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$89 A/C Tune-Up, book before Sept 30
Polar Express HVAC & Refrigeration

Heating

Book the heating tune-up in October, not in January.

Polar Express provides heating maintenance for homes across the San Antonio metro, with 24/7 emergency dispatch and same-day service on most repair calls. One flat-rate price is approved in writing before work begins, with carbon monoxide and airflow checks and, on gas equipment, combustion, venting, and burner checks. TDLR license TACLA00127982C.

The half of this visit nobody sees is the half that matters most: combustion, draft, the heat exchanger, and a carbon monoxide reading taken while the burners fire.

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  • Licensed TACLA00127982C
  • Since 2023
  • 4.9 Google rating

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October is the month this visit belongs in, and almost nobody books it then. The equipment has been idle since roughly March, the first front is still a rumor on somebody's weather app, and a furnace nobody has touched in seven months looks exactly like a furnace that is fine. The difference between those two things gets measured, not observed. A heating tune-up here is really two visits stacked into one. There is the mechanical half, which keeps the system from quitting on the coldest night of the year, and there is the safety half, which is the entire reason a fuel-burning appliance gets inspected at all. Combustion, draft, the heat exchanger, and a carbon monoxide reading taken with the burners actually running are not extras on an invoice. Polar Express includes a carbon monoxide and combustion safety check on every heating visit, on every brand, and on electric and heat pump systems the equivalent electrical and airflow checks take their place.

What we handle

Heating Maintenance & Safety Checks covers more than one failure.

The complaint that gets called in is rarely the whole job. These are the things a technician is actually looking at on this equipment.

  • Combustion and carbon monoxide testing

    The heart of the visit. Heat exchanger inspection, draft verified at the flue, and a carbon monoxide reading taken in the supply air while the burners run rather than assumed from outside the cabinet.

  • Burners, igniter, and flame sensor

    Burners inspected and cleaned, the flame pattern watched through a full light-off, the flame sensor cleaned, and the igniter checked before it becomes the reason nobody has heat.

  • Gas pressure and temperature rise

    Manifold pressure set to the nameplate and the rise across the heat exchanger measured against the band the manufacturer printed on it. Outside that band a furnace is either starving or cooking itself.

  • Flue, draft, and combustion air

    Venting checked end to end for corrosion, disconnected sections, and blockage, including the wasp or bird nest that a flue standing idle all summer collects more often than people believe.

  • Blower, filter, and airflow

    Blower wheel condition, motor amp draw, filter fit, and the airflow that decides whether the furnace trips its high limit on the first genuinely cold night.

  • Readings you keep on paper

    Every measurement written down, so next October has something real to compare against and a warranty claim has a documented maintenance history sitting behind it.

Signs and causes

What you are seeing, and what usually causes it.

Read these before you call. Knowing which one matches gets the right parts on the truck, and a couple of them are worth acting on in the next ten minutes.

  • Nothing has run since sometime in March

    Seven idle months is long enough for dust to settle across a heat exchanger, for a flame sensor to oxidize, and for something living to move into a flue. None of that announces itself until the first call for heat, which is the worst possible moment to find out.

  • There is no carbon monoxide alarm in the house

    Any home with a gas furnace, a gas water heater, or an attached garage should have working carbon monoxide alarms, and a surprising number do not. We will tell you where they belong during the visit, and they remain the cheapest safety equipment in the building by a wide margin.

  • The furnace is in the attic and nobody goes up there

    Attic equipment is out of sight in a way a hall closet never is, so a disconnected flue section, chewed low-voltage wire, a collapsed duct, and a filter that has been in place for years can all survive up there indefinitely. Somebody has to climb up and actually look.

  • The heat pump has never had a winter check

    A heat pump that gets a spring cooling tune-up and nothing else has an entire second season of operation that nobody has ever verified. Defrost cycles, reversing valve operation, and auxiliary heat staging are winter behaviors and cannot be tested in July.

  • The warranty paperwork asks for annual service

    Manufacturer coverage on heating equipment generally assumes documented yearly maintenance, and a denied claim on a heat exchanger is an expensive way to discover that clause. The visit report is what settles that discussion in your favor.

What it costs

You approve the price before the work starts.

The one published tune-up price on this site is the air conditioning offer, and it is exactly what it says: a cooling visit, on a single residential system, with the terms on its own offer page. A heating tune-up is a different visit with a different task list, so we quote it when you book rather than borrowing a cooling number that does not describe it. It is a defined scope rather than an unknown repair, which means you hear the flat rate before the appointment is on the calendar. Anything the visit uncovers that needs fixing gets quoted and approved separately, and nothing quietly appears at the bottom of a maintenance invoice.

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What moves the number

  • How many heating systems are at the address, since each one is its own inspection
  • Gas, electric, or heat pump, because the three carry genuinely different task lists
  • How many seasons have passed since the last service, and how much cleaning that implies
  • Access to the equipment, including attic clearance, pull-down stairs, and rooftop units
  • Filters or consumables replaced while the technician is already there
  • Whether the visit is booked in the fall or during the first cold week, when the whole city calls at once

How the job runs

What happens between your call and a working system.

  1. Step 1

    Book it in October

    Fall is when a technician has room to be unhurried and when anything found can be scheduled rather than rushed. Waiting for the first front means competing for the same slot with everyone else in the metro who also waited.

  2. Step 2

    Safety inspection before anything else

    The heat exchanger, the venting, the gas connections, and the combustion readings come first, because if something there is wrong the rest of the checklist stops mattering immediately.

  3. Step 3

    Clean, adjust, and then measure

    Burners cleaned, flame sensor polished, blower checked, filter handled, and only then gas pressure, temperature rise, and amp draws recorded, so the numbers on the report describe a serviced system rather than a neglected one.

  4. Step 4

    Say what is coming, in writing

    Anything trending toward failure gets named with a straight estimate of how much winter it likely has left. You decide whether to handle it now or watch it, and the note goes on the report either way.

Questions

Straight answers, before you call.

Still not covered here? The person who answers the phone can usually settle it in a sentence, day or night.

Call (210) 376-0781

October, ahead of the first cold front, is the right window in this city. Heating demand here arrives all at once and lasts a few weeks, so the day the temperature drops is the day every HVAC company in the metro fills its schedule and a failed system waits behind genuine emergencies. A fall visit also means whatever gets found can be corrected on a calendar instead of during a crisis.

It involves firing the system and measuring, not looking at it and signing a sticker. The technician inspects the heat exchanger for cracks and corrosion, confirms the flue is intact and drafting properly, checks combustion air and the gas connections, and takes a carbon monoxide reading while the burners are lit. Every heating visit Polar Express makes includes that check, on repair calls as much as on maintenance.

It needs it more rather than less, which is the part homeowners find counterintuitive. Equipment sitting idle for most of the year develops the problems of disuse: oxidized sensors, seized components, settled dust, corroding flue sections, and nesting where nothing should be nesting. A furnace up north runs enough to reveal its faults gradually, while one here gets asked to be perfect on a single night.

Yes, because half of what a heat pump does cannot be tested during cooling season at all. A fall visit verifies the reversing valve, the defrost control and its sensors, the auxiliary heat staging, and the condition of the outdoor coil heading into the months when frost actually forms on it. A home with a heat pump is the clearest case there is for two visits a year rather than one.

Outside every sleeping area and on every level of the home is the general guidance, including any floor with a fuel-burning appliance on it. Follow the manufacturer instructions for mounting height and distance from fuel-burning equipment, and test the alarms when the clocks change. Replace the units themselves on the schedule printed on the back, because the sensors inside them expire whether or not the alarm still chirps.

Polar Express provides one written flat-rate price for heating maintenance in San Antonio, approved before work begins. The price depends on the number of systems, whether the equipment is gas, electric, or a heat pump, and equipment access. Every visit includes the applicable carbon monoxide and combustion safety check.

Polar Express maintains all major heating equipment brands across San Antonio, including gas furnaces, electric furnaces, air handlers, and heat pumps. The checklist changes with the equipment, but the visit always covers operating condition, airflow, controls, safeties, and a written record of readings. Combustion and carbon monoxide checks are included whenever fuel-burning equipment is present.

Related services

The work that usually comes with this one.

Nearby

We run this service across the San Antonio metro. These are three of the areas we cover, and the full list lives on the service areas page.

One call, day or night.

Licensed, locally owned, and answering the phone around the clock. You get the diagnosis in plain language and the price before the work starts.

Call 24/7 · (210) 376-0781Book Service