The same readings, twice a year, written down, so the trend is visible before the failure is. A tune-up that is really a sales visit is not maintenance.
Coil faces washed — condenser from the inside out, which is the only direction that removes anything rather than packing it deeper into the fins. Blower wheel inspected, and cleaned if there is build-up on the trailing edge of the blades, because a loaded wheel moves noticeably less air and no gauge on the system will show you that. Condensate line cleared and flushed, trap checked, float switches tested by lifting them rather than by looking at them. Electrical connections checked for heat damage, contactor points inspected for pitting, and the capacitor read on a meter against the rating stamped on its case.
Then the readings: suction and liquid pressures with saturation temperatures, line temperatures, superheat, subcooling, supply and return air and the split, total external static pressure, and amp draw on the compressor and the condenser fan against the rated load on the data plate. On the plumbing side of a combined visit, incoming water pressure static and running, the water heater's T&P valve and expansion tank, and the temperature at a fixture.
One set of readings tells you whether a system is working today. Four sets over two years tell you what it is doing, and that is the part with real value. Subcooling drifting down season by season is a slow leak announcing itself long before anybody is uncomfortable. Static pressure climbing is a filter regime that has quietly changed or a duct that has come apart in an attic. Compressor amp draw creeping up is a machine getting tired.
None of that is visible on a single visit, which is exactly why so-called tune-ups that consist of a rinse, a sticker and a recommendation are worth so little. If you have had three maintenance visits and cannot produce a single number from any of them, you did not buy maintenance.
It is booked cheap, often absurdly cheap, and it is priced that way because the visit is not the product. The technician arrives with a tablet, spends most of the time on a photographic “system health report” that grades things in colors rather than units, and leaves with a proposal. The recommendations tend to be things that cannot be checked: a capacitor “weak but still testing”, a coil that needs a chemical treatment, a compressor “showing early signs”, a UV lamp, a surge protector, a duct sanitizing service.
The tell is the absence of numbers with units on them. A red bar is not a reading. A microfarad value beside a stamped rating is. We are not against replacing a weak capacitor before it strands you in August — that is a sensible thing to do — but the report has to carry the measurement that justified it.
If your system is fifteen years old and reading well, we will tell you it is reading well and not start a conversation about replacement. If your filter regime is fine, we will not sell you a subscription. And if two visits a year is more than your system needs — some are simple enough that one is honest — we will say so, and the agreement gets smaller.
Request a visit and the office will call you back to agree a time. We measure before we price, and you keep the readings.
Scripted demonstration. It cannot book, hold or confirm a time, and it will not quote a price.