Service & safety
Heat exchanger, flue, combustion air and draught. On equipment of this age the safety inspection is the part that is not optional, whatever the comfort complaint was.
- Home
- Services
Services
Six areas of work. On a large or association-governed property the technical part is rarely the difficult part, so each of these describes how the work is run as much as what it is.
One
Air conditioning & heating repair
On a house with four systems, the first question is not what is broken but which system is responsible for the room that is uncomfortable. That is not always obvious, and it is where a great deal of money gets spent on the wrong equipment.
- Diagnosis
- Readings before opinionsPressures, superheat and subcooling, temperature split, static pressure and amp draws. On a multi-system property, taken on the system that actually serves the affected zone.
- Approval
- A written figure firstNothing is replaced before you have the number. If a second fault appears once a panel is off, the work stops and you get a revised figure.
- Discretion
- Scheduled around the household. If there are staff, guests or a household manager, we work through whoever you nominate rather than knocking on doors.
Two
Multi-zone design & installation
Above a certain size, the design question stops being "what size unit" and becomes "how many independent problems does this house actually have". Answering it properly is a room-by-room calculation, and it determines everything that follows.
- Load
- Room by roomOrientation, glazing area and type, insulation, ceiling height, occupancy and use. A guest wing used twice a year is a different problem from a primary suite, and should not share a system with it.
- Zoning or separation
- Whether to zone one system with dampers or install separate systems is a real decision with real trade-offs. We show you both, with what each costs to run as well as to install.
- Registers & returns
- Placed with the ceiling, not against itLinear slots, flush plaster frames and concealed returns where the architecture calls for them. Agreed with you — and with the architect where there is one — before the ceiling is closed.
- Commissioning
- Measured at every register and return at the end, balanced, and issued as a written result rather than a verbal assurance.
Three
Concealed & ductless systems
For the parts of a property the main systems were never designed to reach: a casita, a pool house, a converted garage, a wine room, a home office above a detached garage, or the one bedroom a remodel left stranded at the end of a run.
- Slim ducted units concealed in closets and soffits
- Ceiling cassettes flush into existing plasterboard
- Wall units where nothing else is possible, placed carefully
- Multi-zone outdoor units to reduce the number of condensers
- Line-set routes planned for the elevation, then covered and painted
- Wine room and cellar cooling, where it is a separate discipline
Where something will be visible from a principal room or from the street, we show you exactly what and where before it is priced.
Four
Heating & heat pumps
Orange County winters are mild, which is precisely why heating equipment here is so often twenty years old and has never been properly inspected.
Replacement
Sized to the building, with the duct system assessed before the equipment is specified, and the permit and Title 24 documentation handled.
Heat pumps
This climate suits them exceptionally well and the building standards increasingly expect them. One machine covers both seasons and removes a gas appliance from the house.
Five
Ductwork, balancing & filtration
A large house with an unbalanced duct system is a house with a permanently uncomfortable room and an owner who has been told the equipment needs replacing. Very often it does not.
- Testing
- Static pressure and leakageMeasured across the system and at the returns. The number either explains the complaint or rules the ducting out, and both outcomes are useful.
- Balancing
- Airflow measured at every diffuser and return with a hood, adjusted at the dampers, and re-measured. Issued as a written report.
- Filtration
- Deeper media cabinets where the house is occupied year round, with the pressure penalty measured rather than discovered the following summer.
- Replacement
- Where runs are beyond sealing — crushed, disconnected, or added to by four previous contractors — replaced properly rather than patched again.
Six
Associations & managed properties
A great deal of the housing stock we work on is governed by somebody other than the owner. That changes the sequence of a project more than it changes the work.
Architectural submittals, common-element coordination, scheduling through management, certificates of insurance, lift and loading-dock booking, and permitted working hours — all of it handled before the first day on site rather than discovered during it.
Not sure which applies?
Describe the property and what it is doing. The conversation costs nothing.