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Bay Area winters are mild, but wet. Weeks of rain, cool nights, and homes that stay closed up for months create ideal conditions for indoor moisture problems. You might notice water droplets on your windows in the morning, a damp feeling in the closet, or a musty smell when the heat kicks on.

In the Bay Area, winter doesn’t arrive with snow. It arrives with rain. One week your yard is bone dry, and the next an atmospheric river drops several inches of water in a couple of days. For most homes, that sudden shift is the real test of the season.

Residents of the City of Santa Clara, California, can get up to $10,000 back when they replace an old gas furnace with an electric heat pump. The rebate is offered by Silicon Valley Power (SVP), the city's municipal electric utility.

Search for a cold weather plumbing checklist, and you will get the same list every time: insulate your pipes, disconnect the garden hose, let the faucets drip overnight. It is good advice, and it is written for Chicago. 

Your furnace has been sitting idle since spring. On some October evening, the Bay Area drops into the 40s, you push the thermostat up for the first time in months, and the system pulls air through whatever furnace filter was left in the slot back in May. That first heat cycle is when a neglected filter does the most damage: months of collected dust, pollen, pet hair, and summer wildfire smoke particles sitting directly in front of your blower.

Most people who call us for a furnace tune-up don't know that our name means something.Irbis is the word for snow leopard — the silver-grey cat that lives high in the mountains of Central and South Asia, so rarely seen that the people who study it call it the ghost of the mountains. It's quiet, precise, and built to handle extremes. We picked the name on purpose.

We are excited to announce that IRBIS Air, Plumbing & Electrical is officially launching its new Commercial HVAC division. Building upon our years of trusted residential expertise and an unyielding commitment to excellence, we are now fully equipped to bring top-tier indoor comfort, heating, and cooling solutions to businesses and commercial properties across the region.

A damaged sewer line used to mean one thing: heavy equipment tearing up the yard, driveway, or landscaping to get to the pipe. Trenchless repair changed that, but it's not automatically the right fit for every situation, and homeowners looking into sewer line services are often left wondering what the method actually involves, when it doesn't apply, and how the cost compares to a traditional dig.

If you've searched "electrify my home" and come away with more questions than answers, you're not alone. Whole-home electrification is one of the biggest shifts happening in residential HVAC and plumbing right now, and it's also one of the most misunderstood.