an informal quote from a contractor. Property-wide install, 260 units, not cheap but not insane either. Can't authorize it. That's a vendor contract, capital decision, needs owner sign-off. Better ceiling insulation in the top-floor units: capital, needs permitting. Shade structures over the walkways between buildings so people aren't walking through a convection oven to get to their cars: capital, needs design approval. I could go on. None of these are mysteries. I'm not inventing technology. I'm describing stuff that exists, that I could spec out on a Tuesday afternoon, that would meaningfully change the thermal load on these buildings. But I'm in the operating layer. Everything that would actually move the needle lives in the capital layer.⁶

Economists call it the split incentive. Tenants pay the electric bill, landlords control the infrastructure. Does that match what you see?

Sal: [long pause] I'm not supposed to editorialize about ownership decisions. But I'll tell you what I notice. When the building is inefficient, the person who feels it in their wallet is the tenant. The owner sees the rent check. The owner does not see the tenant's August electric bill. And the research bears this out. Renters use something like 2.7 percent more energy overall because landlords underinvest compared to owner-occupiers.⁹ That's a national average. In a building like mine, with twelve-year-old systems running in Phoenix heat? The gap is considerably wider than 2.7 percent. And the tenants here, a lot of them are already stretched. Nationally, 27 percent of households had difficulty paying energy bills or kept their homes at unsafe temperatures because of cost in 2020. Six million households couldn't use their AC because it was broken or they couldn't afford to run it.¹⁰ Those aren't abstractions to me. I know what six million looks like one unit at a time.

If you had the capital budget, what would you do first?

Sal: Window film. Tomorrow. I wouldn't even finish this conversation.

Last question. You live in a house in Glendale with a swamp cooler you maintain yourself. Do you find that ironic?

Sal: I find it functional. My house, my cooler, my decision. I re-pad it every spring, adjust the float valve, run it exactly how I want. Nobody has to approve a capital request for me to take care of my own air.

In 2020, 1.4 million U.S. households reported that someone in the home needed medical attention because the residence was kept at an unsafe temperature due to energy costs.¹⁰ Phoenix's 82°F indoor maximum applies to all habitable rooms, including bathrooms, and covers centralized chiller systems as well as individual units.² The typical HVAC system lasts 10 to 15 years.⁴ The buildings last longer.

Footnotes

1. Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies, America's Rental Housing 2026. The report finds the national rental stock has a median age of 45 years, with 18.8 million units (41%) needing at least one repair in 2024 at a collective cost exceeding $70 billion. https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/blog/six-takeaways-americas-rental-housing-2024 ↩ ↩²

2. Arizona Attorney General's Office, "Attorney General Mayes Warns Landlords About Obligations Under Arizona Landlord Tenant Act." Phoenix and Tucson ordinances require cooling systems to maintain indoor temperatures at or below 82°F in all habitable rooms. Arizona law provides landlords 2–5 business days after notice to repair or replace. https://www.azag.gov/press-release/attorney-general-mayes-warns-landlords-about-obligations-under-arizona-landlord ↩ ↩²

3. AZFamily, "A/C problems? Here's what rights renters have during brutal Arizona summer heat," May 28, 2025. https://www.azfamily.com/2025/05/28/ac-problems-heres-what-rights-renters-have-during-brutal-arizona-summer-heat/ ↩

4. Motili, "How Property Managers Can Plan HVAC Capital Expenditures," Oct. 9, 2025. HVAC systems have a typical lifespan of 10–15 years. https://www.motili.com/case-studies/how-property-managers-can-plan-hvac-capital-expenditures/ ↩ ↩²

5. Careers Building Communities, "What different property management positions are available?" Regional managers are typically responsible for identifying and analyzing major capital expenditure programs. https://careersbuildingcommunities.org/stories/what-different-property-management-positions-are-available/ ↩

6. Stessa, "The Landlord's Guide to Rental Property Capital Expenditures," Dec. 23, 2024. Repairs are deductible in the year they occur; capital expenditures must be depreciated over 27.5 years. https://www.stessa.com/blog/capital-expenditures-rental-property/ ↩ ↩²

7. Coastline Equity, "Understanding the Different Property Manager Roles," May 16, 2025. Onsite managers submit regular expense reports to senior-level property managers; capital improvement decisions are made at the asset or portfolio level. https://coastlineequity.net/insights/understanding-the-different-property-manager-roles ↩

8. 3M, "Home Window Films for Temperature Control." Window films can reduce up to 78% of solar heat gain through glass. https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/home-window-solutions-us/solutions/temperature-control/ ↩

9. Melvin, J. (2018). "The split incentives energy efficiency problem: Evidence of underinvestment by landlords." Energy Policy, 115, 342–352. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0301421517308157 ↩

10. U.S. Energy Information Administration, "In 2020, 27% of U.S. households had difficulty meeting their energy needs," Apr. 11, 2022. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=51979 ↩ ↩²