AC Repair & Heating in Clear Lake City, TX
Clear Lake grew up around Johnson Space Center in the 1960s, and plenty of its houses still carry Apollo-era ductwork, some of it wrapped in insulation that has to be handled with care. We upgrade these homes without tearing them apart.
- Three Clear Lake ZIPs
- Apollo-era retrofits
- Asbestos-aware work
- 2,090+ Google reviews
Asbestos in Apollo-era ducts
Duct insulation in Clear Lake homes built before 1980 can contain asbestos. Left alone, it isn't a hazard. Disturbed without containment, it is. So we test before we cut, and if the test comes back positive we either work around those runs or bring in a licensed abatement contractor before going further. Federal NESHAP rules require it, and it's how we'd want our own houses handled.
Older systems drive most of the other calls. Blower motors on air handlers 25 years and up don't fail all at once. They slow down over a few summers until the house can't hold the set point on a 95° afternoon. Capacitors, contactors pitted from decades of cycling and drains routed through original closets make up much of the rest.
Numbers on the commissioning report
A lot of our Clear Lake customers work at Johnson Space Center, for the aerospace contractors around it or in other technical fields. They ask about static pressure at the air handler, subcooling at the condenser and what the manufacturer's design data says about the coil. We hand them the readings.
Every replacement install here gets a Manual J load calculation, refrigerant charge set by subcooling to the manufacturer's spec, and a written commissioning report with those numbers in it. Heat pumps in the newer subdivisions near El Dorado get diagnosed with a manometer against the blower curve. Houses still on R-22 get a plain read on repair versus replacement.
Permits go to the City of Houston or Harris County, depending on which side of the line you're on, and we pull them. Repairs and installs carry 12 months of parts and labor coverage, and after that the manufacturer covers parts for a term that depends on the brand. Texas license TACLA32678.
Three ZIPs and a Friendswood edge
77058, the NASA core
Bay Knoll, University Green and Clear Lake Forest date to the 1960s and 70s. Mechanical closets are small and attics shallow. The ducts are undersized for today's equipment. We retrofit with low-profile air handlers and side-discharge condensers where the original placement is awkward.
77059 toward Friendswood
Subdivisions from the 1980s through the 2000s. Standard installs apply. Right-sizing on replacement is the job we do most here.
77062 on the west side
Lots are bigger and shadier here, and the houses are generally newer than in 77058. Most calls follow the ordinary suburban replacement track.
The 77546 edge
Heritage Park and Bay Pointe sit on the Friendswood side of the line. We work both ZIPs daily, about 25 minutes from our shop off-peak by Highway 3 or I-45 South.
Clear Lake questions, answered
My house is an original 1960s build near JSC. Could the duct insulation have asbestos?
In homes built before 1980, it can. We test before we cut into it. If it's there, we work around those runs or bring in a licensed abatement contractor first, as federal NESHAP rules require.
Why do my back bedrooms stay warm when the AC seems fine?
Duct sizing, in most of these houses. The NASA-era subdivisions went up with small trunks and starved branch runs. We measure airflow at each register to find the choked branches, then rebalance. New equipment rarely fixes it.
I still have an R-22 system. Repair it or replace it?
Depends what broke. A capacitor ($180 to $320) or contactor ($190 to $280) is still a normal fix. R-22 has been phased out, so a big refrigerant repair on one of these gets expensive, and a failed compressor ($1,800 to $3,500 to replace) on an Apollo-era system is usually where we start talking about a new one.
Do you install geothermal in Clear Lake?
On the larger lots in 77058 and 77062 we install Bosch water-source geothermal systems, quoted on operating cost and loop life. For conventional heat pumps we lead with Trane.
Do you fix furnaces here too?
From November through February, a lot of them. We work on every major brand, including Carrier, Trane, Lennox, Goodman, Rheem and American Standard, and carry the common parts so most repairs finish on the first visit.
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The original supply trunks in the 1960s houses hold six decades of dust, so duct cleaning is on the list too.