We will tell you when it can wait until morning.
Heating, cooling and ventilation for working buildings and houses across Simi Valley and the east Ventura County corridor. Two things in this trade are genuinely urgent and everything else is a schedule. We publish which is which, because the alternative is charging people to find out.
Three things we do that are worth asking any contractor about
We measure and we write it down
Static pressure, airflow, refrigerant charge against the manufacturer’s target, temperature split, and a combustion analysis on anything that burns gas. Dated, with the conditions, on a sheet that is yours whether or not you go ahead with anything.
We schedule around the building
A building that runs hard in summer wants its work done in spring. A building that opens at six wants a visit at five. Maintenance timed to a calendar rather than to the building is maintenance timed for the contractor’s convenience.
We say what can wait
Very little in heating and cooling is an emergency and a great deal of it is sold as one. We will tell you on the telephone when something is genuinely tonight and when it is Tuesday morning, and we would rather lose the call-out than take it.
Working buildings
Light industrial and distribution along Easy Street and the Madera corridor, offices and medical suites around the town centre, retail and restaurants on Los Angeles Avenue, and the storage and small manufacturing units that make up most of this valley’s working stock.
Commercial work starts with a written survey of every unit on the roof, what it actually serves, and which of it is still connected to anything at all.
Houses
Tract housing across most of the valley built in long, uniform stretches, with the ducts in attics that get genuinely hot, and a climate of hot dry days and cool nights that hides an underperforming system for most of the year.
Houses get the same method as the buildings: find everything, measure it, price a repair before anybody mentions replacement.
It is nine at night and something has stopped
Five things that go wrong out of hours, crossed with the four kinds of building they go wrong in. Two of them are genuinely urgent and you should not be ringing a heating contractor about either. The rest are a decision, and the page sets out how we would make it — including the case where the honest answer is that nothing should happen until morning.
The work, plainly
- Written plant survey
Every unit found, identified by model and serial, measured, and mapped to what it actually serves. Dead and abandoned plant marked as dead.
- Planned maintenance
Scheduled around the building’s year rather than a calendar, with the same readings each visit, written specifically enough that a lease obligation can be shown to have been met.
- Diagnosis and repair
Instruments rather than opinion. What it is, what it costs, and what the repair does not fix. Replacement is discussed after a repair has a number against it.
- Rooftop and split system replacement
Sized from the load the building carries now, with the curb, the roof opening and crane access established before anything is ordered.
- Ventilation and air balance
Outdoor air measured rather than assumed, kitchen make-up air balanced against hood exhaust, and the figures written down.
- Residential systems
Load calculations, attic duct sealing and insulation, ductless for additions, and gas appliance safety checks on every first visit.
- Records that survive a change of manager
A folder per building rather than a note in somebody’s phone, so the next facilities manager inherits a plant list instead of a mystery.
What we will not do
| We will not | Why |
|---|---|
| Publish a response time | Nobody can promise one honestly, because it depends on the day, the traffic and what else has gone wrong. We will tell you on the telephone when we can actually be there. A published figure is marketing. |
| Attend a gas leak | A smell of gas is the utility’s call and an emergency number, not a contractor’s. Leave the building and ring them from outside. We will come afterwards and deal with the appliance. |
| Work on a roof in the dark or in wind | Rooftop work at night, in wind or in rain is how people get hurt. Where a job genuinely cannot wait we will do what can be done safely and secure the rest until daylight. |
| Replace equipment out of hours | A replacement is a planned job with a crane, a permit and a lead time. Anybody offering to do one tonight is selling a decision you have not had time to make. |
| Condemn a heat exchanger without showing you | It is a real reason to shut a furnace down and the most abused finding in this trade. You get the camera image or the combustion reading and you are welcome to a second opinion. |
| Recommend replacement on age alone | Age changes the arithmetic on a repair. It is not a fault. |
| Publish reviews, ratings or a founding date | There are none on this site because we are not going to invent any. |
Asked often enough to write down
Do you do emergency call-outs?
We take calls out of hours and we will tell you honestly whether you need one. Two situations are genuine emergencies and neither is a call to a heating contractor: a smell of gas, which means leaving the building and ringing the gas utility from outside, and a carbon monoxide alarm, which means getting everybody out and calling 911 from outside. Everything else is a question about whether anybody or anything in the building is actually at risk, and quite often the honest answer is that switching it off at the breaker and ringing in the morning is better for you.
What is your response time?
We do not publish one, because nobody can promise one honestly. It depends on the day, on the traffic across the pass and on what else has gone wrong that evening. What we will do is tell you on the telephone when we can actually be there, and if that is not soon enough for your situation we will say so rather than let you sit waiting. A published response figure is marketing rather than a commitment.
Our warehouse is unbearable in summer. Do we need more cooling?
Probably not first. In a tall building the warm air is at the roof and the people are on the floor, and cooling the whole volume means paying to cool a large quantity of air nobody is standing in. The measurement that matters is the temperature at head height where people actually work, logged over a week rather than sampled once. From there, destratification fans, ventilation, roof treatment and spot cooling at the fixed work positions are all worth pricing before whole-building cooling, and we will put the figures side by side.
The building has changed hands and nobody knows what is on the roof. Can you find out?
That is the survey, and it is the job we do most. Every unit located and identified by model and serial number, matched to the area it actually feeds rather than the area everybody assumes, its measured condition recorded, and dead or abandoned plant marked as dead. On a building that has changed tenants twice, some of what is up there will not be connected to anything. What you end up with is a folder rather than a note in somebody’s phone, which is what makes the building cheap to run for the next manager.
Why do you schedule maintenance around the building rather than the calendar?
Because a calendar is the contractor’s convenience and a building has its own year. A building that runs hard through the summer wants its work done in spring, not in August when a failure costs trading. A building that opens at six wants a visit at five. It is not a complicated idea and it is the thing customers most often say nobody has offered them.
Half our office is too warm every afternoon. Is the unit too small?
Usually not. A floor with a glass elevation at one end and an interior corridor at the other is being governed by one thermostat that can only be right in one place, and here the west side is at its worst between three and six. We measure the zones separately at that hour rather than in the morning, and the answer is frequently rebalancing, an additional sensor and solar control rather than new plant. Where it genuinely is capacity, the measurements will say so.
Which areas do you cover?
Simi Valley, Moorpark, Thousand Oaks, Chatsworth, Northridge, Santa Susana, Newbury Park and Agoura Hills.
1176 Roadrunner Way
Simi Valley, CA 93065. Monday to Friday, 7am to 4pm.
We cover Simi Valley, Moorpark, Thousand Oaks, Chatsworth, Northridge, Santa Susana, Newbury Park and Agoura Hills.