San Jose · Santa Clara County · Since 2009
Furnace dead at 11 p.m.? AC out in a heat wave? We pick up the phone.
Ironclad is a family-owned HVAC and plumbing shop working out of the Rose Garden district. Eleven stocked trucks, fourteen technicians, and a dispatcher who answers live at 3 a.m. You get a flat-rate price in writing before anyone picks up a tool — not an hourly meter running while a stranger decides how much your emergency is worth.
- CSLB Lic. #000000 · bonded · $2M liability
- Two-hour arrival windows, 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
- 10-year workmanship warranty on every install
Call (555) 412-9080 Get a written quote
- Avg. emergency response
- 47 min
- Homes served since 2009
- 11,400+
- Jobs finished same day
- 86%
What backs the work
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Licensed & bonded
CSLB #000000 for C‑20 heating and air, CSLB #000000 for C‑36 plumbing. $2M general liability and full workers’ comp on every technician who sets foot in your house. Ask any contractor for both license numbers — the honest ones hand them over.
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24/7/365 dispatch
Christmas morning, 2 a.m. Tuesday, the Saturday of a heat wave. A person answers, not a machine, and a truck is assigned before you hang up.
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Upfront flat rates
The price you approve is the price you pay, even when the job runs three hours long. No hourly meter, no “while we were in there” surprises on the invoice.
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10-year workmanship
Ten years of labor coverage on every system we install, on top of the manufacturer’s parts warranty. Transferable once if you sell the house — buyers and home inspectors both ask for it.
What we do
Six services, six honest starting prices
Everything below is quoted flat rate after a technician looks at the actual equipment. The numbers here are real starting points for a typical Santa Clara County home, not a bait price that triples once somebody is in your crawlspace.
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From $89 diagnostic
AC repair
Blowing warm, short-cycling, icing over, or tripping the breaker every afternoon. We carry capacitors, contactors, blower motors and R-410A on every truck, so roughly nine out of ten repairs finish on the first visit.
- $89 diagnostic, waived when you approve the repair
- Capacitor or contactor swap: $210–$340 flat
- Refrigerant leak search with electronic sniffer: $185
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From $6,450 installed
AC installation & replacement
A Manual J load calculation before we size anything, because the single most common mistake in this valley is an oversized condenser that short-cycles and never pulls humidity. Permit pulled with the City of San Jose, inspection scheduled by us.
- 14.3 SEER2 single-stage system: $6,450–$8,900
- Two-stage or variable-speed: $9,400–$13,800
- Permit, disposal, pad and line-set flush included
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From $89 diagnostic
Heating & furnace
Ignitor failures, cracked heat exchangers, pilot and flame-sensor faults, and the 20-year-old 80% units still buried in half the attics in Willow Glen. Every no-heat call includes a free combustion and carbon-monoxide check before we leave.
- Ignitor or flame sensor replacement: $215–$385
- Furnace replacement, 96% AFUE: from $4,900
- Free CO test on every heating visit, no exceptions
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From $149 drain cleared
Drain & sewer
Kitchen lines packed with grease, tubs backing up into showers, and the cast-iron and clay laterals under older Rose Garden and Japantown homes. We camera the line before and after so you see exactly what came out and what shape the pipe is in.
- Main line cleared through an accessible cleanout: $149
- Camera inspection with recorded footage: $189
- Hydro-jetting for grease-packed lines: $495–$850
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From $1,850 tank installed
Water heaters
Cold showers, rusty water, or a puddle spreading across the garage slab. We stock 40- and 50-gallon tanks on the truck, so a Tuesday-morning failure is usually a Tuesday-afternoon hot shower. Tankless conversions include the gas-line and venting work most quotes leave out.
- 50-gallon tank, installed and permitted: from $1,850
- Tankless conversion, all gas and venting: from $4,200
- Seismic strapping and new expansion tank included
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From $7,800 whole home
Repiping & leak repair
Pinhole leaks in copper, failing galvanized supply lines, and slab leaks found with acoustic equipment instead of a jackhammer and a guess. Most single-story repipes run four days with water back on every night, and we patch and texture the drywall ourselves.
- Whole-home PEX repipe, single story: from $7,800
- Acoustic slab-leak location: $295, credited to the repair
- Drywall patch, texture and paint-ready finish included
Not listed? We also handle thermostats and smart controls, whole-house fans, duct sealing and replacement, gas-line repair, garbage disposals, pressure regulators, sump pumps and backflow testing. Call (555) 412-9080 and describe it — if it isn’t ours, we’ll tell you who to call.
Where we go
Sixteen communities across Santa Clara County
Trucks stage out of the Rose Garden yard and run north to Mountain View, south to Morgan Hill, and west to Saratoga. If your neighborhood is on this list, you are inside the two-hour arrival window on weekdays.
- Willow Glen 95125
- Almaden Valley 95120
- Cambrian Park 95124
- Rose Garden 95126
- Evergreen 95148
- Berryessa 95132
- Japantown 95112
- Santa Clara 95050
- Sunnyvale 94086
- Cupertino 95014
- Campbell 95008
- Los Gatos 95032
- Saratoga 95070
- Milpitas 95035
- Mountain View 94040
- Morgan Hill 95037
Dispatch yard
1847 Ironwright Avenue, San Jose, CA 95126. Office visits by appointment — the trucks are the business.
Outside the list?
We still take calls from Gilroy, Fremont and Palo Alto. Expect a longer window and a $45 travel charge quoted upfront.
Permits and inspections
We pull permits in San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Cupertino, Campbell, Los Gatos, Saratoga, Milpitas and Morgan Hill.
Straight comparison
What a big franchise does, and what we do instead
Nothing here is a swipe at the technicians — most of them are good people working inside a compensation system that is designed against you. These are the four structural differences that actually change your invoice.
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01
The same technician, every visit
FranchiseA rotating roster of whoever is closest. Nobody remembers that your return duct was rebuilt two years ago, so you re-explain the house every time.
IroncladYour address is assigned to one lead tech. Marcus has covered Almaden since 2014 and knows which tract homes hide the condensate line in the wall.
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02
Technicians are not paid on commission
FranchisePay is tied to a percentage of ticket value, so a $260 repair quietly becomes a $9,000 “you really should replace the whole system” conversation.
IroncladHourly plus a flat bonus tied to callback rate, not ticket size. Fixing it right the first time is the only thing that pays our crew more.
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03
Flat rate quoted before work starts
FranchiseA “good / better / best” tablet presentation, an hourly meter that starts at the curb, and parts marked up somewhere you never see.
IroncladOne written number for the whole job, signed before a tool comes out. If it takes three hours longer than we thought, that is our problem, not your invoice.
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04
Family-owned, not private-equity owned
FranchiseLocal name on the truck, out-of-state roll-up on the paperwork, and quarterly revenue targets set by people who have never been in your attic.
IroncladDana and Ray Okafor started the shop in 2009 with one van. Dana still answers the phone on Saturdays. Complaints reach an owner the same day.
Paying for it
A $9,000 system does not have to be $9,000 today
We finance through a credit union, not a high-interest lease dressed up as a payment plan. Applications take about four minutes on your phone, decisions come back while the technician is still in the driveway, and there is never a prepayment penalty.
| Project total | 24 months0% APR | 60 months6.99% APR | 120 months9.99% APR | Typical job |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| $3,000 | $125.00 | $59.39 | $39.63 | Water heater plus a code-required gas line |
| $6,000 | $250.00 | $118.78 | $79.26 | Furnace replacement with new flue |
| $9,000 | $375.00 | $178.17 | $118.89 | Complete AC and coil replacement |
| $12,000 | $500.00 | $237.56 | $158.52 | Whole-home repipe with drywall finish |
| $18,000 | $750.00 | $356.33 | $237.78 | Full system swap plus duct replacement |
- 0% for 24 months is the promotional tier and requires a 700 FICO or better. Everything else approves down to 620.
- No prepayment penalty on any term. Pay it off in month three and you owe exactly the remaining principal.
- Rebates stack. We file the Santa Clara County and utility rebate paperwork for you — typically $400 to $1,600 on a qualifying heat pump.
- Emergency repairs qualify too. Anything over $900 can be financed, not just replacements.
Start to finish
What actually happens after you call
Five steps, no mystery. The whole point is that you know what the next hour looks like before you agree to anything.
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1
You reach a person
Day or night, a dispatcher in San Jose picks up. They ask four questions, tell you whether this is a tonight problem or a tomorrow problem, and give you a real arrival window.
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2
You get a text with a name and a face
Thirty minutes before arrival you get the technician’s name, photo and truck number. Nobody unfamiliar knocks on your door unannounced.
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3
Diagnosis, then a written flat price
The tech tests the equipment, shows you what failed, and hands you a written number for the whole job. You approve it, or you pay the $89 diagnostic and we leave. No pressure either way.
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4
The repair, usually the same day
Eighty-six percent of our jobs finish on the first visit because the trucks carry the twelve parts that fail most often in this climate. Special orders get a firm date, not a shrug.
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5
Test, clean, document
We verify the fix under load, vacuum the work area, and email photos, the warranty registration and the permit number before the truck leaves your street.
Questions homeowners actually ask
Straight answers, including the ones about money
$89 for a full diagnostic during business hours, and it comes off the invoice the moment you approve the repair. After 7 p.m., on Sundays, or on holidays it is $149. That fee buys a real diagnosis with test readings you get to see, not a five-minute look and a sales pitch. If we cannot tell you what is wrong, you do not pay the fee.
Our average emergency response across Santa Clara County is 47 minutes. Non-emergency calls booked before 2 p.m. are usually same day, and everything else lands in a two-hour window the next morning. The honest exception is the first genuine heat wave of the year: when it hits 100 degrees in San Jose, the board fills by 9 a.m. and true emergencies get priority. We will tell you where you sit in line rather than guess.
The after-hours diagnostic is $149 instead of $89. The repair price itself does not change — a capacitor replacement is the same flat rate at 2 a.m. as at 2 p.m. We do not use a “time and a half” multiplier on labor, because the hour you need help most should not be the hour you get charged the most.
Yes for any equipment replacement, water heater, gas line or repipe, and we pull it — it is included in the quoted price, not a line item added later. We schedule the inspection and meet the inspector ourselves. This matters more than people expect: unpermitted HVAC and water-heater work shows up during escrow and gets expensive fast. You keep the signed permit card and the final inspection record.
Two separate things. Manufacturer parts warranty runs 10 years on equipment we register for you, which we do at install rather than leaving you a card. On top of that, our own workmanship warranty covers our labor for 10 years on installations and 2 years on repairs. If a part we touched fails inside that window, there is no diagnostic fee and no labor charge. The workmanship warranty transfers once to a buyer if you sell the house.
Pre-qualification is a soft pull and does not affect your score. Only the final acceptance triggers a hard inquiry. Terms run 24, 60 or 120 months through a local credit union, and there is no prepayment penalty on any of them. Anything over $900 qualifies, including emergency repairs. See the financing table for what the monthly number looks like at each project size.
Honestly, not for everyone. If your system is under six years old and you change filters, you can skip it. The Ironclad Plan is $19 a month and buys two tune-ups a year, priority dispatch ahead of non-members during heat waves, no after-hours diagnostic fee, and 15% off repairs. It pays for itself on a single emergency call, so it makes the most sense for systems over ten years old or for anyone who does not want to think about this at all. Cancel any time, no term, no cancellation fee.
Free written estimate
Tell us what it’s doing. We’ll tell you what it costs.
Every quote is a fixed number in writing, valid for 30 days. Replacement estimates are always free. Diagnostics on an existing failure are $89, credited back the moment you approve the repair.
- Emergency line
- (555) 412-9080 — 24/7
- Dispatch yard
- 1847 Ironwright Avenue
San Jose, CA 95126 - Office hours
- Mon–Fri 7:00 a.m.–7:00 p.m.
Sat 8:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
Sun: emergency dispatch only - Licenses
- CSLB #000000 (C‑20 HVAC)
CSLB #000000 (C‑36 Plumbing)