Berkeley HVAC Services: 

Repair, Installation & Maintenance

When the AC quits during a September heat wave or the furnace won't light on a cold morning, you want an HVAC contractor who's already close. Hassler has served Berkeley since 1999 from a shop five miles up the road in El Cerrito, and we answer the phone 24 hours a day. Over those years, 700+ East Bay homeowners have rated us 4.9 stars on Google.

Whether the system died an hour ago or you've been putting off a replacement since last winter, the next step is the same — tell us what's happening and we'll tell you what it takes to fix it.

If it's urgent, call now. We answer around the clock, including weekends and holidays.

If you're planning rather than panicking, estimates on new systems are free and come with no obligation. We'll look at the house, work out what it actually needs, and tell you which rebates you qualify for before you spend anything.

Need HVAC Services in Berkeley? Call (510) 288-5563 or book online.

We Know Berkeley Homes 

Most of Berkeley was built before 1940, and it shows the moment you open a wall: Craftsman bungalows and brown shingles that never had ductwork, Victorians still running gravity furnaces. Add a climate that splits the city in half — hillside homes sitting in fog that barely need cooling, flatland houses two miles west that bake on the same afternoon — and heating and cooling a Berkeley home takes more than swapping one HVAC unit for another. 

Before we quote anything, we look at where the ducts run and what load the building actually carries, because the right system for a North Berkeley brown shingle is rarely the right one for a flatland bungalow. It's also why ductless and zoned systems come up so often here, since they’re usually the only sensible route in a house that never had ductwork.

HVAC Services We Provide in Berkeley

Hassler Heating & Air Conditioning covers heating, cooling, water heating and the ductwork in between. Whether it's one failed part or a full gas-to-electric conversion, it's the same phone number.

• AC repair and installation. Cooling that only runs a few weeks a year fails in ways daily-use equipment doesn't — seized parts, slow refrigerant leaks, a capacitor that gave up months ago. We diagnose before quoting and tell you honestly when a sixteen-year-old system isn't worth another fix. When it isn't, we size the replacement to your house rather than its square footage.
• Furnace and heater repair. Heating is most of what we do in Berkeley — the season runs October to May. And in the hills, it barely stops. We work on modern equipment and on the gravity furnaces, wall heaters and floor furnaces still running in older, pre-war homes.
• Heat pump installation. Berkeley's mild winters and moderate summers make it close to an ideal heat pump climate. One system heats and cools, replaces a gas furnace, and qualifies for rebates that a basic furnace swap doesn't.
• Ductless mini-splits. A lot of Berkeley houses never had ducts and have no sensible way to add them. A mini-split needs a three-inch penetration instead of a duct chase, and each indoor head controls its own room.
• Maintenance. Marine air is harder on outdoor equipment here than inland — salt corrodes coils and fins faster than most homeowners expect. Scheduled service catches it before it becomes a repair.
• Water heaters. We install and replace tank, tankless and heat pump water heaters. If yours is past ten years old, replacing it on your schedule costs considerably less than replacing it on its own.
• Ductwork and air quality. Leaky ducts running through a Berkeley crawlspace can waste a third of the heated or cooled air your system produces. We handle sealing, cleaning, and filtration alongside the equipment.

Heating or Cooling Emergency? We're Here 24/7 

It's eleven at night in January and the house is getting colder by the hour. Or it's the third day of a September heat wave and the air conditioning has quit. What you need right then is a person on the phone, not a voicemail box and a callback window.

We answer 24 hours a day, every day of the year — weekends, holidays, the middle of the night. Our shop is in El Cerrito, five miles from Berkeley, so when we say we're on the way, we're not crossing an entire county to get to you.

Some failures genuinely can't wait: 

• A house that won't hold heat with an infant, an elderly parent or someone unwell inside. 
• A system tripping its breaker over and over. 
• Anything that smells like burning, or water coming through a ceiling from a blocked condensate line. 

If that's the situation you’re dealing with, stop reading and call.

If you're not sure whether yours counts as an emergency, call and describe what it's doing. We'd rather talk you through something harmless over the phone than have you sit up all night wondering.

Whether the system died an hour ago or you've been putting off a replacement since last winter, the next step is the same — tell us what's happening and we'll tell you what it takes to fix it.

If it's urgent, call now. We answer around the clock, including weekends and holidays.

If you're planning rather than panicking, estimates on new systems are free and come with no obligation. We'll look at the house, work out what it actually needs, and tell you which rebates you qualify for before you spend anything.

Have a heating or cooling emergency? Call (510) 288-5563 — any hour, any day.

What Happens When You Call

No surprise numbers and no pressure at the door. Here's how a Berkeley service call actually runs.

• Day or night, someone picks up and takes the details — what the system is doing, how long it's been doing it, and whether anyone in the house is vulnerable to the temperature. That last question tells us whether you need someone tonight.
• We diagnose before we quote. The technician tests the system rather than eyeballing it, finds the actual fault, and shows you the failed part instead of describing it. You'll know what's wrong and what it will cost before any work starts, and nothing happens until you approve it.
• We'll also tell you when the answer is no. If a repair doesn't make sense against the age and condition of the equipment, we'll say so. A $900 repair on a system that'll need another one next summer isn't worth your money, and we'd rather lose the job than take it. We work on equipment regardless of who installed it, including systems from contractors who've since gone out of business.

Why Berkeley Homeowners Choose Hassler

We've been working on Berkeley homes since 1999. Here's what keeps your neighbors calling us back.

• Rated 4.9 stars across 700+ Google reviews. We’ve spent twenty-five years helping East Bay homeowners, and we'd rather you read what they said than take our word for it. Read our reviews.
• We're five miles away. Our shop is in El Cerrito — not Pleasant Hill, not Dublin, not Concord. Most Berkeley addresses are a ten-minute drive. When a system fails on a Sunday night, the distance between you and your contractor becomes an important factor.
• Pre-war houses are our normal, not our exception. Most of Berkeley predates 1940, and those homes don't behave like new construction. We're used to gravity furnaces, wall heaters in houses that never had central heat, plaster walls with nowhere to run a duct, and crawlspaces you can't stand up in. Whatever yours is doing, there's a good chance we've seen it before.
• We work on the whole house, not just the equipment. Most HVAC contractors just sell and install equipment. We also do energy assessments, attic and floor insulation, air sealing and duct repair — because a new system in a leaky house underperforms, and you pay for that every month for fifteen years. If the real problem is the envelope rather than the furnace, we'd rather tell you that than sell you a bigger furnace.
• We've saved customers over $5 million in energy rebates since 2015. Incentive programs are genuinely difficult to navigate, and most contractors hand you a leaflet. We work out what you actually qualify for across state, regional, and federal programs and walk you through claiming it.
• Electrification is what we're known for. Heat pumps, heat pump water heaters, and gas-to-electric conversions done properly rather than as an afterthought. If you're electrifying — or you're selling and need to satisfy Berkeley's BESO requirement — this is the core of our work, not a sideline.
• Credentials that mean something. We are Diamond Certified, which requires an independently surveyed customer satisfaction rating. Our technicians are NATE-certified, we're a Carrier Factory Authorized Dealer, and we're enrolled in TECH Clean California. Nextdoor neighbors voted us a 2023 Neighborhood Favorite.
• Free estimates, weekend appointments, and financing. No charge to quote a replacement. We schedule Saturdays and Sundays because most people can't take a weekday off to wait for a contractor. Financing is available so a failed system doesn't have to come out of savings all at once, and we run seasonal offers on tune-ups, replacements and duct cleaning.

Berkeley HVAC: Common Questions

Do you offer emergency HVAC service in Berkeley?

Yes. We take calls 24 hours a day, every day of the year, including weekends and holidays. If you have no heat in winter or no cooling during a heat wave and anyone in the house is vulnerable to the temperature, say so when you call. We treat those as emergencies.

Do you work on systems you didn't install?

Yes, including equipment from contractors who've since gone out of business. We service and repair all major residential heating and cooling systems regardless of who put them in.

Are you licensed?

Yes — California contractor's license #770180. Our technicians are NATE-certified, and we're Diamond Certified, which requires an independently surveyed customer satisfaction rating rather than a paid listing.

Do I actually need air conditioning in Berkeley?

Plenty of Berkeley homes get by without it, particularly up in the hills where fog keeps summer temperatures down. The flats are a different question, and heat waves have been getting harder to ignore. If you're replacing a furnace anyway, a heat pump gives you cooling as part of the same system, which costs less than adding air conditioning separately later.

My upstairs is hot and my downstairs is cold. Can that be fixed?

Usually, yes. In Berkeley's two-story homes this is more often a ductwork or zoning problem than an equipment problem — one thermostat trying to serve two floors with very different loads. Zoned systems and ductless mini-splits both solve it, and sometimes sealing the existing ducts gets most of the way there.

My house has no ductwork. What are my options?

Ductless mini-splits, in almost every case. They need a three-inch penetration rather than a duct chase, so you're not tearing into original plaster, and each indoor head controls its own room. Common in North Berkeley and Elmwood for exactly that reason.

Will a heat pump keep my house warm through a Berkeley winter?

Comfortably. Berkeley rarely drops below freezing, and modern heat pumps are rated to produce heat well below that. This is one of the better heat pump climates in the country — mild enough that the system never has to work hard, which is also why they run so efficiently here.

Should I repair my system or replace it?

Rough guide: if the system is past twelve years old and the repair quote is more than about a third of replacement cost, replacing usually wins. Systems still running R-22 refrigerant are a clearer call, since that refrigerant has been phased out. We'll give you the honest answer on your specific equipment rather than defaulting to the bigger job.

Do I need a permit to replace my furnace or air conditioner?

Yes. Replacing heating or cooling equipment in Berkeley requires a permit and the work has to meet current code. We handle the permit as part of the job — worth checking that whoever you hire does the same, because unpermitted work tends to surface later when you sell.

Can rebates be combined?

Usually, yes — state, regional and federal programs generally stack. What you qualify for depends on the equipment and your household. We work that out before you commit to anything.

I'm selling my Berkeley home. What does BESO require?

Since January 2026, selling a single-family home or duplex in Berkeley means getting a Home Energy Score before you list, then either completing upgrades worth six resilience credits, qualifying for a heat pump exemption, or deferring the work to your buyer with a deposit held by the city. A heat pump HVAC system or heat pump water heater earns all six credits on its own.

Book HVAC Service in Berkeley

Whether the system died an hour ago or you've been putting off a replacement since last winter, the next step is the same — tell us what's happening and we'll tell you what it takes to fix it.

If it's urgent, call now. We answer around the clock, including weekends and holidays.

If you're planning rather than panicking, estimates on new systems are free and come with no obligation. We'll look at the house, work out what it actually needs, and tell you which rebates you qualify for before you spend anything.

At Hassler Heating and Air Conditioning, someone answers the phone 24 hours a day, every day of the year. Call (510) 288-5563 to speak to a person now, or book online.