We read the machine before we quote the job
Every furnace, condenser and rooftop unit carries a plate with its real age, its real capacity and its real electrical requirement stamped on it. Most of what people are told about their heating is settled by that plate. We start there.
- Trade
- Heating, cooling and ventilation. Nothing else — the word Interior is in the name, not in the work.
- Serves
- Houses and businesses in equal measure. A shop and a bungalow get the same measurements taken.
- Altitude
- Greeley sits at about 4,660 ft. Gas appliances and cooling equipment both behave differently up here, and the plate rating is written for sea level.
- What we quote from
- The data plate, a static pressure reading and a look at the flue. Not the age of the house and not what the last person said.
- What we will not do
- Quote a price before seeing the equipment, or sell a replacement to solve an airflow problem.
The work, written out
Two plates. Everything we are asked for falls under one of them, and both run to houses and to premises.
Gas, electric and heat pump heating
- No heat
- Diagnosed in the order that costs you least: power and thermostat, then ignition and flame sensing, then gas valve and board. The expensive parts are checked last because they fail least.
- Annual service
- Combustion tested with an analyser, heat exchanger looked at, flue and combustion air checked, filter and airflow measured. A written result, not a tick.
- Replacement
- Sized from a heat loss calculation and the existing ductwork, not from the number stamped on the old unit. The old unit was very often oversized.
- Altitude derating
- At 4,660 ft a gas appliance rated at sea level does not deliver its plate input. Whether the manufacturer requires a high-altitude kit or a pressure change is a model-by-model question and it gets checked.
Cooling, ducts and ventilation
- Air conditioning
- Charge checked against the plate figure and the conditions on the day, not topped up on sight. A system that needs refrigerant every year has a leak, and the leak is the job.
- Evaporative cooling
- Still common and still sensible in this climate. Serviced, and replaced with refrigerated cooling only when there is a reason to — not by default.
- Ducts
- Sealed and measured. Leakage into an unconditioned attic or crawlspace is the most common reason a house never keeps up in either season.
- Ventilation
- Extract for kitchens, workshops and clinical rooms, plus make-up air where a building has been tightened up and the appliances now fight the extract fan.
The plate on the side of your equipment answers most of it
How old it really is. Whether the wiring can take a replacement. What refrigerant is in it and whether that matters. Whether it was ever the right size for the building. All of it is stamped on a label most people have never read.
We wrote out eight fields, across four kinds of equipment, with what each one means and what it lets you check for yourself — including which fields are simply not on the plate you are looking at, and what is there instead.
Houses and premises
Two different jobs with the same instruments. Neither is an afterthought here.
Houses, townhouses and small multi-family
Furnaces, air conditioning and evaporative coolers, heat pumps, duct sealing and the rooms that never keep up. The homes page is ordered by what it costs to fix, cheapest first, because that is the order we check in.
Shops, suites, clinics and light industrial
Rooftop units, split systems, extract and make-up air, planned maintenance with a record kept per unit rather than per building, and a written asset list so you know what you own before something fails.
Things this website will not tell you
Not modesty. Every one of them would be a number we made up.
- A price
- A capacitor and a cracked heat exchanger are not the same visit. You get a fixed figure on the phone once we know what is installed.
- A response time
- We are not going to promise an hour on a January morning when the whole county has no heat.
- A saving
- “Up to 30% off your bill” depends on your building, your use and your tariff. Nobody can know it from a web page.
- How long it will last
- Two identical furnaces installed on the same street last very different lengths of time. The plate tells you the age; nothing tells you the future.
Questions we get asked
Does my furnace need anything different because of the altitude?
Possibly, and it depends on the model. Greeley is at about 4,660 ft, and the input rating stamped on an appliance is a sea-level figure. Some manufacturers require a high-altitude orifice kit above a stated elevation, some specify a manifold pressure change, and some certify the appliance across a range with no change at all. Which applies is in that model’s own installation instructions, so we read the model number off the plate and check rather than assume.
Should I replace my evaporative cooler with air conditioning?
Not automatically. In a dry climate a cooler is a different machine doing a different job, and in many Greeley houses it is the appropriate one — far less electricity, and it brings in outdoor air. The commonest complaint about them is a house that feels muggy, and the commonest cause is that the window or relief opening it needs was closed up. Where it genuinely cannot cope we will say so and price refrigerated cooling.
One room is always colder. Do I need a bigger furnace?
Almost certainly not. That is nearly always airflow — a branch added during a remodel, a crushed flexible run, a damper closed years ago, or a return far too small. We measure static pressure and the airflow at that register and at one that works, which turns it into two numbers rather than an argument. An oversized furnace would make it slightly worse.
How old is my equipment really?
It is encoded in the serial number on the data plate, and it very often contradicts what people have been told. The scheme differs by manufacturer so it is looked up rather than guessed, and it dates manufacture rather than installation. There is a page on this site explaining that field and seven others.
My air conditioner needs refrigerant every year. Is that normal?
No. Refrigerant is not consumed — a system that loses it has a leak, and being topped up annually is paying for the same fault repeatedly. Finding and repairing the leak is the job. The plate on the outdoor unit states the refrigerant type and the factory charge for a stated line length.
Which areas do you cover?
Greeley, Evans, Windsor, Eaton, Kersey, Milliken, Johnstown and La Salle.
Where we are
107 66th Ave, Greeley, CO 80634. Monday to Friday, 7am to 4pm.
We cover Greeley, Evans, Windsor, Eaton, Kersey, Milliken, Johnstown and La Salle.