HVAC Repair & Installation in Santa Fe, NM
HVAC at 7,200 feet is a sizing and combustion problem, not a catalog page. Gas furnaces need high-altitude setup; refrigerated AC is undersized all summer if someone used a sea-level Manual J. Evaporative coolers still make sense in the dry months and fail in June if they sat dry. Lobo Tech services and installs heating and cooling for Santa Fe and the northern towns we actually drive. 505-316-4231.
HVAC at 7,200 feet is a sizing and combustion problem, not a catalog page. Gas furnaces need high-altitude setup; refrigerated AC is undersized all summer if someone used a sea-level Manual J. Evaporative coolers still make sense in the dry months and fail in June if they sat dry. Lobo Tech services and installs heating and cooling for Santa Fe and the northern towns we actually drive. 505-316-4231.
Content reviewed 2026-10-01.
Why the last installer’s “it’s a 3-ton” may be wrong
Thinner air moves heat differently. A unit that barely held 95°F in Albuquerque will short-cycle or never catch up on a west-facing adobe with too little glass shade. We look at the house, not only the old data plate.
One company for heat and water
A lot of our HVAC calls start as “no heat” and end as a dead boiler or a heater closet that also leaked. We carry both trades so you are not splitting a mechanical room between two vans.
Santa Fe is not a Houston cooling problem
The load here is altitude, sun, and a dry heat, plus a real winter. A lot of houses still cool with evaporative coolers and heat with gas. Refrigerated air is common in newer builds and in remodels that sealed the house enough for a cooler to stop working. We do not walk into a 1970s house with a working swamp cooler and open with a 4-ton condenser. We ask what is actually failing: the cooler pads, the furnace, the refrigerant system, or the fact that the duct was never designed for the addition.
Ducts in adobe do not behave like a tract home
Chases are odd. Returns are missing. A bedroom over a garage has no path for air except a door that people close. We measure temperature where you sleep, not only at the air handler. Adding a ton of cooling to a system that cannot move the air just makes a cold coil and a warm bedroom. Duct repair, a return, or a ductless head in the bad room is often the job. We will say which one after we have stood in the room, not from the model number on the condenser.
Combustion air and the closet full of storage
Furnaces and atmospheric water heaters in a mechanical closet need air. People store boxes in that air. The appliance soots, the heat exchanger suffers, and someone calls it “an old furnace.” We move the boxes out of the conversation and we test. If the closet was built without a combustion-air path, that is a repair. At 7,200 feet a dirty burner is also an elevation problem. We set the appliance. We do not sell a new furnace because the filter was sucked into the blower.
One trade, two licenses worth of honesty
The same shop does the plumbing and the heating. That matters when the boiler, the water heater, and the furnace share a gas line and a vent. We will not add an appliance onto a vent that is already at its limit. We will not ignore a dripping T&P because you called us for the AC. If we see it, it goes in the notes. You can tell us to leave it. We will not pretend we did not see it.
What this page is
This is the HVAC page for the work we do from Santa Fe. It is not a city-swapped copy of the plumbing essay. If you need a furnace diagnosis, the furnace page is the longer version of that job. If you need a cooler or a refrigerated repair, start here or on the AC repair page and tell us which machine is on the house. Call 505-316-4231. CID 384927.
The first visit on a mixed system
A lot of Santa Fe houses have a cooler, a furnace, and a window unit someone added in July, or a boiler and no cooling at all. We identify what is supposed to condition the room you care about. We do not quote a heat pump for a furnace that needs a flame sensor. We run the equipment that is safe to run. If the furnace soots, we stop and we talk about combustion before we talk about filters. If the cooler pump is dead, that is a pump, a spider, or a pad, and it is a same-day kind of part more often than a condenser is.
Duct, charge, and the room
We stand in the room that is wrong. Supply temperature and return temperature tell us whether the machine is making the right air. A room that gets no air is a duct or a damper even when the machine is perfect. We will not sell equipment into a duct system we have not at least looked at. Static pressure is the grown-up version of “the airflow seems weak.” If we measure it, you get the number. If we cannot measure it because there is no port and no safe place to drill one, we say that too.
What we leave written down
Model if we can read it, what failed, what we did, what we refused to do, and the next step with a price if there is one. CO readings if we ran a combustion appliance. Filter size so you do not buy the wrong one and bypass the rack. The phone number on the sticker is 505-316-4231. If a different trade has to move a wall or a panel before we can finish, that is in the note so you are not waiting on us for an electrician’s scope.
Houses with both trades in one closet
The water heater and the furnace share a room more often than not. A leaking heater pan rusts a furnace cabinet. A furnace that backdrafts can spill at the water heater too. We look at both when we are in the closet even if you called for one. You will hear about the other if it is unsafe. You will not get a surprise second invoice for a glance. A real second repair is a separate price you approve.
Which system you have, and what we will not mix up
Furnace with metal flue. Condensing furnace with PVC and a drain. Boiler with baseboard or radiant. Evaporative cooler on the roof or in a window pad. Refrigerated split system. Mini-split. Wall heater. Those are different calls, and the HVAC page is the front door, not a promise that one machine does all of it. Tell us which box is making the noise or failing to. If you do not know, a photo of the indoor equipment and the outdoor equipment is enough. We will not arrive to tune a cooler with a refrigerant gauge set, and we will not quote a 5-ton condenser because the swamp cooler struggled on a 98-degree day. Altitude, adobe, and hard water show up in specific ways: rich burners, odd chases, cooler spiders full of scale. We deal with the one in front of us. Maintenance, repair, and installation are separate pages because they are separate decisions. You can start here. If the job is clearly a furnace exchanger or an AC leak, we will say so and the price will match that job, not a generic HVAC fee. 505-316-4231. CID 384927. The shop is in Santa Fe and the drive to Los Alamos or Española is a real drive, so “how soon” depends on who is already on a roof.
Photos that keep the first trip useful
The indoor nameplate, the outdoor unit if there is one, the thermostat, and the thing that is wrong: ice, water, a dark burner, a cooler that smells. Four photos beat a paragraph. If the house has both a cooler and a furnace, photograph both so we do not prepare for only one. If a CO alarm went off, say that first and air the house out. We will still come. We will not reset the furnace and leave because the alarm is quiet now. Quiet after you opened the windows is not a repair.
What we actually get called for
Not a generic list — these are the failures this climate and housing stock produce.
Furnace that cannot keep up in January
Undersized, dirty, or wrong orifices. We test.
AC that ices in July
Airflow or charge — not always “needs freon.”
Swamp cooler leaking into the closet
Pan, float, or a line that froze and split in April.
Ducts you can feel in the crawl
Leaks that waste heat you already paid to make.
How a job runs
Diagnose the comfort complaint
Room by room, not just the thermostat.
Repair or propose a system
We will not replace a $180 capacitor with a $12,000 furnace unless the furnace is done.
Commission at altitude
Combustion, static, and a thermostat that matches the equipment.
Questions people ask before they call
Do I still need an evaporative cooler?
Many houses keep one for June–August dry heat and use a smaller AC for monsoon humidity. We will not shame a cooler that works. We will fix the leak.
Can you service all brands?
Common residential brands, yes. Orphan commercial rooftops may need a factory tech — we say so.
Do you install heat pumps at this elevation?
Cold-climate heat pumps can work with a real backup plan for single-digit weeks. We will not sell a mild-climate unit and wish you luck.
City pages that stay
HVAC Services stays on this URL. Santa Fe, Los Alamos, and Española each have one plumber page. Other towns 308 here or to those three. Call 505-316-4231.
Need hvac services?
Lobo Tech · NM license 384927 · 1259 Coriander Rd, Santa Fe · 505-316-4231