HVAC maintenance and tune-ups that catch the small stuff.
Most systems give you a warning before they leave you sweating in July or layering up in January. A tune-up is where somebody catches that while it's still small and cheap, instead of meeting it at two in the morning on the worst night of the year. We do the maintenance visits ourselves, across Greenville and the Upstate, and we'll show you exactly what we found.
The cheapest repair is the one you catch early.
Air conditioners and furnaces almost never die out of nowhere. They wear in slow, and the early signs are small.
A capacitor reading a little weak. A contactor starting to pit. A blower wheel caked with enough dust to choke the airflow and drag the whole system down with it. Caught on a maintenance visit, most of those are a cheap part and a few minutes of labor. Ignored until the system quits, that same little problem can take the compressor or the heat exchanger with it, usually on the hottest or coldest day of the year.
There's a quieter cost too. A dirty outdoor coil makes the system work harder to move the same heat, and you pay for that every month on the power bill. We're not going to do the fear routine about it. A tune-up is about the cheapest insurance you can put on a system that's going to cost real money the day it breaks.
The full tune-up checklist, written out.
A lot of companies sell a "tune-up" that's really a tech in your yard for fifteen minutes with a hose. The plan runs on two visits a year, timed to the seasons. Here's every step.
Before cooling season
- Wash the outdoor condenser coils so the system can shed heat properly
- Clear the condensate drain lines before they clog and back up into the house
- Check all the electrical: contactor, capacitor readings, connections
- Check the refrigerant charge and look for signs of a leak
- Measure and dial in the airflow (static pressure and CFM), which most companies never touch
- Service the dehumidifier filter if the home has one, clean washable filters as needed (replacements are extra)
Before heating season
- Run a full combustion analysis on every gas furnace (the part most companies skip)
- Go through the heating side end to end before you're relying on it
- Check your smoke detectors and swap in fresh batteries if you've got spares on hand (we don't supply batteries, but can grab them at cost)
- Check the humidifier if the home has one (its filters and canisters aren't included)
A few things we'd rather say up front. Air filters aren't included in the plan price; if you've got them at the house we'll install them while we're there, and we can order them by the case (billed separately). Dehumidifier filter service is included, so we clean washable filters, though replacement filters are an added cost. We'll check your humidifier, but its filters and canisters aren't covered. Same with smoke-detector batteries: we check them and swap in spares you've got on hand, and we can supply new ones for a small charge.
A combustion test that tells you the furnace is safe to run.
On every gas furnace we maintain, we run a combustion analysis, performed by a technician certified through the National Comfort Institute. A probe goes into the flue pipe and reads two things at once: how efficiently the furnace is burning its fuel, and the precise amount of carbon monoxide it's producing.
That second number is the one that matters for your family. A cracked heat exchanger is the failure behind the carbon-monoxide stories you hear about every winter, and a combustion analyzer is what catches it before it becomes one. The instrument costs real money, and most companies won't put one on the truck.
We think that's backwards. If we're going to call something a heating tune-up, the test that tells you the furnace is safe to run ought to be part of it.
The easiest place to nickel-and-dime a homeowner. We go the other way.
When we check the line set, the copper that carries refrigerant between the outdoor unit and the indoor coil, the big line is supposed to be wrapped in foam insulation. Bare copper sweats, drips, and runs the system harder than it needs to. We find it missing or rotted off all the time.
The industry move is to write it up as a hundred-and-twenty-dollar repair for next visit. The real fix is a piece of insulation off the truck and about three minutes. So that's what he does, then walks you over to show you.
"I took care of it for you today. No charge."
Three HVAC maintenance plans. Prices printed, which is more than most will do.
Sorted by what you've actually got at the house. No bundles, no markup-then-discount games. We explain why below.
- The full spring + fall checklist
- Combustion analysis on the gas furnace
- Smoke-detector battery check
- Dehumidifier filter service
- Up to two indoor heads per system
- More than two heads at the house? We'll size a second plan to match, no surprises
- Same member pricing as the HVAC plan
- New air filter, oil filter, spark plug
- Oil change and battery check
- Wash and clean-up
We keep each plan cheap instead of marking up to "discount" it.
You'll notice we don't sell a combined HVAC-and-generator package at a "discount." We price each plan as low as it'll go in the first place, so there's nothing to inflate and then knock back down to look generous. The bundle-and-discount routine is usually just a markup wearing a costume, and we'd rather skip the costume and charge a fair price the first time.
A $3,000 plan that's grown into a relationship.
The first maintenance agreement Steven signed under the ECS name was a ten-system house up in Sunset, near Lake Keowee. Wine cellar on its own climate control, fresh-air intakes, energy recovery, the works. The agreement itself was three thousand dollars.
Since then, that one relationship has grown into roughly twenty thousand dollars of work. Not because anybody pushed it, but because every visit ended the same way: done right, nothing sold that didn't need selling. That's what a maintenance plan is really buying you. Somebody who knows your equipment and is going to be there next year too.
Two tune-up windows, both ahead of the season.
Spring AC tune-up
Get the AC looked at before the humidity settles in and you're running it hard every afternoon. This is the visit that keeps the compressor happy through a Carolina summer.
Fall heating check
Get the heat checked before the first real cold snap. This is the combustion-analysis visit, the one that confirms your furnace is burning clean and safe before you close the house up.
What folks say after a maintenance visit.
"I needed a pre-summer inspection as my unit was going into its 3rd year. The price for the annual contract was really low. Steven went above and beyond in testing, cleaning, and correcting an air flow matter from when another party installed the unit. Totally trustworthy."
"Not only did he answer right away, he solved our issue and did our maintenance all in the same day. He explained everything thoroughly and was transparent about pricing. We even signed up for yearly maintenance. I cannot recommend this family owned business enough!"
"He replaced our condensate pump quickly and performed a thorough HVAC maintenance service. Honest work and dependable technicians like Steven are hard to find!"
Maintenance plans, answered straight.
Two visits a year. In spring we wash the outdoor coils, clear the drain lines, check the electrical and refrigerant charge, and measure and adjust the airflow. In fall we run a full combustion analysis on the gas furnace, go through the heating side, and check your smoke-detector batteries. We'll service humidifier filters if you have them. Air filters themselves aren't part of the price, though we'll install yours or order them for you by the case.
Twice a year is the standard, and it's how the plans are built: once before cooling season, once before heating season. Catching the small problems on that schedule is what keeps them from becoming the big ones.
The HVAC plan is $199 a year. The mini-split plan is $149 a year per indoor unit. The generator plan is $299 a year. Every one of them cuts your service-call fee in half, from $99 to $49, and takes 15% off any repairs.
Often more than people expect. One of our customers had us out for a pre-summer check on a unit barely into its third year, and we found and corrected an airflow problem the original installer left behind. Beyond that, a lot of manufacturer warranties require documented annual maintenance to stay valid, so the tune-up can protect the coverage you already paid for.
Yes, in two clear ways. Your diagnostic service call drops from $99 to $49 whenever you need us, and any repair comes with 15% off. On top of that, the catch-it-early nature of maintenance is where the bigger savings hide, since a small fix on a tune-up is a fraction of the emergency it would have turned into.
Absolutely. Most of the systems we maintain were put in by somebody else. We'll go through whatever you've got and tell you straight what kind of shape it's in.
Reviews from our community.
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A plan is the easiest way to stop thinking about your HVAC system and just know it's handled. Call or text us, or send the details, and we'll set up your first visit and tell you which plan fits your home.
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