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Five things, written out in full — including what each one does not cover and when we would tell you not to buy it.
Rooftop package units
The whole system in one box, outside, on the roof — and the thing that makes South Bay houses unusual.
A packaged unit contains the compressor, the coil, the blower and the heat all in one cabinet. It sits on a curb that penetrates the roof, and it delivers conditioned air down through one supply and one return. On a house with no attic it solves the problem of where the equipment goes by taking it outside entirely.
We replace them, we repair them, and we service them — which for us means actually going up and looking at the curb and the seal rather than only at the machine.
What a replacement involves
- Getting the old unit off and the new one up — which on most of these houses is a boom lift, booked and priced
- Inspecting the curb once it is exposed, which nobody can do before the old unit moves
- An adapter curb if the new unit's footprint differs from the old one — common, and priced separately
- Setting, sealing and gasketing to the curb, and reconnecting duct, gas, power and condensate
- Permit and inspection, and the old unit taken away
The sentence we say on every one of these
We seal to the curb. We do not re-roof, and we do not warranty the roof surface around it. If what we find under the old unit is roofing at the end of its life, we will tell you, take photographs, and stop — because setting a new machine on top of it just hides the problem for five years.
Why they fail early here
A rooftop unit gets full sun on every side all day with nothing shading it, and it sits in marine air. Both shorten the life of the cabinet, the fan motor and the electricals faster than the same machine would age in a side yard inland.
It is not a reason to avoid them — there is often no alternative — but it is a reason to service them annually rather than when something stops.
Split systems & heat pumps
A condenser outside, an air handler inside — which only works if there is an inside to put it in.
On these houses that usually means a closet, a garage, or a furred chase built for the purpose. Where one of those exists, a split system is quieter than a rooftop unit, easier to service, and out of the weather.
Heat pumps are worth raising here and we raise them unprompted. The winter is mild, which is exactly the condition a heat pump handles best, and one machine covers both seasons. What we will not do is push you into one: if your heating is sound and only the cooling has failed, keeping it is cheaper and we say so.
- Where it goes
- Settled before anything is orderedA garage wall, a hall closet, or a chase that has to be built. If the answer is "there is nowhere", that is a ductless conversation rather than a split-system one, and it is better to find that out on the survey.
- Condensate
- Gravity if the level allows, a pump if notAn indoor coil produces water. On a single-storey house with a slab there is often less fall available than people expect, and a pump is normal rather than a compromise.
- The outdoor unit
- Clear air on the sides the manufacturer specifiesOn a narrow South Bay side yard that is a real constraint, along with distance from the neighbour's bedroom window. We mark the position on the survey.
- Ductwork
- On its own line, alwaysIf yours is sound you will see a small number there and you should be pleased. If it is not, you will see a large one and you can decide with the figures in front of you.
Ductless
The answer when there is genuinely no route for duct and no appetite for dropping a ceiling to make one.
One outdoor unit, a slim indoor head in each room that needs one, and a bundle of refrigerant lines, control cable and condensate between them that fits through a three-inch hole. No attic required, no chase required, no ceiling lost.
On a low-slope house that is frequently the least invasive option and often the cheapest, because the expensive half of a ducted job — making somewhere for the duct to go — does not exist.
What it is good at
- Heating and cooling a house that has never had either properly
- Room-by-room control, which matters when one room faces the afternoon and another does not
- Open-beam and vaulted ceilings, where there is no cavity at all
- Adding to a house in stages, a room or two at a time
And what it is not. It is not invisible. There is a unit on the wall of each room, a line route that runs either inside a wall or on the outside of the building in a cover, and a machine in the side yard.
We show you exactly where each of those lands before you agree to anything, because "will it look all right" is a routing question and it is answered on the survey rather than on install day.
Where we would talk you out of it
If a house already has sound ductwork and a working route, adding heads instead of using it is spending money to solve a problem you do not have. We have said so and lost the larger job. It is the right call every time.
Ductwork in tight spaces
Soffits, dropped chases and roof spaces you cannot stand up in. It is slower work than an attic and it is most of what decides how the house feels.
Where a route exists, the job is the same as anywhere: seal every joint with mastic rather than tape, support the runs so nothing sags or kinks, insulate what is bare, and make sure the air can get back — a single hallway return doing the work for three closed bedroom doors is the most common fault we find.
Where a route does not exist, the honest options are a furred soffit, a dropped chase, or ductless. A soffit costs you ceiling height along its run, and how much is a number we give you on the survey rather than a surprise on the second day.
What we fix up there
- Crushed and kinked flexible runs
- Leaking plenum and boot connections
- Runs squashed flat against the roof deck
- Bare or displaced insulation
- One return doing the work of three
- Registers throwing air at a wall
Duct cleaning is not one of our services
We seal, insulate, support, rebuild and install ductwork. We do not sell cleaning as a product, because in most houses it does not fix the complaint that prompted the call. Where we find something that genuinely needs it — rodent contamination, construction debris — we say so and name somebody who does it properly.
Repair & maintenance
Diagnostic first, quote second — and on this housing stock, a service visit that includes the roof.
A flat diagnostic fee brings a technician out to find the cause and take readings, credited against the repair if you go ahead. We charge it because a free call gets paid for somewhere, and it usually gets paid for by finding a reason to sell a system.
Annual service covers coils, the condensate route, refrigerant charge measured against the manufacturer's figures, electrical connections, the blower and the filter. On a rooftop unit it also covers the parts most contractors never look at: the curb, the gasket, the cabinet seams and the panel fixings.
That last part matters here. Water getting past a failed curb seal does not show up as an HVAC fault — it shows up as a stain on a ceiling in February, by which point it has been happening for a year.
What maintenance will not do
It will not make an undersized system adequate, it will not fix a duct layout that was wrong when it went in, and it will not extend the life of a compressor that is already failing.
It keeps a sound system sound and finds problems while they are small. On a rooftop unit it does one more thing: it catches a seal going before the ceiling below tells you about it.
On refrigerant
Refrigerant is not consumed. A system that is low is a system that is leaking. We find the leak or we tell you the coil is finished. We will not sell an annual top-up as a service.
Not sure which of those you need?
Tell us whether there is a unit on the roof and which room fails. That usually settles it on the phone.