We take great pride in our staff here at Purl’s, and right now we’re all very proud of our own Alicia Rodriguez, who graduated from Fresno State this May. Alicia first started working at Purl’s in 2014 in the service department and is now an office assistant who enjoys working directly with our customers and helping them to enjoy the best comfort for their homes. Congratulations, Alicia!
There’s a fun story connected to Alicia’s graduation. When she was driving to the Fresno State campus to walk for the commencement ceremony, her car broke down and she was stranded on the side of the road. But Kurt Davidson, our co-owner, was able to be the unintentional hero that day—he was driving the other direction and recognized Alicia’s car. He put in a call to the office, turned his Purl’s truck around, and gave Alicia a lift to the campus. She made it in time for her graduation. Alicia has seen many Purl’s trucks sent out to help customers throughout the Central Valley, but she’s probably never been happier to see the Purl’s decals on the side of a truck before!
Everybody at Purl’s is thrilled at Alicia’s achievement. (And thanks to Kurt for temporarily making us Purl’s Sheet Metal & Air Conditioning and Roadside Assistance!)
Purl’s Sheet Metal & Air Conditioning: Quality Is the Cornerstone of Our Success Since 1952.
During a hot summer here in the Central Valley, you’ll want your air conditioning system to work at its best. This means reliable, even cooling around the rooms, and utility bills that don’t rise too high. Standard malfunctions can threaten your AC’s performance, but they aren’t the only danger to the well-working of your air conditioning system. Many people don’t realize that poor ductwork is often a serious problem for cooling systems.
Unlike heating and air conditioning systems, there’s no “season” for water heaters. The average water heater does more work during winter, but it still operates almost every day of the year to meet a household’s needs.
The condenser, or condenser unit, is one of the vital parts of a home’s air conditioning system. When HVAC technicians refer to the condenser, they’re talking about the entire outdoor unit of a split system air conditioner, the type most people use for home comfort. The condenser houses the compressor, which places the refrigerant under pressure so it will circulate through the system, condenser coils where heat is released to the outdoors to cool down the refrigerant, and a blower fan to draw air across the condenser coils and then exhaust the heat out of the unit.
If you recently glanced at weather reports from around the country, you’ll have noticed how unpredictable April can be: snowstorms striking Vermont, Minnesota, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Central California never experiences anything so extreme (except up in the mountains), but April is still no time to risk having your heating system fail. So even though the calendar says it’s spring, don’t let that stop you from taking action with your furnace if it’s putting your comfort in jeopardy. 
It’s been raining this week and last week in Fresno, CA. This rainfall is very welcome, since we’ve been going through a drought and rain brings relief for farmers. But there’s a downside—and we don’t mean having an outdoor touch football game being rained out. Spring rains cause the pollen count to rise, and this can be terrible for allergies. Watery eyes, runny nose, sneezing, and all types of allergy irritations occur because there’s too much pollen drifting in the air.
If you look at the home page of our website, you’ll see right under our name at the top of the page is our contractor’s license number: 463756. We have it displayed there because the license is what sets us apart from an amateur contractor. Each state has different requirements for licensing and regulation. Here in California, holding a license means a contractor has the necessary insurance and bonding required locally.
As spring approaches, it’s a great time to give some thought to making an upgrade to your old HVAC system. If your heating and air conditioning system is more than 15 years old, or it has started to require more repairs while running up steeper utility bills, this is probably the year to have the system replaced—and with one that’s more efficient than your old system was even when it was new.
Modern heating systems are normally reliable, year after year, provided they receive a professional installation by licensed HVAC technicians and continue to have annual maintenance. But no system can ever be 100% reliable, and no amount of care can protect a heater from all malfunctions. At some point in your current heater’s service life, you may need to call for