Package Unit Installation, Done Right.
The package unit puts the whole system in one cabinet outside, no attic air handler, no indoor equipment closet, just supply and return ducts meeting a self-contained machine on a pad or a roof. For the right buildings, manufactured homes, slab houses without attic space, small commercial, it is the practical, serviceable answer, installed right.
Installation · Burnet & Central Texas
Everything in One Box, Outside
Package units solve a real estate problem: buildings with nowhere good to put indoor equipment. Manufactured and modular homes, older slab construction with no attic worth the name, small commercial spaces where every closet earns rent, and additions where an air handler has no home, all of them get full heating and cooling from one outdoor cabinet connected by two duct openings. The format trades a little efficiency against split systems for enormous practicality: everything serviceable at ground or roof level, no attic labor premium ever, no condensate above ceilings, and replacement down the road measured in hours.
Installation quality concentrates in different places than splits. The curb or pad matters enormously, level, drained, sized, because the cabinet lives on it for fifteen years. The duct connections are the efficiency frontier: the supply and return transitions must be sealed and insulated seriously, since every leak at that junction is conditioned air lost to the outdoors at the machine itself. Gas-electric packages need combustion and venting respect, heat pump packages need defrost drainage planned, and every configuration needs the electrical done to code at an outdoor location the weather owns.
Ours get the full treatment: load-calculated sizing, correct configuration, gas-electric, heat pump, straight AC with electric heat, a proper pad or curb, sealed transitions, and commissioning under load with the readings filed, exactly as every install here closes.
Everything about this service gets tuned to where you live. The same failure looks different in a lakefront place at Horseshoe Bay, a nineties ranch house outside Bertram, and a five-year-old build in Leander, because humidity exposure, duct design, and equipment grade differ at each address. Ten years of package unit installation calls across Burnet County and the corridor mean we usually know the local pattern before the panel comes off: what the builder-grade systems in the new subdivisions do at year five, what lake air does to outdoor coils, and what a Hill Country attic does to anything asked to work inside it in August.
Installation
Package Install Essentials
Where package unit quality is actually decided, item by item.
Right configuration chosen
Gas-electric, heat pump, or straight cooling with electric heat, matched honestly to the building, the meter situation, and the winters it will actually see.
A pad or curb built to last
Level, properly drained, and sized correctly for the cabinet. The unit’s foundation is the whole install’s foundation, in the most literal way possible.
Duct transitions sealed seriously
The supply and return junctions are where package efficiency lives or leaks. Sealed, insulated, verified.
Sized by the load math
The same Manual J discipline as any system we install, because package units short-cycle and dehumidify badly when oversized, exactly like everything else with a compressor.
Weather-real electrical
Outdoor disconnects, whips, and every connection done for the exposed location that owns them, to code, torqued, and weather-sealed.
Commissioned like it matters
Run under load, charge and airflow verified, readings recorded. One cabinet, same standard.
Not sure this is your problem?
Call anyway. We name the likely cause on the phone for free, and if it turns out to be something small you can handle yourself, we say exactly that and save you the visit.
Why Off Duty
The Honest Fit Conversation
Package units are the right answer for their buildings and the wrong upsell for others, and the difference is worth stating plainly. Where they fit, no viable indoor equipment space, manufactured housing, small commercial, they deliver full comfort with unmatched serviceability. Where a split system fits the building, the split usually wins on efficiency and noise placement, and we will say so. The suspicious pattern to watch elsewhere: package units quoted purely because they are faster to install, in buildings that deserved the split conversation. Our recommendation follows the building, and both paths get priced when both genuinely apply.
Package replacements deserve their own note, because the format ages visibly: coastal-grade grime, hail-dented cabinets, and rooftop sun do their work, and the fifteen-year-old package running R-22 is a common Central Texas sight. Replacement is refreshingly quick, hours, not days, when the curb and ducts are sound, and the moment is the same correction opportunity as any replacement: right size, sealed transitions, modern efficiency. The crane shows up, the old cabinet leaves, and the building gets fifteen more years from one good afternoon.
Here is how the visit goes. A call to (512) 925-3090 reaches a real tech, not a call center, at any hour. On site, the diagnosis runs on instruments until the cause is certain, and then everything gets laid out in plain English: what failed, what fixes it, and exactly what it costs, before work begins. When the package unit installation work is done, it gets verified under load instead of switched on and waved at. If the pattern sounds simple, it is. It is also rare enough in this trade that people write reviews about it.
On pricing, the policy is the same as everything else here: out loud and up front. The visit cost gets stated on the phone before anyone drives anywhere. The repair price gets stated after diagnosis and before work. No packages with hidden contents, no commission-driven upsell in the truck, and no number on the invoice you did not already hear.
Worth saying plainly: this is not a problem that ages well. Systems compensate quietly right up until they cannot, and the failure that finally announces itself usually costs more than the one caught early would have. If your gut says something is off, that instinct is worth one free phone call. The worst case is we tell you everything sounds normal, which is a pretty good worst case.
Who does the work matters as much as what gets done. Off Duty is owner-operated: the person diagnosing your system is the person whose name carries the company, trained in the family trade and seasoned by ten years of Central Texas installs and repairs. You can see the standard in real job photos, and you will see it again in your own equipment closet.
This service runs wherever our trucks do: home base in Burnet, the Highland Lakes from Granite Shoals to Buchanan Dam, down the corridor to Round Rock and Austin, north to Killeen and Temple, and out to the sixteen-county edge at Waco, Boerne, and Fredericksburg. The whole map lives on the service areas page, with drive-time honesty built into every window we quote.
Diamond Contractor
Mitsubishi’s top ductless credential, earned with factory training.
Second Generation
Raised in the trade, ten years on the tools before the name went on a truck.
Warranty Authorized
JB and Mitsubishi warranty work: we file the claim, you skip the fight.
Open 24 Hours
A real person answers the phone at any hour, every day of the year.
The Standard
How This Work Gets Done Here
A job like this is a chain of small decisions nobody watches: which part, which setting, which clearance, which step gets skipped when the attic hits 130 degrees. Our answer to all of them is the same. Do it the way the book says, the way the second generation was taught, the way you would want it done if the address were your own. That means proven diagnosis before parts, correct materials over convenient ones, and procedure followed all the way through the parts of the job that never show.
It also means finishing properly. The system gets verified under working load, the readings get documented, the old components get shown on request, and you get an explanation in plain English rather than trade jargon. The price never moves between the quote and the invoice. If anything about the work ever needs a second look, the phone number on your receipt rings the person who did it. Simple system, kept promises, reviewed in public by the people it was kept to.
Package Unit Installation Questions
Asked Before We Roll a Truck
The ones the phone line hears most for this service, with the answers given at full length instead of sales-brochure length.
What is the difference between a package unit and a regular split system?
Location of the parts. A split system divides labor: condenser outside, air handler or furnace inside, refrigerant lines between. A package unit puts the entire refrigeration circuit, blower, and heat source in one outdoor cabinet, connecting to the building only through supply and return ducts. Splits win where indoor space exists: better efficiency ceilings and quieter registers. Packages win where it does not: manufactured homes, no-attic slabs, rent-earning commercial closets. Neither is universally better; buildings choose. The free look reads yours and prices what actually fits.
Are package units less efficient than split systems?
Somewhat, honestly, at the equipment level: the format’s efficiency ceilings trail comparable splits, and the outdoor cabinet’s duct connections add a loss frontier splits do not have. The practical gap narrows with installation quality, sealed, insulated transitions recover most of the junction losses, and modern package equipment is respectable in absolute terms. Where the building forces the format, the comparison is academic; where both fit, we show the operating math side by side. What actually wrecks package efficiency is neglect of those transitions, which is an installation and maintenance choice rather than a format destiny.
Do you install package units on roofs?
Yes, that is the light-commercial standard: rooftop packages on proper curbs serving shops, offices, and restaurants across the corridor. Rooftop work adds real scope, crane logistics, curb condition, roof penetration integrity, weatherproofing, and code clearances, all handled and priced in the quote rather than discovered mid-job. Existing curb replacements are quick when the curb is sound; curb corrections get honest assessment because a bad curb sinks a good unit. For commercial owners, the rooftop package is also the serviceability winner: everything reachable without disturbing the business below, which your maintenance bills will appreciate for years.
How long does package unit installation take?
The format’s superpower: standard replacements on sound pads or curbs run half a day to a day, including commissioning, and even first-time installs with new pad and duct transitions typically land within a day or two. Crane scheduling drives rooftop timing. The speed never eats the verification: charge confirmed, airflow proven, transitions sealed and checked, heat source exercised, readings filed. Buildings that live on package units, shops especially, appreciate that replacement means one quiet morning rather than a week of disruption. It is the most schedule-friendly major equipment swap in the catalog.
Is a package unit right for my manufactured home?
Very often yes, the format was practically made for the housing type: no attic or closet sacrificed, ground-level service forever, and duct connections designed for underfloor or crossover configurations manufactured homes use. Sizing discipline matters extra, these homes have distinct envelope characteristics the load math must respect, and duct condition underneath deserves honest inspection, since crushed or fallen runs under a manufactured home quietly ruin any equipment above them. We serve manufactured communities across the sixteen counties and will give the whole system, cabinet to registers, the straight assessment.
One Cabinet, Installed Complete
The right configuration, a real pad, sealed transitions, and readings at handoff. Prefer to write it out? Send the form and we call you back.
(512) 925-3090 Book a Free Look
