An HVAC maintenance plan, also sold as a service plan or a planned maintenance agreement, replaces “call when it breaks” with visits on a calendar. For homes in Menlo Park, Atherton and Portola Valley, that means a cooling tune-up before the warm months and a heating tune-up before the first cold nights, plus priority service in between. Whether a plan beats paying per visit depends on exactly what it includes, so this page lists what ours covers and what to check in any plan you compare.
What our plan includes
- Spring AC tune-up, before systems that sat idle all winter start running long afternoons. The AC tune-up page describes the visit.
- Fall heating tune-up for the furnace or heat pump, before heating season. See furnace tune-up.
- Filter schedule review: how often your filter really needs changing, based on its type and on your house.
- Priority scheduling, including priority emergency service when an urgent no-heat or no-cooling call comes in.
- Discounts on repairs, with the discount terms documented in the plan.
- Emergency-rate terms disclosed up front, so an after-hours call holds no surprises.
- Transferable to new owners if you sell the house.
Repairs themselves are not part of the yearly price. They are diagnosed and quoted separately, at the plan discount, and you approve them before work starts.
Plan or pay per visit?
A plan makes the most sense when:
- you would book a spring and a fall visit anyway;
- one system handles both heating and cooling, such as a heat pump that works in every season;
- the house has two or more systems, where a schedule keeps any one of them from being skipped;
- you want to be near the front of the line during the first hot or cold week, when calls pile up.
Paying per visit can make more sense for a newer system you use lightly, or if you only run the air conditioning on a handful of days and want a single heating visit a year. If that describes your house, say so; there is no point paying for visits you won’t use.
What the tune-ups are looking for
Planned maintenance is about catching parts on their way out. The visits look for weak capacitors, low refrigerant charge, dirty coils, drain issues and airflow limits, the usual causes of a breakdown on the first hot afternoon or the first cold morning of the season. Each visit leaves a dated record. Keep them: they help with warranty questions, with future diagnostics and with deciding what to do about an aging system. Our warranty page covers what to keep alongside them.
Local factors that change the schedule
- Foothill pollen and dust. In Portola Valley and Ladera, wooded lots and dry, windy afternoons load filters and outdoor coils faster. The filter schedule review often shortens the change interval there.
- Smoke days. After a stretch of wildfire smoke, a filter can load up in days rather than months. Check it once the air clears instead of waiting for the next scheduled visit.
- Older ducts in attics and crawlspaces. In older Menlo Park houses, an airflow limit found at a tune-up often traces back to the ducts rather than the equipment. That becomes a separate duct repair conversation, priced on its own.
- Large homes with zones. In Atherton, a house with two or three systems needs each one listed on the plan. On a zoned system, mention any zone that has felt off so it gets attention during the visit.
Questions to ask before buying any HVAC service plan
Plans vary a great deal under similar names. Before you sign one, from us or anyone else, get answers to these:
- Which tasks and measurements does each visit include, and what is excluded?
- Which equipment is covered? Each system should be listed by type.
- How does the repair discount work, and what does it apply to?
- What does priority scheduling mean in practice when the schedule is full?
- How are emergency and after-hours calls charged for members?
- How does renewal work, and how do you cancel?
- Can the plan move to a new owner if you sell?
Price
Our plan runs $199 to $399 per year. Where yours falls depends on the equipment the plan covers and access to it, and the price is confirmed in writing before you sign up. To set one up, have each system’s type, approximate age, brand and model number ready, along with any recent repair history. For Menlo Park specifics, see the Menlo Park maintenance page. If something fails before your first visit, emergency heating repair and emergency AC repair take urgent calls 24/7.