HVAC Service in Travis Heights, Austin

Travis Heights was laid out in 1912 by Newning, Swisher and General Stacy, on the hills between South Congress Avenue and what is now I-35, running from Lady Bird Lake down to Oltorf Street. Building was slow at first and picked up in the 1920s, when growth finally pushed south across the river. The older Fairview Park development, from the late nineteenth century, sits inside the same boundaries on the west side of Blunn Creek.

Blunn Creek is the neighborhood’s spine. Stacy Park follows it, with the spring-fed Big Stacy pool and the Little Stacy park and pool, built as a WPA project during the Great Depression. The Blunn Creek Nature Preserve protects close to 40 acres of trails and history plaques. And a few blocks west, the shops and restaurants of South Congress are an easy walk.

Travis Heights houses were built before central air existed, and it shows. Large historic homes sit next to small cottages, apartments and tall modern rebuilds, often on lots so steep that one end of the house rests on a slab and the other end on piers. Crawlspaces can be roomy at the front and a tight squeeze at the back.

Cooling was added to most older homes decades after they were built. Ducts ended up wherever they fit: in shallow attics, under floors, or boxed into closets. Those runs can leak into spaces that are hot in July and damp in March. West- and south-facing walls on the slopes take hard afternoon sun, while lots shaded by big trees near the creek hold moisture and leaf litter.

We start by finding where the conditioned air is actually going. Sealing and insulating duct connections under the floor or in the attic often helps more than a larger unit would. When the AC does quit, our AC repair technicians diagnose the problem and explain whether a repair makes sense on a system of that age.

Many Travis Heights homes heat with gas furnaces tucked into closets or attics, while others use heat pumps. Our heating repair and replacement team works on both, and we can walk you through furnace replacement if the old unit is near the end. If you want to see options before a visit, build your own system online and get a feel for the choices.

Back additions, converted porches and garage apartments are common here, and they rarely get enough air from the original system. A ductless mini-split conditions the room on its own, with a small line set instead of new ductwork cut through old walls. As a Mitsubishi Electric Diamond Contractor, Gold Eagle Services installs and services Mitsubishi ductless systems in single rooms and whole houses. If your home is in a local historic district, we check the design standards before placing equipment where it shows from the street.

Crawlspaces and damp creekside lots can pull humid, musty air into a house, and big oaks drop pollen and tassels onto outdoor coils every spring. Our air quality services cover dehumidification, filtration and duct cleaning, and the daily Austin air quality index is worth a look on high-pollen days. A Home Maintenance Plan keeps coils cleaned and systems checked twice a year, which matters more on an older house than a new one.

The park along Blunn Creek is named for General Stacy, one of the neighborhood’s 1912 founders, and the pool at Little Stacy Park was built by the WPA during the Great Depression.

Bonus: the neighborhood middle school, long known as Fulmore, was renamed in 2018 for Sarah Lively, a teacher who began working there in 1964.

About the photo at the top of this page: A drone view from above Travis Heights looking north across Lady Bird Lake to downtown Austin. Photo by Hensbread, CC BY 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Want to dig deeper? These guides cover older-home comfort and air quality questions we hear from Travis Heights owners.

• Repair or Replace? Deciding What’s Best for Your HVAC System
• Where Your Home Actually Leaks: A Central Texas Homeowner’s Guide to Air Infiltration Priorities
• What’s Included in an HVAC Tune-Up?
• Cedar Fever: What Austin Residents Need to Know
• Can a Heat Pump Keep Up With a Texas Freeze?

See every guide in the Gold Eagle Resource Center