Berkeley · Albany · Kensington · El Cerrito · North Oakland
Heating for houses that were built before ducts.
Most of Berkeley went up between 1900 and 1930, and most of it was heated by a grate in the floor. We work on that housing stock, every day, and we plan around what the house will actually allow.
What we replaceWall furnaces, floor furnaces, gravity systems, tired 1990s forced air
What we fitDuctless and ducted heat pumps, furnaces, new and rebuilt ductwork
WhereBerkeley and the cities either side of it — nothing over the tunnel, nothing over the bridge
The housing stock we plan around
The starting point
A quote for this house, not for a house.
A 1912 brown shingle and a 1998 tract house need the same thing from a heating system and almost nothing of the same work to get there. One has a full attic, a chase to run duct through and a garage to park equipment in. The other has a 22-inch crawlspace, plaster over lath, no attic worth the name, and a front elevation the city takes an interest in.
So the first visit is a survey, not a sales call. We measure the crawlspace clearance. We find out where a condensate line could actually run. We look at where an outdoor unit can sit without being three feet from your neighbour's bedroom window. Then we tell you which options the house supports — usually two or three — and what separates them.
If the honest answer is that the house wants something more expensive than you came in expecting, you will hear that on the first visit rather than halfway through the work.
Crawlspace clearance decides more than the budget does
Three numbers we take on every survey
Crawlspace or attic clearance at the tightest point. The distance from the proposed outdoor unit to the nearest neighbouring window. And the electrical capacity you have left. Those three decide what is possible; everything else is preference.
What we do
Five things, done properly.
We are a small shop. The list is short because everything on it is work we do often enough to be quick at.
01
Wall & floor furnace replacement
The single most common job in this part of the East Bay. There is no modern like-for-like swap, so this is always a conversation about what replaces it — and where the new equipment goes.
One outdoor unit, a small head in each room that needs one, refrigerant lines the diameter of a pencil. Heats and cools. In a house with nowhere to put duct, this is usually the answer.
Ducted heat pumps and furnaces where the house has the room for them, plus sealing, rebuilding and rerouting the ductwork already down there. Old duct in a Berkeley crawlspace is rarely insulated and rarely sealed.
Heating that will not come on, cooling that runs but does nothing, a system short-cycling, a thermostat nobody can read. We diagnose before we quote, and we tell you when a repair is not worth doing.
An annual visit: filters, coils, drains, refrigerant charge, electrical connections, and a look at the duct while we are under there. Written up, with photographs of anything we want you to see.
No roofing, no solar, no electrical panel upgrades. When a job needs a panel upgrade we say so early and work alongside your electrician, because finding out in week three is how projects go wrong.
Berkeley houses have a shape, and it decides everything.
Steep lots in the hills and flat lots below Shattuck. Brown shingle, Craftsman bungalow, a run of 1920s stucco, then the post-war infill. Plaster over lath. Knob-and-tube that has mostly but not entirely gone. Crawlspaces you can sit up in and crawlspaces you can barely get an arm into.
We wrote a full page about what that means for a heating system — where equipment can go, why a floor furnace has no direct replacement, what the hills change that the flats do not, and the three routes a retrofit usually takes.
Why a floor furnace cannot be swapped like for like
What a 24-inch crawlspace rules out
Hills versus flats, and why the same house performs differently
Running lines through plaster without wrecking it
Where an outdoor unit can sit on a narrow lot
The three routes a retrofit usually takes
How a job goes
Four steps, and you can stop after any of them.
Call, and describe the house
Age, how it is heated now, what is going wrong. Five minutes on the phone rules out a lot and tells us what to bring.
The survey visit
Crawlspace, attic if there is one, electrical panel, the outside walls, the room you never manage to warm up. An hour, usually. No obligation and no follow-up calls.
Options in writing
Two or three routes the house supports, each with what it costs, what it involves and what it cannot do. On paper, so you can put it beside somebody else's.
The work, and the permit
Dates agreed before we start. Floors covered, plaster protected, the crawlspace left cleaner than we found it. We pull the permit and meet the inspector.
Where we work
A tight radius, on purpose.
These cities share a housing stock, a climate and a small number of permit desks. Staying inside them is why we can tell you on the phone roughly what your house is going to need.
Berkeley
North Berkeley
Berkeley Hills
Elmwood
Albany
Kensington
El Cerrito
Emeryville
North Oakland
Rockridge
Piedmont
Richmond
El Sobrante
Alameda
Outside that list, call anyway — if we cannot take it on we will usually know who can.
The hills change the access, not the physics
Common questions
Asked on nearly every survey.
My house has no ducts. Do I have to add them?
No. A ductless heat pump puts a small indoor unit in each room that needs one and runs refrigerant lines back to a single outdoor unit. In a house with no attic and a shallow crawlspace it is usually the least invasive option and often the cheapest one, because nobody is opening ceilings.
Can you replace a floor furnace?
There is no like-for-like modern replacement for a floor furnace. What we do instead is look at what the house can take: a ductless system, a small ducted system in the crawlspace, or a combination. We will tell you which of those your crawlspace clearance actually allows before you commit to anything.
Do I need air conditioning in Berkeley?
Plenty of Berkeley houses have gone a century without it. What has changed is that a heat pump heats and cools with the same equipment, so cooling arrives as a side effect of replacing a failing heater rather than as a separate purchase. Whether you use it is up to you and the fog.
Which areas do you cover?
Berkeley, Albany, Kensington, El Cerrito, Emeryville, north Oakland, Piedmont, Richmond and Alameda. We keep the radius tight on purpose: these cities share a housing stock and a set of permit desks, and knowing both is most of the job.
Do you handle the permit?
Yes. Mechanical work of this kind is permitted work, and the rules around replacing gas appliances in this part of the East Bay have changed more than once in recent years. We pull the permit and we tell you what applies now, not what applied when your neighbour did theirs.
Tell us about the house.
Age, how it is heated, and what is going wrong. We will tell you on the phone whether it is a repair, a replacement or a longer conversation.
