Rubidoux · Glen Avon · Pedley · Mira Loma · Riverside
Taking the cooler off the roof, properly.
A great many houses on this side of the river were built with an evaporative cooler and never had a duct system at all. Converting one to refrigerated air is a real project with five separate pieces, and we quote all five.
The specialitySwamp cooler to refrigerated air, including the roof and the ductwork
The restRepair, replacement, ductwork and annual service across Jurupa Valley
The areaThis side of the river and the city across it. Nothing further.
Rubidoux, looking back toward the hill
The housing stock
Built for a cooler, not for a duct system.
The postwar tracts and the older bungalows on this side of the Santa Ana River were built in a hot dry inland valley at a time when an evaporative cooler was the sensible answer. A great many of them still have one.
Those houses were not designed around central air. There is often no attic chase worth the name, no return-air path, a small electrical service, and a roof with a cooler curb cut into it. The cooler's own ducting, where there is any, was sized for an entirely different job.
None of that makes a conversion difficult. It makes it a project — five separate pieces of work that have to be priced together or the number you were given at the kitchen table stops being true somewhere around day three.
Attic clearance at the tightest point. Remaining capacity at the electrical panel. And the state of the roof around the cooler curb. Those three decide what is possible and roughly what it costs, and we take them before anyone talks about equipment.
What we do
Five services.
Residential first, with a light commercial side along Mission. Each one is written out in full on the services page, including what it does not cover.
The speciality
Cooler conversions
Removing an evaporative cooler and putting in a refrigerated system: the equipment, the ductwork, the returns, the roof and the electrical coordination. Quoted as one project with five visible lines.
Diagnostic first, quote second. A flat fee to find the fault, credited against the repair. When a repair is not worth doing you will be told plainly, with the reason.
Air conditioners, furnaces and heat pumps, sized to the house as it is rather than matched to whatever came out of it — which in these tracts was usually oversized to begin with.
New duct in houses that never had any, and sealing, insulating and rebuilding in the ones that do. Returns added where a single hallway grille is doing all the work.
Once a year before the season: coil, drain, charge, electricals, filter, and a look at the duct while we are up there. Written up, with photographs of anything worth seeing.
No electrical panel upgrades, no re-roofing, no solar, no duct cleaning sold as a product. We flag what a job needs and work alongside the trade that holds that licence.
This is the thing that makes a conversion quote trustworthy, and it is why ours are sometimes higher than the one you got first.
Line one
The equipmentCondenser, indoor unit, line set, thermostat. The part everybody quotes, and usually the only part on a cheap quote.
Line two
The ductworkSupply runs to every room, sized and laid out for a refrigerated system. In a house with cooler ducting this is new work, not a modification.
Line three
The return airThe half that gets forgotten. A refrigerated system has to get the air back, and a house built around a cooler has no path for it. Grilles, a return plenum, transfer grilles or door undercuts.
Line four
The roofRemoving the cooler, taking out the curb, framing and decking the opening and making the roof watertight. Priced with the job, not left for you to arrange afterwards.
Line five
Permit, inspection and disposalPulled by us, inspector met by us, and the old cooler taken away. If the electrical panel needs work, that is your electrician's line and we say so on the first visit.
How a job goes
Four steps, and you can stop after any of them.
01 Call
Tell us what the house has now and what you want it to have. Five minutes usually establishes whether this is a repair, a replacement or a conversion.
02 The survey
An hour: attic, roof, panel, rooms, and where an outdoor unit could sit. No obligation and no follow-up calls.
03 Options in writing
Two or three routes the house supports, each with the five lines above filled in. On paper, so you can put it beside somebody else's.
04 The work
Dates agreed first, and the roof closed the same day it is opened. Floors covered, attic left clean, old equipment taken away.
The signature page
Swamp cooler to refrigerated air, start to finish.
The whole project written out: why the existing ducting almost never survives the change, what happens to the hole in the roof, the return-air problem nobody mentions, the electrical question, keeping the cooler as a second system, and the four ways these jobs go wrong.
It is the most useful page on this site and it is written to be read before you get any quotes at all — including ours.
Why cooler duct is the wrong size and the wrong shape for the job
The return-air problem, which is the real cost of these projects
What happens to the roof opening, and who closes it
The panel question, and why it belongs in week one
Keeping the cooler as well — the two conditions
Four ways these jobs go wrong, and how to spot each one in a quote
Where we work
This side of the river, and the city across it.
A small area on purpose. The housing stock here repeats street after street, and knowing what is behind the walls before we open them is most of what makes a conversion quote accurate.
Rubidoux
Glen Avon
Pedley
Mira Loma
Sunnyslope
Jurupa Valley
Riverside
Arlington
La Sierra
Norco
Grand Terrace
Colton
Bloomington
Outside that list, call anyway — if we cannot take it on we will usually know who can.
The same house, street after street — which is why we can price it
On emergency cover
We do not advertise 24-hour service. A small shop cannot staff it honestly. The phone is answered from seven, overnight messages are returned first thing, and during a heat run we sort the day by who has no cooling at all in an occupied house.
Common questions
Asked on nearly every survey.
Can you reuse my swamp cooler ducting for air conditioning?
Almost never, and this is the single biggest misunderstanding about these jobs. An evaporative cooler pushes a very large volume of air one way through the house and out of an open window, so its duct is sized for that and there is usually no return at all. Refrigerated air recirculates a smaller volume through a sealed loop and needs both supply and return. It is a different system, and pricing a conversion as if the duct already exists is how people end up with a quote that doubles halfway through.
What happens to the hole in the roof?
It gets closed properly, and that work is in our quote rather than left for you to arrange afterwards. A roof-mounted cooler leaves an opening with framing cut around it and a curb sitting on the roof surface. Closing it means framing, decking, and making the roof watertight again. Anybody who quotes a conversion without mentioning it has not decided who is doing it.
Will my electrical panel take it?
That is one of the three things we measure before quoting. A cooler draws very little; refrigerated air needs a dedicated circuit with real capacity behind it. Many of the houses we work on here have a small service with almost nothing spare. We do not do panel upgrades ourselves — we tell you on the first visit whether one is needed and put it in your budget from the start rather than in week three.
Can I keep the cooler as well?
You can, and some people do. Two things have to be true: the cooler's relief path must be closeable so it is not a hole in the ceiling for the rest of the year, and the two systems must never run at the same time. A cooler pushing outside air into a house that a refrigerated system is trying to keep closed is the worst of both.
Which areas do you cover?
Rubidoux, Glen Avon, Pedley, Mira Loma and the rest of Jurupa Valley, plus Riverside, Norco, Grand Terrace, Colton and Bloomington. It is a small area on purpose — the housing stock repeats, and knowing what is behind the walls is most of the job.
Get the survey before you get the quotes.
An hour in the house, no obligation, and you get the five lines filled in — whether or not you use us.
