Two counties, ordered by salt
The coast we cover
Fifteen towns from Pacific Grove round to Scotts Valley, plus the valley towns and the inland edge over Highway 17. They are listed by distance to open water because on this coast that is the single most useful thing to know about an address.
- Pacific Grove 0.2 mi · high
- Carmel-by-the-Sea 0.2 mi · high
- Capitola 0.2 mi · high
- Pebble Beach 0.3 mi · high
- Monterey 0.4 mi · high
- Santa Cruz 0.5 mi · high
- Aptos 0.8 mi · high
- Seaside 0.6 mi · high
- Marina 0.5 mi · high
- Soquel 1.5 mi · moderate
- Watsonville 4 mi · moderate
- Scotts Valley 6 mi · moderate
- Carmel Valley 8 mi · low
- Salinas 12 mi · low
- Los Gatos 22 mi · low
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Distance is straight-line to open water, measured off the map and rounded. High, moderate and low are our own working bands for how fast condenser fins, hinge cams and gaskets give up in each place — they are what we see on service calls, not a published standard.
These notes come off service calls, not off a map. They are what the address tends to mean once the grille is off.
Town by town, and what the address tends to mean
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Pacific Grove Monterey County
Ocean View Boulevard and the Point Pinos side get spray, not just fog. Condenser fins here go chalky in three or four years.
93950 · 0.2 mi to open water · high exposure
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Carmel-by-the-Sea Monterey County
Small kitchens, tall built-ins, and a lot of units set into cabinetry with almost no clearance above the grille.
93921 · 93923 · 0.2 mi to open water · high exposure
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Capitola Santa Cruz County
Village houses sit close enough to the water that hinge cams seize before the compressor ever gets tired.
95010 · 0.2 mi to open water · high exposure
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Pebble Beach Monterey County
Large kitchens with two or three columns plus wine storage. Multiple sealed systems in one room, all breathing the same salt.
93953 · 0.3 mi to open water · high exposure
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Monterey Monterey County
Cannery Row down to Del Monte. Older 600-series boxes are still everywhere and still worth fixing.
93940 · 93942 · 93944 · 0.4 mi to open water · high exposure
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Santa Cruz Santa Cruz County
West Cliff and Pleasure Point sit in salt fog most mornings. Stainless trim tea-stains at the screw heads first.
95060 · 95062 · 95064 · 95065 · 0.5 mi to open water · high exposure
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Aptos Santa Cruz County
Seacliff and Rio del Mar are exposed; the units up Trout Gulch are noticeably cleaner at the same age.
95003 · 0.8 mi to open water · high exposure
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Seaside Monterey County
A lot of second refrigerators in unconditioned garages, which is the hardest place on the coast to keep a condenser clean.
93955 · 0.6 mi to open water · high exposure
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Marina Monterey County
Flat, open to the dunes, and windy. Salt gets driven straight through a garage door gap.
93933 · 0.5 mi to open water · high exposure
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Soquel Santa Cruz County
Far enough up the creek that corrosion slows down, close enough that gaskets still harden early.
95073 · 1.5 mi to open water · moderate exposure
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Watsonville Santa Cruz County
Hard water in the Pajaro Valley. Ice makers scale up here faster than they corrode.
95076 · 4 mi to open water · moderate exposure
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Scotts Valley Santa Cruz County
A ridge sits between the town and the water, and it shows: fins stay bright years longer than in Capitola.
95066 · 6 mi to open water · moderate exposure
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Carmel Valley Monterey County
Hot afternoons instead of salt. Here the condenser fails from dust and ambient heat, not chloride.
93924 · 8 mi to open water · low exposure
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Salinas Monterey County
Valley heat is the load. A dirty condenser that coped all winter gives up in September.
93901 · 93905 · 93906 · 93907 · 93908 · 12 mi to open water · low exposure
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Los Gatos Santa Clara County
The inland edge of our range, over the hill on Highway 17. No salt at all — different failure list entirely.
95030 · 95032 · 95033 · 22 mi to open water · low exposure
The bay is the organising fact. Everything on the list is within about an hour of the water it sits on.
Questions about coverage
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Do you cross Highway 17 to Los Gatos?
It is the inland edge of the range and the reason this domain has the name it does. We work there, but the failure list over the hill is a different one: no salt, more dust, and heat as the load instead of chloride.
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Is Salinas really part of a coastal service area?
It is part of ours. The salt does not reach it in any meaningful way, but the valley heat does the same job to a neglected condenser by a different route, and the drive from the peninsula is short.
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You cover Watsonville but not Gilroy or Hollister. Why?
Because a route that stretches too far stops being useful to anyone on it. Watsonville sits on the line between the two counties we work and fits the day. Past that we would be guessing about when we could get to you.
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Does the town I live in change what the repair will cost?
No. The service call is $89 everywhere on this list, waived when you book the repair. What the town changes is what tends to be wrong, not what it costs to find out.
Tell us the town and the symptom
Both together usually get us to two candidates before anyone leaves the yard.
$89 service call, waived when you book the repair. Monday to Saturday, 8am to 6pm.