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Burbank houses, measured before anything is proposed
Plaster with no cavity, attics that pass 130°F in July, one central return serving five rooms, and additions hung off a duct system that was sized before they existed.
An hour and a half, and a sheet of paper you keep
Everything located and identified, rating plates photographed, model and serial numbers recorded. Then the readings: static pressure across the filter and coil, total airflow, charge against the manufacturer’s target for that model at that condition, temperature split, and humidity in the room that has the complaint rather than in the hallway.
If there is a gas furnace or a gas water heater in the same closet, a combustion analysis and a heat exchanger inspection happen on that visit whatever you called about. Where there is a gas appliance and no working carbon monoxide alarm, we fit one.
The sheet commits you to nothing. It is what makes a second opinion possible — ours or anybody else’s — and it is also the document you will want if you ever do have to talk to an insurer.
Four findings that account for most of it
The ducts are in the attic and the attic is an oven
An uninsulated Burbank attic on a July afternoon is very much hotter than the air outside, and every foot of duct crossing it loses cooling before the air reaches a room. Sealing the joints and insulating the runs is unglamorous, comparatively cheap and regularly does more for a house than replacing the equipment would.
The system is bigger than the house needs
Oversizing is the fault we measure most often and the one least often mentioned. A unit that is too large satisfies the thermostat quickly, shuts off and never runs long enough to take moisture out of the air, so the house is cold and clammy and never feels settled. A room-by-room load calculation settles it in an afternoon.
One return, five rooms, all the doors shut
Air that goes into a room has to get back out. A single central return with closed bedroom doors forces the air through the gap under the door; pressure builds and the airflow to that room collapses. Transfer grilles or a second return are cheap and are often the whole fix.
Plaster walls and nowhere to put a duct
A 1920s Spanish or a brick-clad bungalow frequently has no route for ductwork that does not cost more than the equipment. That is a real constraint rather than a problem to be bullied through, and the honest options are ductless heads sized per room, a high-velocity small-duct system, or accepting that one room will be conditioned differently from the rest.
What we do in houses
- Diagnosis and repair
- No cooling, no heat, short cycling, noise, a room that never matches. Measured, costed, and repaired where a repair is the right answer.
- Load calculation and replacement
- Room by room, on the house as it stands now. Ducted, ductless or heat pump, chosen from the numbers.
- Attic duct sealing and insulation
- Leakage measured, joints sealed, runs insulated, registers balanced against a target rather than by hand on a vent.
- Ductless for the rooms that have no route
- Sized for the room it serves, with the line set routed where it can be serviced and the condensate given a fall it can use.
- Gas appliance safety
- Combustion analysis, heat exchanger inspection, flue checked as installed, carbon monoxide alarms fitted where there is none.
- Annual service
- The same readings every year on the same sheet, so a slow change is visible long before it becomes a breakdown.
Three things we will not do in your house
- Take on the roof. Water arriving at a unit in an attic or on a roof is very often a roofing problem with an HVAC symptom. We will find it, photograph it and tell you plainly what we think it is. We will not repair it, and we will not replace equipment underneath a leak that is still leaking.
- Upgrade your electrical panel. Where a heat pump or a larger system needs more capacity or a free circuit, that is a licensed electrician’s work. We will tell you what the equipment needs, in amps, in writing, so the electrician has something real to quote from.
- Write anything to a conclusion. If an insurer, a landlord, a buyer or a family member wants a document from us, they get the same document: what we found, what we measured, what it costs. Not what anybody would prefer it to say.
Tell us what the room is doing
Which room, what time of day, and how long it has been like that. 4111 W Alameda Ave, Burbank. Monday to Friday, 7.30am to 4.30pm.