HVAC Services in Citrus Heights, CA

Citrus Heights is mostly a sixties and seventies town, and that single fact explains most of the HVAC calls we get here. The tracts around Sunrise, Greenback and Auburn Boulevard went up when energy was cheap and nobody was thinking about insulation. Single-story ranch houses, low-slope attics, original ducting in a lot of cases, and equipment that has been replaced once or twice by whoever was cheapest at the time.

The attic is the problem, not the air conditioner

These homes almost all run their ducts through a shallow attic that hits 140 degrees on a July afternoon. Fifty years on, the insulation wrapping those ducts has often flattened, cracked or fallen off entirely. So the air leaves the coil cold and arrives at the back bedroom lukewarm. The homeowner concludes the AC is undersized and someone sells them a bigger one, which cools the front of the house faster and does nothing for the back bedroom. Before we quote a system here, we look at the ducts. Very often the honest answer is that sealing and repairing the ductwork will do more for comfort than any amount of extra tonnage, and cost less.

Systems installed cheap, replaced twice

The other pattern we see constantly in Citrus Heights: equipment that was picked on price and installed in a hurry. Line sets never flushed properly on a changeout, systems charged by guesswork instead of measurement, and units sized by matching the old nameplate rather than measuring the house. That is why we do a load calculation instead of copying the tonnage that is out there now. The house has probably had windows or insulation updated since the original install, and the correct answer today is frequently smaller than what is sitting on the pad.

Older gas furnaces and the safety check that matters

A lot of these homes still have furnaces well past twenty years old. Our winters are short enough that an old furnace can coast along, half working, for years. The thing we check first on an aging unit is the heat exchanger, because a crack is a carbon monoxide issue and not a budget conversation. If it is cracked, we tell you plainly and we do not fire it back up. See our furnace and heating page for how we handle replacements.

Good candidates for a heat pump

Single-story homes with existing ducting and mild winters make Citrus Heights a straightforward heat pump market. One system replaces both the aging furnace and the aging AC. The check we run first is the electrical panel. Many original panels in these tracts are small and full, so if you are moving off gas heat there may be an upgrade involved. We look before quoting so the number does not change later.

What we handle in Citrus Heights

AC and heating repair on all major brands, system replacement, furnace work, duct repair and sealing, tune-ups, and filtration and air quality upgrades, which make a real difference in older homes that leak air in from the attic. Flat $69 diagnostic, credited toward the repair.

Areas we cover

Sunrise Ranch, Birdcage, Arcade Creek, Sylvan Old Auburn, Stock Ranch, and the neighborhoods along Greenback Lane, Sunrise Boulevard, Madison and Auburn Boulevard, covering 95610 and 95621. We also serve neighboring Roseville, Folsom and Rancho Cordova.