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Houses in Arvada and out to Golden
Furnaces, air conditioning, heat pumps and the duct work underneath all of them — measured before they are quoted.
What people call about
In rough order of how often.
- No heat on a cold morningFilter, flame sensor, pressure switch or ignition. Cheap parts, and the reason an autumn check pays for itself.
- One room never keeps upDuct length, a crushed run, or a return path the closed door cuts off. Measured at the register before anybody talks about equipment.
- The bill climbedA dirty coil, duct losses, or a heat pump leaning on backup heat when it should not be. All three are measurable.
- A new noiseBearings, a loaded blower wheel or a loose panel. New noises do not settle down.
- It is not coolingCapacitor, contactor, a tripped safety or a coil packed with cottonwood seed — which this valley produces in quantity.
- It is old. Now what?We say what it has left and what to budget, in writing, rather than quoting a replacement on the first visit.
Dry air
What humidification can and cannot do.
Winter air at this elevation is genuinely dry, and a whole-house humidifier does raise indoor humidity. What it will not do is fix a draughty house, and pushed too far it puts water on the inside of your windows and inside your walls.
We fit them, we service them, and we will tell you where the sensible ceiling is for your house rather than turning it up until it feels nice in January. What dry air does to anybody's health is a question for someone qualified to answer it, and we are not.
- What we check firstWhether the house is leaking air. Sealing usually does more for comfort than adding moisture does.
- What we fitBypass and steam humidifiers, set against outdoor temperature, with the drain and the water connection done properly.
- What we watchCondensation on glass. It is the signal that the setting has gone past useful.
Safety
Two calls that go elsewhere first.
- A carbon monoxide alarm soundingEverybody out of the house, then call 911 or the gas utility from outside. Not us first, and do not go back in to open windows.
- A smell of gasThe same. Leave the appliance alone, get out, ring from outside.
Once it has been made safe we will come and find out what caused it. Everything else goes in the diary.
Ducts
The half of the system nobody looks at.
A great deal of what a house here pays to heat and cool is delivered through a crawlspace or an attic, and a fair share of it never reaches a room. Disconnected boots, crushed flex, insulation that has slid off, returns that were never sized for the system.
We measure airflow at the registers before and after, so the work has a number attached rather than a promise.
