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Inglewood houses, and the air they are actually getting
Post-war single-storey stock, duplexes on nearly every street, and an unusual number of houses whose windows no longer open the way the originals did.
Two hours, and a sheet you keep
Everything found and identified, rating plates photographed, model and serial numbers recorded. Then the readings: static pressure across the filter and the coil, airflow, refrigerant charge against the manufacturer’s target, temperature split, humidity in the room with the complaint, and the flow rate of every extract fan in the house.
Where the complaint is about the air rather than the temperature, we leave a carbon dioxide logger behind for a week. It costs very little and it turns an argument into a record. One reading taken while we are standing in the room is the least useful number available.
If there is a gas furnace or a gas water heater, a combustion analysis and a heat exchanger inspection happen on that visit whatever you rang about, and where there is a gas appliance and no working carbon monoxide alarm we fit one.
Four findings, and three of them are cheap
The bathroom fan has not been connected for years
It runs, it makes a noise, and in the attic the duct is lying next to the terminal rather than attached to it — or it terminates into the attic on purpose, which is worse. Measured flow on fans like this is routinely a fraction of what the label says. It is an hour’s work and it is the single most common real finding in this city.
The kitchen extract recirculates
A great many range hoods over a cooker filter the air and blow it back into the room rather than out of the building. In a house that can be aired out that is a minor point. In a house that is kept shut it is the reason cooking smells last two days.
The ducts leak into a hot attic
Flexible duct off a boot, crushed runs, joints never sealed. Measured leakage on older houses here is regularly a large share of the total airflow, which means a real share of what you pay to cool is cooling an attic, and it also means the house is being pressurised and depressurised in ways nobody intended.
Nothing brings outdoor air in, and nothing ever did
This is the expensive one and it is the honest one. If a house has been genuinely sealed and no mechanical ventilation was added, the air has nowhere to come from. The fix is a supply path with a filter and a control, or a recovery ventilator where the numbers justify one. We will only recommend it after the cheap findings have been dealt with and measured again.
What we do in houses
- Diagnosis and repair
No cooling, no heat, short cycling, noise, a room that never matches. Measured, costed and repaired where a repair is right.
- Ventilation measurement
Carbon dioxide logged over days, extract fan flow measured, and the result written down with the method.
- Extract and supply ventilation
Bathroom and kitchen extraction that moves what it claims to, and supply ventilation with filtration where a house needs air brought in.
- Load calculation and replacement
Room by room, on the house as it stands now rather than on the size of the unit coming out.
- Duct sealing and rebalancing
Leakage measured, joints sealed, attic runs insulated, returns and transfer grilles added.
- Ductless for rooms with no duct route
Sized for the room it serves, with the line set routed where it can be serviced.
- Gas appliance safety
Combustion analysis, heat exchanger inspection, flue checked as installed, carbon monoxide alarms fitted where there is none.
- Annual service
The same readings every year on the same sheet, so a slow change is visible before it is a breakdown.
Three things we will not do in your house
Sell you an air cleaner on a symptom
Filtration and ventilation change measurable things and we will measure them, including what a more restrictive filter costs you in airflow. Anything sold on what it will do to how somebody feels is being sold on a claim nobody in this trade can support.
Condemn a heat exchanger without showing you
It is a real reason to shut a furnace down and it is the most abused finding in this trade. If we call it, you get the camera image or the combustion reading, and you are welcome to get a second opinion before spending anything.
Blame the neighbours
In a duplex, smells and noise travel and the cause is frequently next door. We will measure the path and write down what we found, in a document you can both read. We will not be one side’s witness against the other.
Tell us what the room is doing
Which room, what time of day, how long it has been like that, and whether the windows were ever replaced. 3213 W Imperial Hwy, Inglewood. Monday to Friday, 8am to 5pm.