A small shop that has been here a long time

How the company came to be

Everett Larkin started the business in 1968 out of a pickup truck, servicing oil furnaces across Steuben County before most houses in Bath had central air at all. His son Walt took over in the late 1980s and added air conditioning and, later, ductwork and indoor air quality work as the county's housing stock aged. Mike, Walt's son, has run the company since 2011. He kept the truck-based, answer-your-own-phone way of doing things rather than turning it into a call center with a dispatcher three states away.

What that means in practice is boring and specific. When you call, you get Renee, not a menu. When a technician gives you a number, Mike has usually already looked at the job. There is no quota for replacements sold per month, because a quota is exactly how customers end up buying a system they did not need yet.

What to expect on a service call

A technician diagnoses the actual problem before anyone talks about cost. That means testing the failed part rather than guessing from the symptom, and it is why "it's probably the whole unit" is a sentence we try not to say unless it is genuinely true.

You get a written estimate before any repair beyond diagnostics starts, and a technician who will explain what failed in plain terms, not brand names and part numbers you have no way to check. If a repair is the more sensible call than a replacement, that is what gets recommended, even when the margin on a new system would be better for us.

Nobody will ask you to sign anything the same minute you hear the number. Taking an estimate to think about, or to compare against another company's, is a completely normal thing to do and we would rather you did it than felt rushed.

What we believe about HVAC work

Most emergencies are cheaper when they are caught in the fall. That is the entire argument for a maintenance plan, and it is why we would rather do a forty-minute tune-up in October than a two-in-the-morning no-heat call in January.

A repair is a legitimate answer, not just an upsell path to a replacement. Some systems genuinely are past the point where repair makes financial sense. Plenty are not, and we will tell you which one you are looking at.

You should know the number before you agree. Surprise invoices destroy trust faster than almost anything else in this trade. Renee would rather spend ten minutes confirming a price on the phone than explain a bill afterward.

Where we work

Our shop is at 418 Liberty Street, Bath, NY 14810. Most work is done at the customer's house rather than in the shop, across Bath, Hammondsport, Savona, Avoca, Cohocton and Kanona, and the rest of Steuben County on request.