Furnace repair
It stopped in the night and the house is going the wrong way. We can usually be there the same day.
About furnace repairSame day, seven days, all winter. Price agreed before we start.
Residential heating and cooling, Minneapolis
A house that feels the same in every room
Residential heating and cooling for Minneapolis and Saint Paul. We measure your actual house, we tell you the price first, and we take our boots off at the door.
- 70°Upstairs bedroom
- 70°Upstairs bath
- 70°Living room
- 70°Kitchen
- 68°Basement
- -12°Outside
Same-day heat calls
Every day through the winter, including weekends, for anyone without heat.
NATE certified
Every technician on the van, not just the person who signs the invoice.
Priced before we start
You approve a number, not an hourly rate that grows while you watch.
Boots off, floors covered
It is your house. We leave it the way we found it, or tidier.
What we do, and what it is actually for
Six things, all of them about how a room feels rather than what is bolted to the wall. Lift the corner of a card for the part people usually want to know.
Cold-climate heat pumps
They really do work here. The honest part is what happens on the coldest ten nights.
About heat pumpsWe size the balance point with you, and say when it is the wrong call.
Air conditioning
Eleven weeks of the year matter enormously. Upstairs should not be the room nobody sleeps in.
About air conditioningUpstairs heat is usually airflow, not tonnage. We check that first.
Ductless mini splits
For the addition, the attic bedroom, the porch that became an office. One room, its own dial.
About mini splitsThat room gets its own thermostat. Usually the whole reason people call.
Whole-home humidification
Static shocks, split lips, gaps in the floorboards. January air here is drier than most deserts.
About humidifiersThe setting matters more than the machine. Too much frosts your windows.
A Minnesota year, one house at a time
What we actually do changes four times a year. Here is the whole cycle, in the order you live it.
The question everyone in Minnesota is asking
Yes, a heat pump works here. The interesting part is the balance point.
A cold-climate heat pump keeps making useful heat well below zero. What changes as it gets colder is how much. At some outdoor temperature its output stops covering what your house is losing, and that crossing point is the balance point. Above it the heat pump carries the house on its own. Below it, backup heat picks up the difference.
In a Minneapolis house that number usually lands somewhere between 5 and 15 degrees, which covers the overwhelming majority of the heating season. The ten or so nights a year that go below it are what your furnace is for. Set up as dual fuel, the two hand off to each other and you never notice.
- We calculate the balance point for your house, not for a brochure house.
- We are happy to tell you when a heat pump is the wrong call.
- HSPF2 and the cold-weather output tables, explained without the sales pitch.
From houses near yours
The problem, and then what happened
Drag the handle in any card to move between the two. Every one of these is a real kind of Twin Cities house with a real kind of Twin Cities problem.
Before
Upstairs ran 10 degrees hotter than the kitchen
After
Every room within 2 degrees of the thermostat
They spent the first hour measuring returns instead of quoting me a bigger air conditioner. Turned out the whole problem was one undersized return and a filter that was choking the blower.
Before
Could not hold 66 degrees in a cold snap
After
Held 70 at 24 below zero
We were told for years that a heat pump would not work in a house this old. Hearth sized the balance point at 8 degrees, kept the furnace as backup, and the two of them just hand off to each other. We barely notice.
Before
Nosebleeds, and gaps opening in the floorboards
After
Steady at 38 percent, no window frost
The previous humidifier was set to whatever the installer left it at and it was frosting our north windows. They rebalanced it against the outdoor temperature and explained exactly why more is not better.
Before
Attic office unusable, November to March
After
Its own dial, and it holds it
One head, one line set, one very tidy hole in the wall. Two people, one day, and they took their boots off without being asked. That last part sounds small and it really is not.
Where our vans already are
We are a city and first-ring company on purpose. Short drives mean same-day heat calls are a promise rather than a hope.
Written so you can argue with us
If a contractor cannot explain the reasoning, the reasoning is usually a sales target. Here is ours, in public.
- Heat pumps
Balance point, in plain English: what actually happens to a heat pump at 20 below
The one number that decides whether a cold-climate heat pump suits a Minnesota house, and what backup heat really does on the coldest nights.
- Air conditioning
Why upstairs is always hotter, and why a bigger air conditioner will not fix it
The most common comfort complaint in a Twin Cities two-storey house is almost never a capacity problem. Here is what it usually is, and how to tell.
- Humidification
If your windows are frosting on the inside, your humidifier is set too high
Dry winter air is genuinely miserable, but more humidity is not automatically better. How to set a whole-home humidifier against the outdoor temperature.
Come in out of the cold
Tell us which room is wrong and when you are home. We will come and look, and we will tell you the price before anything gets opened up.