Carrier carries the name of Willis Carrier, credited with inventing modern air conditioning, and the company has built heating and cooling equipment since 1915. In Tiburon, Belvedere and Mill Valley the Carrier systems we service range from Comfort Series air conditioners on modest houses to multi-zone Infinity heat pumps in large hillside and waterfront homes. We are an independent service company, not a Carrier dealer, and we repair, maintain and install all three series.
Infinity, Performance and Comfort
- Infinity Series. The top line. Greenspeed Intelligence pairs a variable-speed compressor with a variable-speed indoor fan, managed by the Infinity system control. These systems spend most of their time at low speed.
- Performance Series. The middle of the range, with multi-stage equipment on many models and a choice of standard or Wi-Fi enabled controls.
- Comfort Series. Single-stage equipment with simple controls, and the quickest of the three to diagnose.
When a Greenspeed system acts up
A variable-speed heat pump rarely just stops. More often it runs at reduced capacity, logs an alert at the Infinity control and keeps going. So we read the control’s service history first, then check the outdoor unit’s inverter drive, its sensors, refrigerant pressures and airflow. The compressor on these systems is driven electronically, so the run capacitor that solves so many single-stage calls is not part of the picture; faults move to electronics and sensors.
Two patterns we see on the peninsula:
- After a power interruption, a communicating system sometimes comes back with a fault that a careful restart and a wiring check clear.
- Outdoor units near the water corrode at the coil and at electrical connections, which affects sensors and the drive board as well as the fins.
Quiet units and close neighbours
Hillside lots put outdoor units close to a neighbour’s deck or bedroom, and many HOAs are strict about noise and placement. A variable-speed Carrier unit is quiet most of the time because it runs slowly. When one gets louder, we look for a worn fan motor, a fan blade out of balance, loose panels, a unit that has settled off level, or refrigerant lines touching a wall. On a new installation we pick the pad location, the mounting and the line routing with the neighbours in mind.
View rooms and afternoon sun
West-facing glass can push a living room well above the rest of the house on a sunny afternoon, while the thermostat in the hall reads normal. A bigger system is rarely the answer. Better options are zoning on an Infinity system, rebalancing the ducts, or a single ductless head in that room. We measure the room before recommending any of them.
Comfort and Performance repairs
On single- and multi-stage Carrier equipment the usual faults are familiar: capacitors and contactors on the outdoor unit, igniters and flame sensors on the furnace, defrost controls on heat pumps, and clogged condensate drains. See heat pump repair and AC repair for how those visits work. Our repairs carry a 90-day warranty; parts follow the manufacturer’s warranty.
Carrier’s sister brands Bryant and Payne share a lot of its engineering. Town pages: Carrier in Tiburon, Belvedere and Mill Valley.