Do you actually travel out to San Jose, or is that outside your area?

San Jose is a regular stop for us. We are based in San Ramon, which puts us about 35 to 40 minutes from most of the city depending on where in San Jose you are. Evergreen, Almaden Valley, Willow Glen, the Rose Garden area, the north end near the bay, all of it is in our service footprint. We schedule San Jose calls throughout the week, not only as overflow.

My house is a 1960s ranch with a ducted Tempstar system. Is that equipment worth repairing at this point?

Usually yes, with some caveats. The mid-century ranch tracts in San Jose are a large part of what we work on, and a well-maintained Tempstar furnace or condenser on a clean duct system often has years of serviceable life left. The question is whether the duct system itself is leaking or undersized, because a new unit on bad ducts performs poorly regardless of brand. If we diagnose your system and the issue is a discrete failed component, repair is almost always the more economical answer. If we find multiple failing parts on a unit over 15 years old, we will tell you that honestly in the written quote and let you decide.

What does the $75 diagnostic fee actually include, and what warranty comes with the repair?

The $75 covers a full system diagnosis: we pull fault codes from the control board, check electrical and mechanical components relevant to the complaint, and give you a written quote for whatever we find. If you approve the repair the same or next day, that $75 comes off the bill entirely. Parts and labor on repairs carry a 1-year warranty. If you are having a new system installed, that work is backed by a 10-year parts warranty and a 10-year labor warranty.

TEMPSTAR · SAN JOSE

Service · All Tempstar Models

Tempstar Heat Pump, AC & Furnace Repair · San Jose, CA

Tempstar heat pump, AC, and furnace repair in San Jose, from the same Carrier-platform techs who know what actually breaks on these units.

$75 diagnostic (waived with repair)
Same or next-day best effort
CSLB #1136642

Call (925) 999-4095

Tempstar in San Jose

Tempstar heating and cooling in San Jose.

San Jose is a big, varied city. The older bungalows and Craftsmen around Willow Glen and the Rose Garden have narrow utility closets with original floor furnaces or early-60s forced-air setups, and a lot of those homeowners found their way into Tempstar equipment when a local independent contractor quoted it as a Carrier-quality unit at a better price. That framing is accurate. The hotter inland neighborhoods, from Evergreen east toward the foothills to Almaden Valley south, do real summer AC work, and a heat pump there earns its keep all year. Closer to the bay on the north end of the city the air stays wetter and saltier, and outdoor condenser coils show corrosion faster than the manufacturer's literature suggests.

We carry a Fieldpiece meter that reads ICP communicating bus faults and standard Tempstar board flash codes, so we start with what the unit is actually telling us before we touch anything. A fouled flame sensor on a TDN2 furnace will log a different code pattern than a failing draft inducer, and we want to know which it is before quoting parts. On the cooling side we run a full refrigerant circuit check, not only a capacitor swap. If the compressor is pulling high amps at low suction pressure on a hot Almaden afternoon, that is a different repair than a weak start capacitor, and we treat them differently.

Bay Area HVAC Service is our HVAC division out of San Ramon, and we make regular runs to San Jose for both repair and new-system work. The diagnostic is $75 and we waive it if you go ahead with the repair on the same visit. You get a written quote before any work starts, full stop. We hold EPA Section 608 Universal certification for refrigerant handling and operate under CSLB license 1136642. New-installation work carries a 10-year parts and 10-year labor warranty. Repairs are backed by a 1-year warranty on the work we did.

Common repairs we do

What we close on the truck.

Hot Surface Igniter Failure on Gas Furnaces. The silicon nitride igniter on Tempstar TDN and TM9 furnaces is a wear part that typically goes brittle after four to seven seasons. The symptom is a furnace that calls for heat, runs the inducer, then shuts down without lighting, sometimes after one retry, sometimes after several. We pull the igniter, measure resistance, and replace it with the correct ICP-spec part. Because the flame sensor often has a few years of oxidation on it by the time the igniter fails, we clean the sensor rod on the same visit to avoid a callback.
Draft Inducer Motor and Pressure Switch at End of Service Life. The pressure switch and inducer motor on Tempstar 80 and 96 percent furnaces are the same assembly ICP uses across Heil and Comfortmaker units, which means the failure timeline is predictable. The inducer bearing goes noisy first, then the motor draws more current, and eventually the pressure switch either trips on the resulting reduced draft or fails on its own. We scope the inducer current draw and check switch hose integrity before condemning either part, because a cracked hose mimics a failing switch exactly. In older San Jose homes with longer horizontal flue runs, back-pressure from an undersized or corroded vent pipe shows up as the same symptom set.
Condenser Capacitor and Contactor Wear on AC and Heat Pump Units. Tempstar condensers use standard ICP run capacitors and contactors, and the combination of real summer heat in the inland San Jose neighborhoods and year-round cycling on heat pumps shortens capacitor life noticeably compared to coastal installations. A weak run capacitor shows up as slow compressor startup, elevated amp draw, and reduced cooling capacity before it fails outright. We pull and test the capacitor and inspect the contactor face for pitting while we are in the cabinet. On units within a few blocks of the bay we also clean the condenser coil fins, where salt-laden air builds a layer of contamination that looks clean until you check airflow.

Models we service

Tempstar product lines.

Gas furnaces (Ion and QuietComfort series)
Heat pumps and AC condensers
Variable-speed communicating systems
Air handlers and coils
Diagnostics, board and igniter repair, warranty work

Pricing and warranty

What it costs. What we stand behind.

$75

Diagnostic visit. Waived when you book the repair with us.
Written

90 days on consumables, 1 year on major parts, 2 years on sealed-system rebuilds. Quoted in writing before work starts.
CSLB

#1136642. Bonded and insured. We file warranty paperwork when applicable.

Nearby cities

Tempstar service in neighboring cities.

FAQ

Tempstar in San Jose questions, answered.

Do you actually travel out to San Jose, or is that outside your area?

San Jose is a regular stop for us. We are based in San Ramon, which puts us about 35 to 40 minutes from most of the city depending on where in San Jose you are. Evergreen, Almaden Valley, Willow Glen, the Rose Garden area, the north end near the bay, all of it is in our service footprint. We schedule San Jose calls throughout the week, not only as overflow.
My house is a 1960s ranch with a ducted Tempstar system. Is that equipment worth repairing at this point?

Usually yes, with some caveats. The mid-century ranch tracts in San Jose are a large part of what we work on, and a well-maintained Tempstar furnace or condenser on a clean duct system often has years of serviceable life left. The question is whether the duct system itself is leaking or undersized, because a new unit on bad ducts performs poorly regardless of brand. If we diagnose your system and the issue is a discrete failed component, repair is almost always the more economical answer. If we find multiple failing parts on a unit over 15 years old, we will tell you that honestly in the written quote and let you decide.
What does the $75 diagnostic fee actually include, and what warranty comes with the repair?

The $75 covers a full system diagnosis: we pull fault codes from the control board, check electrical and mechanical components relevant to the complaint, and give you a written quote for whatever we find. If you approve the repair the same or next day, that $75 comes off the bill entirely. Parts and labor on repairs carry a 1-year warranty. If you are having a new system installed, that work is backed by a 10-year parts warranty and a 10-year labor warranty.

Need Tempstar service in San Jose?

Tell us what is broken. We will quote it.