Larkspur Air Works · Port Maren, Wicksey & the Oarline coast · Lic. HV-5119
Heat and cool, done the slow way on purpose.
A nine-person shop on the Port Maren wharf that has kept the coast’s houses honest since 1998 — one crew per job from quote to commissioning, Manual J sizing on everything, and a brass-bound folder filed against your address so your system’s whole story lives in one place.
COAST RULE: salt air eats equipment. Every install within two miles of the water gets coated coils, stainless fasteners and a corrosion inspection at each visit — at no extra charge. It is written into the commissioning sheet.
What we do
The two trades of the coast
Heat pumps for salt air
Cold-climate units jacketed for the marine layer, sized by Manual J against the wind your side of the point actually gets. We mount outdoor units on stand-off brackets above the snow line, coat every coil, and commission against the coldest reading in your folder — not the brochure’s.
Boilers & the old radiator houses
Half of Port Maren still heats through cast iron that outlived its second boiler. We keep those systems: balanced loops, properly pumped, setback thermostats that respect thermal mass — and when a boiler finally retires, the replacement is sized to the radiators you actually own.
The spring and fall voyages
Maintenance is two full visits a year, booked around the fishing calendar so your heat is checked before the fleet leaves and your cooling before the tourists arrive. Readings logged, filters changed, corrosion inspected — the folder gets thicker and the surprises get rarer.
The portfolio
Work from the wharf book
How it goes
One job, start to finish
The same sequence on every job — the only variable is your project.
Day one
The call & the questions
Fifteen minutes on the phone rules out the thermostat, the breaker and the float switch one house in nine. If it is a genuine emergency, the truck turns around mid-question.
Day two
The survey
The crew that will do the work measures the house: rooms, windows, the radiators’ output, the ducts’ reality. Nothing is quoted from the driveway.
That evening
The read-out
Numbers on the kitchen table — load calculation, existing-system readings, two priced paths. We leave the folder with you and take no deposit.
The fitting
Install, by the same crew
One crew per job, quote to commissioning. Coated coils, stainless fasteners, the snow-line bracket — and the house never left without heat overnight.
Commissioning
The brass-bound sheet
Refrigerant weighed, combustion logged, every room’s temperature split recorded. The sheet is signed, dated and filed — the folder now knows your system better than any stranger could.
Each season
The voyages
Spring and fall visits append to the file. When something drifts in year nine, the answer is usually on page twelve.
They found the intake duct crushed flat behind a renovation wall — two other shops had replaced equipment on top of that problem. Larkspur fixed the duct, left the old heat pump running, and the house finally dried out.
Our 1908 house has radiators the size of wardrobes. Everyone else wanted to rip them out. Larkspur re-piped, re-balanced and sized the new boiler to the cast iron. It heats like a ship engine room and costs half what it did.
The folder is the product. When the heat pump acted up in year six they opened the file, saw the airflow number drifting since year three, and fixed the cause in one visit. Nobody has to re-learn my house, ever.
Asked at the wharf
Do you charge overtime on winter nights?
No. The day rate is the night rate is the holiday rate — it has been the shop rule since 1998, and the rule exists because a coast that trusts you calls you for twenty years. We would rather own January than bill it.
My house is 100 years old with radiators. Do I have to convert?
No, and we will tell you if you should not. Cast iron radiators hold heat beautifully; what usually fails is the piping strategy around them. We make old systems work like new before we talk about replacing them, and half the time that is the whole job.
What does the coast rule actually add?
Coil coating, stainless hardware and a corrosion check at every visit for any install near the water — included, not upsold. Salt is a maintenance item here the way snow is elsewhere, and pretending otherwise is how systems die at year seven.
One crew per job — why does that matter?
Because the people who measured your house are the people who install and the people who stand behind the commissioning sheet. Nothing is handed to a subcontractor who has never seen your folder, and nothing about your house lives only in someone’s head.
How far up the coast do you travel?
Port Maren, Wicksey and the Oarline communities are home territory. North of the point we travel for installs and take service clients by season — call the wharf and ask; the answer is honest either way.
The wharf answers, day or night.
Emergencies: a person, round the clock. Everything else starts with the form — a real reply from the crew that would do the work, the same business day.