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Maintenance · InspectionsHVAC Inspection for Home Buyers & Sellers
An HVAC inspection is a written condition report on the equipment a house is being sold with — furnace, air conditioner, water heater and venting — done by a licensed gas technician with a combustion analyzer, not by eye. It answers the question a home inspection usually leaves open: how many years are left, and what will it cost.
A general home inspection and an HVAC inspection are not the same document. A home inspector confirms the furnace produces heat and the air conditioner produces cold air, and is normally limited by their standards of practice from dismantling equipment. They do not open the burner compartment, do not put an analyzer in the flue, and cannot verify a refrigerant charge — and no one can safely run a residential air conditioner for a proper test when it is below roughly 15°C outside, which rules out testing the AC on most spring and fall closings. That gap is exactly what we fill.
What you get is a plain-language report per appliance: age from the serial number date code rather than the sticker somebody wrote on, a combustion test with carbon monoxide and flue readings, a heat exchanger inspection, temperature rise across the furnace, static pressure, condensate handling, venting condition and clearances, and — when the weather allows — superheat and subcooling on the cooling side. Each item is marked as serviceable now, needs attention, or at end of life, with a realistic remaining-life estimate. HVAC inspection before selling your home covers the seller's side of the same visit.
The finding that changes the most deals is the water heater, and it is rarely a mechanical one. A large share of the tanks in Halton and Hamilton are rental units on a contract that transfers with the house, and buyers discover on closing that they have inherited monthly payments — rental fees of $90–$150 a quarter add up to several times the purchase price over a tank's life. We identify the tank, its age and whether it looks like rental equipment, and selling a house with a rented water heater explains the paperwork. If the answer is to own it outright, that is our water heater rental buyout page.
Older Hamilton and Burlington housing has its own recurring findings: a furnace and water heater sharing an oversized masonry chimney, a mid-efficiency unit with a metal flue that is at the end of its life, or knob-era wiring feeding a modern condenser. We note them without dramatics and without quoting a replacement in the same breath — the report is the product. A serial-number date plus a heat exchanger inspection gives a far better read on remaining life than the age written on a listing sheet. Book an inspection around your condition date.
An inspection is worth booking when
- You have an accepted offer and a condition period, and the listing does not state equipment ages
- You are listing a home and want surprises found before a buyer's inspector finds them
- The furnace or air conditioner looks original to a house that is fifteen or more years old
- The water heater may be a rental and nobody can produce the contract
- You are buying an investment property and need a maintenance and replacement budget
How it works
Tell us the address, the closing or condition deadline, and what you already know about the equipment. The deadline drives the booking, because a finding that lands after the condition period has closed is worth nothing in a negotiation.
Serial-number dating, combustion analysis, heat exchanger inspection, temperature rise, static pressure, venting and clearances, water heater condition and age, and cooling-side readings if the outdoor temperature allows.
Each appliance graded serviceable, attention needed, or end of life, with remaining-life estimates and what any recommended work involves. No pressure to have us do any of it.
Common questions
How is this different from my home inspection?
A home inspection covers the whole house at a screening level; this covers the mechanical systems at a technician level. The practical differences are the combustion analyzer, the heat exchanger inspection, serial-number dating and the refrigerant readings — none of which a general inspection includes.
Can you test the air conditioner in April?
Not properly. Running a residential air conditioner below roughly 15°C outdoors gives meaningless pressure readings and risks liquid returning to the compressor. We inspect the condenser, coil, line set, electrical and age, note the limitation clearly in the report, and offer to return once it warms up.
Is an inspection the same as a tune-up?
No, though they overlap. A furnace tune-up at $120–$250 — the visit bundled into our maintenance plans — is maintenance: cleaning, adjusting and servicing an appliance you own. An inspection is documentation: measure, record and grade, with no cleaning included, because the point is an accurate picture of the equipment as it stands.
Will insurers or lenders accept the report?
Insurers commonly ask about heating system age, type and last service when writing or renewing a policy on an older home, and a dated technician's report is a useful thing to have on file. Furnace inspection and home insurance covers what they typically ask for; we would not promise what any individual insurer will accept.
What if the inspection finds something serious?
You get it in writing with the readings behind it, which is what makes it usable in a negotiation. If a heat exchanger is cracked or a vent is unsafe, we will say so directly and explain the risk — and if the house is not yours yet, there is nothing to sell you, which is rather the point.