Furnace & heating
AC repair
Ductless mini splits
TraneSeasonal tune-up and full diagnostic on your Carrier, Trane, or Goodman system - readings shown to you before any repair is proposed
Diagnosis first, numbers second - you approve the repair price before a single part goes in.
Get your free estimateFast, Reliable Furnace Repair Across Pasadena
Furnace repair in Pasadena typically runs $150 – $700, and most calls are completed in a single visit. We know the difference between a quick ignitor swap and a heat exchanger that has to be condemned, and we will put that assessment in writing before any work begins. If you’re in Pasadena and your furnace is blowing cold air, short-cycling, or making a sound it has never made before, call (626) 657-5344 and we will get a background-checked technician to your door inside a two-hour window.
Pasadena homes are not like the tract housing in neighboring cities. We work on early 20th-century Craftsman bungalows, Spanish Colonial Revivals, and Tudors every week, and those houses bring their own set of problems: original ductwork sized for gravity coal furnaces, knob-and-tube wiring still feeding 60-amp panels, and lath-and-plaster walls that make a simple repair a preservation decision. Our Furnace Repair team is trained to work around exactly these constraints without tearing up your house or leaving the job half-finished.
Why Dalton Heating & Air Pasadena Is Pasadena’s Preferred Furnace Repair Company
We operate under The Garrison Standard, a written operating code that has governed every job since 2003. The Garrison Code has five non-negotiable rules: arrive inside the stated window, put the price in writing before starting, do the work by the book, leave the site clean, and stand behind the repair for a full year. That last part is not a marketing phrase. It is a written guarantee on every repair, with a free return visit if the work fails within the year. Most companies in Pasadena will not put that in writing.
Our dispatch and scheduling are coordinated from the brand’s Los Angeles office, but our crews are local to Pasadena and know the city’s housing stock and streets well enough to plan for what a repair will actually involve. We service all nine major residential HVAC brands, including Carrier, Trane, Lennox, and Goodman. When you call, a real person answers at (626) 657-5344, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. No voicemail queue, no callback window. You will know who is coming before they arrive, and you will know what the repair costs before a single tool comes off the truck.
Marco Benitez leads our Pasadena service operation. His crew has worked in every corner of the city, from the historic districts around Orange Grove Boulevard to the hillside streets above the Rose Bowl, and they will treat your home the way they would treat their own: drop cloths down, shoe covers on, and a written explanation of what failed and what it costs to fix.
Styles & brands we work with




Heat Pump Repair in Pasadena
Heat Pump Repair in Pasadena usually falls in the $150 – $650 range, depending on whether the failure is in the reversing valve, the compressor, or the refrigerant circuit. Many Pasadena homeowners run heat pumps because the city’s dual demand, hot summers above 100°F and winter nights near freezing, makes a single electric system with a reversing valve a sensible alternative to a separate furnace and air conditioner. When that valve sticks in one position, the system will heat when you want cooling or cool when you need heat, and that is a repair, not a tuning issue.
Reversing valve and defrost sensor work
A stuck reversing valve or a failed defrost sensor is a mid-range repair, typically $250 – $450. The defrost sensor tells the outdoor coil when to melt ice buildup on cold Pasadena nights. If it fails, the coil freezes solid, airflow drops, and the compressor works itself toward an early death. We carry reversing valves and sensors for Trane, Lennox, Carrier, and Goodman systems on our trucks.
Refrigerant circuit repairs
A refrigerant leak in a heat pump is not fixed by topping off the charge, not if you want it to hold. We locate the leak, repair the joint or replace the coil, then pull a proper vacuum and weigh in the exact charge the system calls for. That kind of heat pump repair in Pasadena typically runs $400 – $650, and it is guaranteed in writing for a full year.
Heating Repair in Pasadena
Heating Repair in Pasadena spans everything from a failed thermocouple on a 30-year-old gas furnace to a cracked heat exchanger that requires shutting the unit down for safety. Most repairs land between $150 and $700. Pasadena’s older homes often pair original cast-iron radiators or gravity ducting with a modern retrofit furnace, and that mismatch creates repair needs far beyond what a homeowner in a newer Altadena track house deals with.
Gas valve and ignitor replacement
Ignitor replacement is one of the most common heating repair calls we run in Pasadena, especially on Goodman and Rheem furnaces. A failed ignitor means the furnace tries to light, the gas valve opens briefly, and then the system locks out for safety. Gas valve replacement is less frequent but more involved, and in homes with original 60-amp electrical panels, we often have to confirm the panel can carry the valve and blower motor together before the repair can hold long-term.
Blower motor and capacitor failures
An ECM blower motor that fails on a Pasadena winter night, when temperatures can dip near freezing, is more than an inconvenience. It is a heating emergency if you have children, elderly family, or anyone with a respiratory condition at home. Blower motor repairs in Pasadena run $300 – $700 depending on whether we are replacing a capacitor or the entire motor. We stock common motors for Carrier, Trane, Lennox, and Goodman locally, so we are not waiting on a distributor in downtown LA to ship a part.
Trusted Brands We Service in Pasadena
We are factory-trained on nine major residential HVAC brands: Carrier, Trane, Lennox, Goodman, Rheem, York, Daikin, Bryant, and American Standard. For Pasadena homeowners, that matters, because a technician who only knows one brand will start guessing on the others, and guessing is how you get a misdiagnosis and a third callback. We keep a local parts inventory in Pasadena for the brands we see most, Carrier, Trane, Lennox, and Goodman, so a common ignitor or control board swap is often a same-day fix rather than a next-week fix. If you are in Pasadena, that means less downtime in a cold house.
See the difference
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After
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AfterCommon Furnace Repair Problems We See in Pasadena Homes
- Short-cycling on original ductwork: Pasadena’s Craftsman and Spanish Colonial homes were built before forced-air heating, and the original ducts were often sized for coal-fired gravity systems. A modern high-efficiency furnace forced into those ducts will trip its high-limit switch and short-cycle, which wears out the heat exchanger prematurely.
- 60-amp panel overload: Many of Pasadena’s early 20th-century homes still carry 60-amp electrical panels. A new furnace with an ECM blower motor can push that panel to its limit, especially when the heat pump kicks on at the same time. A repair that should be a blower motor swap becomes a panel-capacity conversation.
- Restricted crawl space access: Spanish Colonial Revival homes in Pasadena often sit on crawl spaces too tight to run a new return duct without opening lath-and-plaster walls. Technicians who do not plan for that access leave the job half-done, and we have been called to finish more than a few of those.
- Knob-and-tube wiring conflicts: When we open a furnace compartment in a Pasadena bungalow, we sometimes find original knob-and-tube wiring still live. It is not safe to run a modern high-efficiency system on that wiring, and a proper furnace repair means addressing the circuit before the furnace itself.
Pricing for Furnace Repair in Pasadena, CA
Most furnace repairs in Pasadena land between $150 and $700, and the price is in writing before we start. There is no range inflation at the door and no “while we are here” upsell. Here is how the numbers break down for the jobs we run most often in this city:
| Repair Type | Typical Cost in Pasadena |
|---|---|
| Furnace Repair (ignitor, control board, gas valve) | $150 – $700 |
| Heat Pump Repair (reversing valve, defrost, capacitor) | $150 – $650 |
| Furnace Tune-Up (inspection, cleaning, safety check) | $80 – $200 |
What affects cost is the part and the access, not the mood of the technician. A simple ignitor swap on a Carrier furnace in a Pasadena ranch house is at the low end. A heat exchanger crack on a Trane in a Bungalow Heaven landmark home that requires working around preservation constraints is at the high end. You will always know the number before we start. Call (626) 657-5344 for a free estimate, and we will give you a fixed written price, not a range we narrow later.
We Also Serve Cities Near Pasadena
Our crews handle furnace repair across Pasadena and the surrounding communities: San Marino, Altadena, San Gabriel, and Alhambra. If you are in one of those cities and your furnace fails on a cold night, the same written pricing and one-year guarantee apply. Call (626) 657-5344 and we will route a technician to you with the same discipline we bring to every Pasadena job.
Serving Pasadena, CA - Our Local Coverage Area
We’re based in the Pasadena area and know this community well. Use the map below to see our service coverage - if you’re nearby, we can almost certainly help.
FAQs About Furnace Repair in Pasadena
Because the furnace is not the problem. Many of Pasadena’s older homes, especially in the Bungalow Heaven and Madison Heights districts, still run on original 60-amp panels. That was enough for a 1950s standing pilot furnace, but a modern unit with an ECM blower motor and a heat pump will pull more than the panel can give, and the breaker will trip the moment both start. A panel upgrade is the fix, and it has to happen before any furnace repair can hold long-term. Call (626) 657-5344 and we will explain what your panel actually needs before you spend a dollar on the furnace.
Yes. Bungalow Heaven’s landmark rules require exterior equipment to be hidden from street view, and we have done this many times: condenser tucked behind a period fence, slim-duct mini-splits inside original wall cavities, and no visible linesets running across a facade. The work has to be planned around the board’s conditions from the start, not engineered on the fly. We will tell you what is possible in your specific house before you file anything.
Because the ductwork was never rebalanced for a modern furnace. The original ducts in a 1920s Craftsman were sized for a coal gravity system that moved air slowly and evenly through oversized grates. A modern high-efficiency furnace moves air fast and hard, and the farthest bedroom loses. A like-for-like swap keeps the same bad layout. The answer is a manual damper adjustment, and sometimes a duct resizing, and that has to be done with the original floor plan in mind. We do that work in Pasadena every week.
Only when the evaporator coil was installed in a closet or furr-down that is now behind original plaster, and yes, that is common in Spanish Colonial homes in Pasadena. The coil sits above the furnace in a chase that was sealed up decades ago, and there is no crawl space access. A technician who does not plan for that will choke on the job. We plan for it: we cut a clean access panel, do the coil repair, and leave you with a finished patch, not a hole.
Ask whether the new blower motor is matched to the outdoor unit’s SEER2 rating. A variable-speed ECM motor needs a matching control board and a duct system that can handle the airflow. In a Pasadena house with old ducts, dropping a high-efficiency ECM motor into a system that is not rated for it just creates static pressure problems and early motor failure. We will be honest with you: if the motor is not the right match, we will tell you why and give you a written quote for the correct one. Call (626) 657-5344 to talk it through, no charge for the call.
If your furnace is down in Pasadena and you need it back up without a story, call (626) 657-5344. We answer live, we show up inside the window, and the price is in writing before any work starts. That is The Garrison Standard, and it applies to every repair we do in this city.
Written by Marco Benitez, Owner at Dalton Heating & Air Pasadena, serving Pasadena and the San Gabriel Valley.