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Berkeley houses, most of which were never ducted
Shingle and craftsman houses with gravity heat or nothing, bungalows with a wall furnace, crawl spaces you can only work in on your back, and hills and flats that behave like two different climates.
An hour and a half, and a sheet you keep
Everything found and identified, rating plates photographed, model and serial numbers recorded, manufacture date read off the serial. Then the readings: static pressure and airflow where there are ducts, refrigerant charge against the manufacturer’s target where there is cooling, temperature split, and the electrical readings that tell you whether a component is on its way out before it goes.
On any gas appliance a combustion analysis and a proper look at the flue happen on that visit whatever you rang about, and where there is no working carbon monoxide alarm we fit one.
The sheet is yours. Over three years it becomes a parts history, and a parts history is what turns a replacement decision from an argument into arithmetic.
Four findings that account for most of it
A capacitor on its way out
The commonest single failure in this trade, the cheapest part on the list, and measurable before it fails. A capacitor reading well below its rated value is a system that will stop on the first hot day, and replacing it in April costs a fraction of what it costs in August. We measure it on every service visit.
No duct route, and never was one
A great many houses here have no way to run ductwork that does not cost more than the equipment. That is a constraint rather than a problem to be bullied through, and the honest answers are ductless heads sized per room, a small-duct system, or conditioning part of the house properly and saying so.
Duct in an unconditioned crawl space
Where ducts do exist they are frequently under the floor with joints that were never sealed and sections that have come off. Measured leakage is routinely a large fraction of total airflow, and on the return side it means the house is breathing whatever is down there.
An appliance nobody has tested
Wall furnaces, floor furnaces and older gas furnaces are not automatically dangerous and not automatically fine. A combustion analysis and a look at the flue take twenty minutes and give a real answer. We will not condemn one on sight and we will not nod at one that is spilling.
What we do in houses
- Diagnosis and repair
No heat, no cooling, short cycling, noise, a room that never matches. Measured, costed with the part named, and repaired where a repair is right.
- Ductless for houses with no duct route
Sized per room from a load calculation, not from a square-footage figure on a box.
- Heat pumps and replacement
Sized from the house as it stands, and quoted beside the repair figure rather than instead of it.
- Duct repair and sealing
Leakage measured, joints sealed, crawl-space runs insulated, returns added where a house has one and five rooms.
- Gas appliance testing
Combustion analysis, heat exchanger inspection, flue checked as installed, and an honest verdict either way.
- Annual service with electrical readings
Capacitors, contactors and motor amps measured every year, so the cheap failures are caught before the hot week rather than during it.
Tell us what the house is doing
Which room, what time of day, and how long it has been like that. If somebody has already quoted you a part, bring the part number — we will tell you whether it is the right one. 1676 Shattuck Ave, Berkeley. Monday to Friday, 7.30am to 4.30pm.