Family-Owned Since 1969 · NATE-Certified
If some rooms never get comfortable and your energy bill keeps climbing, the problem usually isn’t your air conditioner. It’s the ductwork and the envelope around it. ENERGY STAR estimates a typical home loses 20 to 30 percent of the air moving through its ducts to leaks, holes, and bad connections. Wally Falke’s finds where your home is wasting energy and fixes it at the source, with duct repair, duct replacement, insulation, and air sealing backed by our Triple Trust Guarantee. Proudly serving Turlock, Modesto, Merced, Manteca, and the surrounding areas.
Leaky ducts and thin insulation usually show up as rooms that never match the thermostat, dust that comes back fast, and a bill that creeps up while your system runs longer and longer. If any of these sound familiar, your home is probably losing conditioned air before it ever reaches you:
We start by finding where the loss is happening, then fix it at the source instead of oversizing a new system to fight a leak. Here’s what we do:
Our technicians also provide air duct cleaning, heat pump installation, smart thermostat installation, and other energy-saving services.
Every home is different, so we quote ductwork and insulation per home after we’ve seen it, and we give you one up-front number with no bait-and-switch. The cost depends on what the assessment finds: a handful of sealed joints and a few reconnected runs is a small job, while a full duct replacement sized and routed for a two-story home is a larger one. Attic insulation is priced by square footage and how much R-value you need to add. Blower-door and duct-leakage testing is a defined-scope service we can quote on its own or roll into a larger project.
We start with a free in-home assessment so you know exactly what’s driving the cost before you decide anything. And because we’re the only Central Valley contractor to back our work with the Triple Trust Guarantee on parts, labor, and workmanship, the quote you approve is the work you get.
Rebates & incentives note: California offers utility and state incentives for duct sealing and insulation through programs like PG&E and Energy Upgrade California. Programs and eligibility change, so we’ll tell you which ones your project may qualify for at the time of your assessment rather than promise a specific dollar amount.
The industry's highest standard for technical training, so the work is done right the first time.
We hold both HVAC (C20) and electrical (C10) classifications to take care of ductwork, insulation, and electrical work.
California's Title 24 energy code requires duct-leakage testing on system changeouts and major duct work. We do the diagnostic testing and get it verified,
Three generations serving the Valley, with a 4.9-star rating from 1,400+ reviews.
Central Valley homes lose energy in ways a generic checklist misses. A lot of the housing stock in Modesto, Turlock, Ceres, and the surrounding towns was built between the 1960s and 1990s, and much of it still runs on its original ductwork: undersized, taped instead of sealed, and routed through attics that can hit 130 degrees and higher during the summer. When ducts leak up there, you’re cooling the attic and pulling that superheated air back into the system. In winter, the same leaks bleed the heat you’re paying for out through the roofline on cold, foggy Valley mornings. Add the ag dust that works its way into everything here, and older duct systems degrade faster than the equipment they feed.
Wally Falke’s has worked on these homes from our Turlock shop since 1969, so we know where to look. From Turlock we handle ductwork, insulation, and energy work across Modesto, Turlock, Merced, Manteca, Ceres, Oakdale, Ripon, Riverbank, Patterson, and Los Banos.
The usual signs are rooms that never reach the set temperature, hot and cold spots from room to room, dust that keeps coming back, weak airflow at the far registers, and an energy bill that climbs while the system runs longer. If you can see the ducts in your attic or crawlspace, look for torn insulation, crushed runs, and joints held together with old tape. A blower-door and duct-leakage test measures exactly how much is escaping so you’re not guessing.
It can make a real difference. ENERGY STAR estimates a typical home loses 20 to 30 percent of the air moving through its ducts to leaks and poor connections, and sealing recovers much of that. ENERGY STAR puts the savings from air sealing and adding insulation at around 15 percent of heating and cooling costs for the average home. Your result depends on how leaky the system was to start.
In most cases, yes. California’s Title 24 energy code requires HERS-verified duct-leakage testing when you install a new or replacement ducted system, or make major changes to the ductwork. New duct systems generally have to test at 5 percent leakage or less, and altered existing systems have to be brought down to about 10 percent. We handle the diagnostic testing and the verification as part of the job.
It depends on the shape and design of what you have. If the runs are sound and correctly sized, we seal the leaks and reconnect what’s come loose, which is the faster, less expensive fix. If the ductwork is undersized, badly routed, crushed, or too deteriorated to hold a seal (common in homes 30-plus years old), replacement is the fix that actually solves the comfort problem. We give you an honest recommendation either way.
A blower-door test measures how much air leaks through your home’s envelope, and a duct-leakage test measures how much escapes from the duct system specifically. Both produce accurate ratings, so the work we recommend is based on measurement instead of a hunch.
Often, yes, through utility and state programs like PG&E and Energy Upgrade California. Eligibility and amounts change over time, so we’ll tell you which programs your specific project may qualify for at your assessment rather than promise a number up front.
“See Where Your Energy Is Going to Waste. Call now! (209) 632-7596”
—Wally
