Bellwether MechanicalBaton Rouge, Louisiana (225) 555-0148

A-107 · The company

Four people, one truck bay, and a plan table.

Bellwether Mechanical has been on Choctaw Drive since 2009. We do residential work only, we stay inside about forty minutes of the shop, and we take on roughly one design-build job a week. That is a deliberate ceiling, not a stage we are trying to grow out of.

Why the drawings

Marcus Thibodeaux spent eleven years installing systems for a larger company before starting this one. The thing that finally did it was a callback in Shenandoah: a house three years old, a five-ton system in a place that needed three and a half, and a family who had been told for two summers that the damp was normal for Louisiana.

It was not normal. It was arithmetic nobody had done. Replacing that system cost them the price of a used car, and it would have cost nothing to get right the first time.

So the whole company is arranged around the two hours at the front. We are slower to quote than most of the outfits you will call and our proposals have more paper in them than anybody wants. That is the trade-off, and it is the only one we are interested in making.

How we are set up

Marcus designs and sells. Andre and Tuan install, and both hold their own EPA 608 Universal certification. Renata runs the office, the permits and the schedule, and she is the person who will actually call you back. There is no call centre and no sales department, which is why we sometimes take until the next morning to answer.

We do not subcontract installations. If somebody is in your attic, they work here.

How we work

Four things we hold to

  1. The number goes on the page.

    Static pressure, airflow, leakage, humidity. If we tell you something improved, there is a before and an after you can read.

  2. We would rather sell you less.

    A sealed duct system is a smaller invoice than a new condenser and it fixes more houses. We have lost jobs by saying so.

  3. The permit is pulled.

    Every time, in our name, inspected and closed out. It is not optional and it should not be a line item you have to ask for.

  4. We answer for our own work.

    If something we installed is not doing what the drawing said it would, we come back on our own money until it does or until we can show you why the drawing was wrong.

What clients say

Three we were allowed to print

  1. Marcus spent longer measuring my house than the last company spent installing a whole system in it.

    Ray D. · Zachary
  2. They found the return had been pulling attic air for a decade. Fixed it for under two thousand and talked me out of the new unit I came to them for.

    Priya S. · Prairieville
  3. I got the folder when they finished and honestly filed it and forgot it. Then we sold the house and the buyer's inspector asked if he could photograph it.

    Ken A. · Central

Come and measure it, then.

Two hours at the house, $285, credited against the work if you go ahead.

Call (225) 555-0148