We measure it first. Then we tell you what it means.
Airflow, static pressure, refrigerant charge, combustion, humidity. Every one of those is a number that can be taken in an afternoon with instruments that cost less than a compressor. Most heating and cooling in this town is still diagnosed by hand on a vent and a look at the thermostat, and that is how people end up buying equipment they did not need.
- Every reading written down and left with you
- Repair priced before replacement is raised
Three numbers, taken in that order
They are taken in this order because each one changes what the next one means. Reading the refrigerant charge on a system that cannot move air produces a number that is true and useless.
Airflow and static pressure
External static pressure across the filter and the coil, and total airflow through the system. A unit that cannot move the air it was sized for will not cool a room whatever the thermostat is set to, and no amount of refrigerant fixes it.
Charge, superheat, subcooling
Measured against the manufacturer’s own target for that model at that indoor and outdoor condition, not against a rule of thumb. Undercharge and overcharge produce similar complaints and opposite fixes.
Combustion and flue
On anything that burns gas: a combustion analysis, a heat exchanger inspection and a check that the flue is installed the way the manufacturer requires. This one is a safety check and it is not optional on a first visit.
Your thermostat says 72. The room feels like 78. One of them is lying.
Almost certainly neither, and that is the interesting part. A thermostat reads the air at one point on one wall, and a room is not one point. Before anybody spends money on a system that is probably working, it is worth knowing what your particular reading is actually capable of telling you — and what it cannot tell you at all.
Houses
Spanish-revival plaster with no cavity to run a duct through, 1960s ranch houses on the Mesa with the original air handler in the crawl space, hillside additions cooled by a single ductless head that was never going to manage two rooms. Santa Barbara housing stock is unusually varied for a city this size and almost none of it was built with mechanical cooling in mind.
What we do about that is measure the house before proposing anything for it: room by room heat gain, duct leakage where there are ducts, and static pressure on what is already installed.
Businesses
Offices along the Anapamu and Chapala blocks in buildings older than the equipment on their roofs, restaurant kitchens where the make-up air was never balanced against the hood, medical suites that need a stable temperature and a documented filter change, State Street retail where the front door stands open all day and the plant is asked to do the impossible.
Commercial work here starts with a written survey of what is on the roof, what it serves and which of it is still connected to anything.
The work, plainly
- Diagnosis with instruments
Manometer, anemometer, gauges, combustion analyser, hygrometer, clamp meter. The readings go on a sheet with the date and the conditions they were taken in, and the sheet is yours.
- Repair, costed first
What it is, what it costs, and what it does not fix. Replacement is discussed after a repair has been priced, not instead of it.
- Ductwork and airflow correction
Sealing, resizing, returns added where a house has one return and five rooms, registers rebalanced against a measured target rather than a guess.
- Ductless and heat pump installation
Sized from a room-by-room load calculation. Line sets routed where they can be serviced, condensate given a fall it can actually use.
- Ventilation and humidity
Measured, not assumed. Bathroom and kitchen extraction that moves the air it claims to, and humidity readings taken in the room that has the problem rather than at the thermostat.
- Planned maintenance
For houses and for premises, with the same readings taken each time so that a change over three years is visible instead of being a surprise.
What we will not tell you
A measurement is a good thing to have and a narrow thing to have. These are the places where a reading stops being evidence, and we would rather say so here than be asked in a hallway.
- We do not make health claims. Not from an air-quality reading, not from a particulate count, not from a humidity number. We can tell you what the instrument measured. Whether that is affecting anybody’s health is a question for a doctor, and we have no standing to answer it.
- We do not sell air purification as a cure. Filtration and ventilation change measurable things and we will measure them. Anything sold to you on the strength of what it will do to a symptom is being sold on a claim nobody in this trade can support.
- We do not quote a price before we have seen it. Not on the phone, not from a photograph. A number given before the visit is a guess dressed as a quote, and it is always a low one.
- We do not publish reviews or ratings. There are none on this site. When there are real ones they will be somewhere you can check them, not typed out by us.
- We do not claim a number of years. There is no founding date on this site because we are not going to invent one.
- Until the number is on this page, treat the site as unfinished and ask us for it on the phone.
Asked often enough to write down
My thermostat says 72 but the room does not feel like it. Which one is wrong?
Usually neither. A thermostat reads the air at one spot on one wall, and that spot can be warmed by afternoon sun, by a lamp or television below it, or by a draught inside the wall behind it. Separately, comfort is not temperature alone — at the same air temperature, higher humidity feels warmer and moving air feels cooler. The useful first step is ten minutes with a probe: the air leaving a register, the air entering the return, and the thermostat’s own error. Those three numbers settle most of it.
An app says the air quality in my house is bad. Should I buy an air purifier?
Not on the strength of that number. Inexpensive particulate sensors are optical, are not corrected for humidity and carry no calibration reference, so on a foggy morning many of them read high for no reason other than moisture in the air. They are useful for noticing that something changed and not for establishing what. We will measure ventilation rates, filter pressure drop and airflow and give you the figures, and we will tell you what better filtration costs you in airflow. What we will not do is tell you what any reading means for anybody’s health, because that is a medical question and not ours.
One bedroom is always warmer than the rest of the house. Do I need a bigger system?
Almost certainly not. A room that never matches is nearly always a room not receiving the air it was designed to receive, and a bigger unit pushed through the same undersized or leaking duct changes nothing. We measure the airflow at that room’s registers and compare it with what the room needs. What we usually find is a crushed or disconnected duct run, no route for air to leave the room, registers balanced the wrong way by a previous occupant, or a room added onto a duct system sized before it existed.
Why do you measure static pressure before looking at the refrigerant?
Because the pressure reading changes what the refrigerant reading means. Superheat and subcooling are interpreted against the airflow across the coil, so taking a charge measurement on a system that cannot move air produces a figure that is accurate and misleading. Measured in the right order, the same two instruments tell you whether you have an air problem, a refrigerant problem or both. Measured in the wrong order they can lead to refrigerant being added to a system that did not need any.
My smart thermostat keeps changing the temperature by itself. Is it broken?
Frequently not. Look for three things in the settings: the schedule, any learning or auto-adjust feature, and any utility or manufacturer programme the thermostat is enrolled in. Demand-response enrolment, where a utility raises the setpoint at peak times, is voluntary, is usually disclosed at installation and can be left. What is a genuine fault is short cycling every few minutes, running with no call, or losing the configuration — and those point at sizing, controls or a common-wire power problem. We will read the configuration with you and say which you have.
Do you give a price over the telephone?
No, and we would treat anybody who does with caution. A price given before the visit is a guess dressed as a quote, and it is always lower than the eventual figure. What we will do on the telephone is tell you what we would measure, roughly how long the first visit takes, and what the visit itself costs, so there is no surprise in either direction.
Which areas do you cover?
Santa Barbara, Montecito, Goleta, Carpinteria, Summerland, Hope Ranch, Isla Vista and Santa Ynez.
Where we are, and who we come out to
30 W Anapamu St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101. Monday to Friday, 7.30am to 5pm. We cover Santa Barbara, Montecito, Goleta, Carpinteria, Summerland, Hope Ranch, Isla Vista and Santa Ynez.