Formerly Adam & Sam Brothers RepairBrier · Mini-split heating and cooling
Most Brier houses already have a gas furnace. What they lack is cooling, and warmth in the far rooms: the bonus room, the daylight basement, the converted garage. A mini-split solves that one room at a time, and we keep existing systems running.
Brier incorporated in 1965 largely to stay a town of houses, and it still is: about 95% of homes are detached, lots start at 12,500 square feet, and most growth came in the 1980s and 1990s. That makes Brier different from its neighbors on the heating side too. About 65% of homes burn PSE gas, compared with roughly a third in Mountlake Terrace and Lynnwood. A ducted furnace heats a two-story Brier house reasonably well, yet it rarely reaches the room built over the garage, the basement office or the sunroom someone added in 2005, and it does nothing for cooling.
That is where a ductless heat pump earns its place here. One outdoor unit and one wall head can give a single stubborn room its own heating and cooling, with no changes to the ducts and no fight with the furnace. In older Brier ranches from the 1950s and 1960s, some still on baseboard, a mini-split can become the main heat instead. Our van reaches Brier in about 7–9 minutes along 228th or 236th St SW, and we service the systems already installed here as well as putting in new ones. Refrigerant work stays in-house under EPA Section 608 rules, and every new line set gets a nitrogen pressure test and a deep vacuum before startup.
Brier lots give us room to work, which is good news for placement. We can usually put the outdoor unit on a pad at the side of the house, out of sight from the street and away from the neighbor's bedroom window. The catch is the trees. Firs drop needles and the big-leaf maples shed in October, and both end up packed into the fins of an outdoor coil. We place units away from the heaviest drip lines when we can, and we keep open space around the coil, because a unit squeezed behind a fence or under a low deck ends up breathing its own exhaust air. On service calls we rinse the coil before we decide anything is wrong with the refrigerant side.
Most Brier installs we design are hybrid in practice. The gas furnace keeps heating the main floors, and the mini-split takes the room the ducts never balanced, plus all the cooling in summer. In spring and fall the heat pump can carry that room on its own, so the furnace runs less. We do not touch the gas side unless you ask, and if anyone ever smells gas inside, leave the house and call PSE at 1-888-225-5773 or 911 from outside.
The 1924 Shasta Park plat and the old mink-farm parcels were split up long ago, so lot shapes vary, and a house set far back from the road can mean a longer electrical run, which we measure on the visit instead of guessing. Brier has no state highway and only one main road north, so we plan install days around getting the equipment in and the truck parked without blocking a narrow street. Brier sits in Snohomish County, so Snohomish County PUD supplies the electricity; at quote time we see whether any of its heat pump programs suit your house. Addresses in nearby Alderwood Manor that carry a Brier label get the same visit.
Giving one room its own single-zone system starts at $4,000, with the outdoor unit, the head and the installation all inside that figure. If the basement and the bonus room both need help, a second head and any beyond it start at $2,250 each, and a full multi-zone system for the house is quoted on request. We come out, measure and write the quote at no cost to you. If the panel in an older ranch has no room for another breaker, the quote says so up front. For a system already on the wall, mini-split repair and cleaning start at $285, and fan motors, indoor or outdoor, are among the jobs we handle. All of these are starting prices for the area, not the price of your particular job. A repair is priced in the quote we write once the fault is found; installs are quoted after the site visit.
Starting prices for the north Seattle area, 2026. The $85 diagnostic is included in any repair you approve, and the exact price is in the written estimate before work starts.
Install prices start here, equipment and installation included, before any utility program. Multi-zone systems are priced after a visit. We do not charge for the site visit or the written quote.
For most Brier houses the decision is not furnace versus heat pump. A gas furnace from the 2000s with years left on it can stay, and a single mini-split covers the room it misses. If an existing mini-split fails, its age and the part decide the rest. A fan motor, a capacitor or a drain fix on a system that has not yet reached its twelfth winter is a clear repair. A compressor or a coil leak on an older system usually points to replacement, and a newer inverter unit will heat that bonus room more efficiently than the one it replaces. If the furnace itself is near the end, we can talk through a ducted heat pump instead, but for one problem room a ductless head is often the simpler answer. Either way, the numbers come on one written estimate.
Yes, and that is how most Brier homes use them. The furnace keeps heating the main floors through its ducts, while the mini-split heats and cools one room on its own thermostat. The two systems do not interfere with each other. Many owners find the furnace runs less in spring and fall, because the head carries the room that used to drag the thermostat around.
Modern inverter outdoor units are quiet at normal speeds, usually quieter than the furnace vent or a central AC condenser. On a Brier lot we can almost always set it on the side of the house away from a neighbor's bedroom window. We show you the proposed spot on the site visit, and you can move it before anything is drilled.
On Fujitsu systems, the operation and timer lamps blink in patterns that point to a particular fault, such as a sensor, a fan or a communication problem. Count the blinks and note which lamp is flashing, then tell us the pattern and the model number when you call, or write both into the booking form. Before that, check the outdoor breaker and the remote batteries.
Look at it every fall after the leaves drop and brush loose debris off the top and sides with the power off at the breaker. If the fins look matted or the unit sits under firs, a yearly professional rinse is worth it. Packed fins make the compressor work harder in July and can cause defrost problems in winter.
Yes. A garage turned into an office or gym is one of the most common rooms we cover with a single zone, because the furnace ducts rarely reach it. We check insulation and the garage door first, since an uninsulated door can overwhelm any head. Then we size the unit to the room and route the line along the outside wall.
Talk to Adam & Sam
Call (425) 570-9520 and describe the blinking lamps, or book online for up to $18 off the repair and note the blink count in the form. When you approve the repair, the $85 diagnostic is already inside its price, and the site visit for a new mini-split costs nothing.
Mini-split
No ducts, room-by-room control, heating and cooling from one wall unit: why mini-splits suit North Seattle metro homes and what a clean install looks like.
Schedule a repair
Send the basics and we call you back with an arrival window, most days the same morning.