Top-rated independent heating and cooling across California's Central Valley and the Sierra foothills
CO Alarm Sounding
Your carbon monoxide alarm is sounding and you want to know what to do right now. Get everyone out of the house, then call 911 or your gas utility from outside. Do not stop to open windows, hunt for the cause, or reset the alarm. Once the fire department or utility has cleared the house, call us and we will inspect the heating equipment before it runs again.
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By our service team · vetted by the techs who do this daily
The First Five Minutes, In Order
1. Get every person and pet outside, into fresh air, away from the building. 2. From outside, call 911 or your gas utility's emergency line. Both will respond to a CO alarm. 3. Do a headcount and stay out. 4. If anyone has a headache, nausea, dizziness, confusion or is drowsy, tell the dispatcher those symptoms so they treat it as a medical call. 5. Wait for responders to test the air and tell you the house is safe to enter. That order matters. Carbon monoxide has no smell and no color, and people make bad decisions once they have been breathing it for a while. Leaving first protects your judgment as much as your lungs.
What Not To Do
Do not go back inside for phones, pets already outside, or paperwork. Do not open every window on your way out, because airing the house can drop the reading enough to hide the source before responders arrive. Do not pull the alarm's batteries or press reset to silence it. Do not relight a pilot, poke at a furnace, or try to trace a gas line yourself. Do not sleep in the house on the theory that it was probably a false alarm. And do not run vehicles, generators or unvented heaters in an attached garage while you wait outside. If you smell gas as well, treat it the same way: out first, then call.
Where Carbon Monoxide Comes From In A Home
CO is a byproduct of anything burning fuel. In homes across California and Nevada, the usual suspects are a gas furnace with a cracked heat exchanger, a blocked or disconnected flue, a water heater venting poorly, a gas fireplace or wall heater, or a car left running in an attached garage. Portable generators and charcoal used near an open door cause a share of cases every year. Package units and furnaces in tight attic or closet spaces need proper combustion air and a clear vent path, and both can be disturbed by a roof job, rodents, or a nest in the flue. A negative-pressure house can also pull exhaust back inside.
When To Call Us, And What We Do
Call us after responders have cleared the building, or the next morning if they have shut the gas off and the house is safe but unheated. Tell us the alarm went off and whether the utility red-tagged anything. We inspect the furnace or heating side of your package unit, check the heat exchanger, look at the flue and vent connections, verify combustion air, and check draft while the burner runs. If we find a cracked heat exchanger or a failed vent, we explain what has to be replaced before that equipment runs again. We do not put a suspect heater back in service to get you through the night.
Preventing The Next Alarm
Put a CO alarm on every level of the house and outside sleeping areas, and replace units at the date printed on the back, usually seven to ten years. Test them monthly. Have the heating equipment looked at once a year, before the first cold night, and change the filter on the schedule the manufacturer of your equipment calls for so the blower is not fighting restriction. Keep the outdoor unit clear of debris and keep vents inside open so the system moves the air it was sized to move. Never use a range, grill or generator to heat a room. If an alarm has gone off once, treat the next one as real too.
CO Alarm Sounding — straight answers
Could my CO alarm be a false alarm?
It can be, from an alarm at the end of its life or a sensor fault. Treat it as real anyway. Go outside and let 911 or the gas utility test the air, then replace an alarm past its printed expiration date.
Can I use my heater until someone can look at it?
No. If the alarm sounded, keep the heating equipment off until it has been inspected and any cracked heat exchanger or vent problem is corrected. Use safe electric heat in the meantime and call us to schedule a heating repair visit.
Do I call the gas utility or 911 first?
Either is fine, and both respond to a carbon monoxide alarm. Call whichever number you reach faster, from outside the house. If anyone is dizzy, nauseated, confused or drowsy, call 911 and say so.
How it works
- Step 1
Tell us the symptom
Call or fill in the quote form. We ask what changed, when it started, and what the thermostat reads. That tells us whether to bring parts for a cooling fault or a heating fault.
- Step 2
We diagnose on site
A technician checks the thermostat, the electrical side, airflow through the filter and coil, refrigerant pressures, and the outdoor unit. You get told what failed and why, in plain words, before anything is replaced.
- Step 3
Repair and verify
We make the repair, then run the system and measure the results at the vents. If a part needs ordering, we say so and give you a realistic window instead of a vague promise.
- A real person answers
- Open 7 days
- Written quote before work starts
Why homeowners call us
- Built for real valley heatWe work in areas where afternoons sit above 110 degrees and systems run for months without a break. That shapes how we size repairs, check capacitors and contactors, and judge whether a compressor is genuinely done.
- Attic and package unitsPlenty of homes across the region run attic air handlers or rooftop package units instead of a garage furnace and a side-yard condenser. We are used to the access, the duct runs, and the drain issues those setups bring.
- Dust and debris we expectAg dust, cottonwood fluff and grass clippings pack condenser coils and starve a system of airflow. We clean what we find and show you the difference, rather than adding refrigerant to a unit that just could not breathe.
- Heating too, not only ACFurnace repair, heat pump faults and no-heat calls get the same attention as summer work. Ignition problems, cracked or failing components and short cycling all get diagnosed before we recommend anything larger.
- All major brands, gas & electricFrom Carrier and Trane to Lennox, Goodman, Rheem and Bryant, serviced independently.
- Straight answersWhen a replacement beats a repair, we tell you, sometimes before we roll a truck.
About this guide
If the safe checks didn't fix it, the fault is real
Bring your notes from the checks to the call and booking takes no time.
- A real person answers
- Open 7 days
- Written quotes
- All major brands
- Gas & electric
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