- Home
- Services
Services
Heat pumps have their own page. This is everything else we do, which is most of what fills the week.
Air conditioning repair
The cooling season here is short and concentrated, which means a system sits idle for most of the year and is then asked for everything in one week in September. Most of what fails is one of a handful of things.
- Capacitors, contactors, relays and boards
- Condenser and blower motors
- Refrigerant leak search, recovery and recharge
- Frozen coils and airflow restriction
- Condensate drains, pumps and float switches
- Thermostats, sensors and control wiring
The fee: a flat diagnostic charge covers the visit and the diagnosis, credited against the repair if you go ahead. You hear the number before we come out.
Installation & replacement
Whether the replacement is a heat pump or a conventional system, the sequence is the same and the decisions that matter are all taken before anything is ordered.
- Load calculation
- From the building — area, orientation, glazing, insulation, occupancy. Never from the data plate of the unit being removed, which was itself very likely a guess.
- Ducts assessed first
- Static pressure and return sizing measured before equipment is specified. On a Peninsula house with attic ducting this regularly changes the recommendation.
- Electrical
- Panel capacity checked as a matter of course, not only on heat-pump jobs. It is cheap to check and expensive to discover.
- Compliance
- Permit pulled, Title 24 documentation prepared, inspection scheduled, closed permit handed over with the job.
Heating
Not every house is converting, and not every furnace should be replaced. Mild winters here mean gas equipment often survives well past the age at which it should have been inspected properly — which makes the safety checks more important, not less.
- Furnace service, ignition, gas valves and flame sensors
- Heat-exchanger inspection, flue, combustion air and draught
- Furnace replacement where gas is staying
- Wall and floor furnace removal and replacement
- Thermostats, zoning and scheduling
We will tell you when to wait
A ten-year-old furnace in good condition is not a reason to start an electrification project this year. Repairing it and planning the conversion for when it actually fails is often the better financial decision, and it is one we make regularly.
Ductwork & airflow
The least glamorous service on this page and the one that resolves the most complaints. Peninsula houses run ducting through attics and crawlspaces that were never designed to be part of the thermal envelope, and most of those systems have been added to at least once.
- Static pressure measured first, always
- Leak testing and sealing at joints, boots and plenum
- Return enlargement where the blower is starved
- Replacement of crushed or disconnected flexible duct
- Insulation upgrades on unconditioned runs
- Register balancing, measured before and after
Maintenance that leaves a record
A visit that produces no numbers is a filter change with a service charge attached.
- Coils cleaned and inspected, indoor and out
- Static pressure measured and logged
- Charge verified against superheat and subcooling
- Capacitor measured against its rating
- Contactor condition, terminal tightness and amp draws
- Condensate pan, trap, pump and line cleared
- Defrost operation verified on heat pumps
- Readings compared against last year's sheet
Not sure which you need?
Describe what the house is doing. Working that out is free.