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Houses in Arvada, done to the same standard as the buildings
No heat, no cooling, a room that never keeps up, or a system that has come to the end of it. Airflow measured, ducts checked, and a load calculation before anybody proposes a replacement.
When it has stopped
Furnaces, air conditioning and heat pumps of any make. We arrive, find the fault, tell you what it costs to put right, and tell you plainly if the honest answer is that the money is better spent elsewhere.
Before you call, two things are worth thirty seconds: whether the filter is grey, and whether the breaker has gone. Between them they account for a surprising share of the calls we take, and we would rather you saved the visit.
What we find in houses here
The same three marks. These are the recurring items in Arvada, Westminster and Wheat Ridge housing stock — mostly built between the fifties and the nineties, mostly on ducted systems, mostly with a finished basement added later.
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Duct runs into a finished basement that were never balanced
The room gets added, a branch gets teed off the nearest trunk, and the upstairs bedroom that used to be fine never recovers. Measurable, and usually fixable without new equipment.
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Return air far too small for the system fitted
The commonest reason a replacement furnace disappoints. A bigger blower pulling through the same undersized return does not move more air, it just works harder and gets louder.
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Outdoor coil packed with cottonwood seed
June, every year, and this valley produces a great deal of it. A blocked coil cannot reject heat; the system runs longer for the same result.
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Thermostat on an interior wall that sees the kitchen
Or in a hallway with a supply register three feet away. The system is obeying a temperature that nobody in the house is experiencing.
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Humidifier set and then forgotten
Winter air at this elevation really is dry and a humidifier does help. Turned up and left, it puts water on the windows and eventually inside the wall. We will tell you where the sensible ceiling is for your house.
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Filter
Changed, and the size written on the cabinet so the next one is a two-minute job rather than a trip to measure it.
Replacing a system in a house
The equipment is the easy part. What decides whether you are happy in two winters is whether the ductwork can carry what the new system produces, and whether anybody measured before choosing a size.
- Load calculation firstRoom by room, from your house — not from the size of the box that is coming out. Oversized equipment short-cycles, dehumidifies badly and wears faster.
- Duct leakage found before capacity is addedAir lost into a crawlspace or an attic is paid for twice. Sealing is usually cheaper than the larger system it saves you buying.
- Return and supply checked against the new airflowWhere the return cannot carry it, we say so in the quotation rather than after the install.
- Permit filed with the right jurisdictionArvada, Westminster, Wheat Ridge and unincorporated Jefferson County each handle this differently. It is our job to know which applies to your address.
- Commissioned with numbersAirflow, temperature rise or split, and static pressure, written down and left with you.
What we do not say about dry air
Winter here is dry and people notice it. What that does to anybody’s health is a question for a doctor, not for a heating contractor, and we will not answer it on a website to sell a humidifier. What we can tell you is what your indoor humidity actually measures, what a humidifier would realistically change it to, and at what point you start putting water where it should not be.