HVAC questions we are asked most

A diagnostic visit is $119 and is credited in full against any repair you approve on the same visit. Most repairs land between $220 and $700. A precision tune-up is $179 for cooling or $189 for heating, and both are included free on any maintenance agreement. New system installations start at $3,900 for a furnace and $6,400 for a central air changeout.

In most cases, yes. Calls that reach us before about noon on a weekday are usually seen the same day. Maintenance-agreement holders are dispatched ahead of non-contract calls as a matter of policy, which matters most during the first hard freeze and the first heatwave, when everybody calls at once.

Yes, and the emergency line is answered by a person rather than a message service. No-heat calls in freezing weather and no-cooling calls during a heat emergency are prioritised, and households with young children, elderly residents or a medical need go first within that.

Woodside is home, and most of our work is within a few miles of it — Sunnyside, Jackson Heights, Elmhurst, Astoria, Long Island City, Maspeth, Corona, East Elmhurst, Rego Park, Forest Hills, Middle Village, Ridgewood and Glendale. We also cover Flushing, Bayside, the rest of Queens, and parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan for commercial contract customers.

Yes. Licensing and refrigeration registrations are on file, every technician holds EPA Section 608 certification, and a certificate of insurance is issued to your building, board or managing agent the same day it is requested — for contract customers it is already on file before anyone asks.

$119 for a residential diagnostic, credited in full against any repair you approve on the same visit. After hours it is a flat $189 call-out. Maintenance-agreement holders pay no diagnostic fee at all, and Total Care holders pay no after-hours call-out either.

No. Everything is flat rate, quoted in writing before any work begins, so you approve a number rather than watching a clock. If we find something that changes the scope, you get a new number before we continue rather than a surprise on the invoice.

Under about ten years with a common part, repair almost always wins. Between twelve and fifteen years with a major component failure it is a genuine judgement call and we will price both. A failed compressor on an older R-22 system is usually the end, because the refrigerant is phased out and punishingly expensive.

Cooling once a year in the spring, heating once a year in the autumn. A heat pump runs in both seasons and genuinely needs both. Anything that burns gas should have its combustion checked annually without exception — that is a safety item, not a comfort one.

If you own the equipment, yes, and mostly for reasons other than the tune-up. You skip the queue in the two weeks a year when everybody calls, you stop paying diagnostic fees, and you keep the documented service history that most manufacturer warranties require in order to pay a claim.

We service and repair any make, and we are happy to install equipment you have already bought — though we will tell you honestly if what you have bought is the wrong size for the building, because fitting it anyway helps nobody.

Yes to financing, and there is frequently rebate and incentive money available too, particularly on heat pumps and heat pump water heaters. We prepare and submit the paperwork as part of the job and quote you the net figure as well as the gross.

Yes — it is one of the things we are known for locally. Much of what gets blamed on an old steam boiler is a venting and balancing problem that costs a fraction of a replacement to put right, and we will always look at that first.

If a part has to be ordered we will secure the system, explain exactly what is happening, and give you a date. Where there is no heat, we lend portable heaters at no charge until the repair is completed — Total Care holders and anyone with a vulnerable household first.