Lehigh County · Upper Macungie Township
Breinigsville is the western end of Upper Macungie Township, out past Trexlertown toward the I-78 warehouses, about twelve minutes from the Unity shop in Macungie. Tyler Furbacher owns the company, quotes the job and installs it.
The median home here was built in 2005, the newest of any place Unity covers, and 69 percent of the housing dates from 2000 or later. Ninety-two percent is owner-occupied, split almost evenly between detached houses and townhomes. Seven in ten heat with natural gas. The equipment that came with those houses is now 18 to 25 years old, and this is the first time most of these homeowners have had to replace anything.
About 12 minutes from Macungie
Nobody in a 2005 house has been through a furnace replacement before. The job here is as much explaining as installing.
Sixteen percent of Breinigsville still heats with oil or propane, mostly the farmhouses and manufactured homes past the mains. If that is you, run your gallons through the oil savings estimator before you commit to another tank.
What the work here actually looks like
Three kinds of house, three kinds of call.
- 2000s single-family homes on gas. A builder-grade 80 percent gas furnace and a 13-SEER condenser installed together in 2004 or 2006 are reaching the end together. The replacement is a high-efficiency gas furnace with a matched coil and condenser, or a gas furnace paired with a heat pump for a dual-fuel system, sized from a load calculation rather than from the old nameplate.
- Townhomes, 44 percent of the housing. Same equipment, tighter mechanical rooms and a rear yard measured in feet. The outdoor unit’s position and the line-set route get settled before anything is ordered.
- Manufactured homes, 11 percent of the housing. A real share, and a different job: downflow furnaces, packaged units and crossover ducts under the floor that are usually the actual reason the back bedroom is cold. These get sized and installed for what they are, not adapted from a house plan.
- Farmhouses and older lots past the gas mains, on oil or propane. Oil systems get serviced as usual, and the conversion arithmetic gets run honestly when the equipment is due.
Why the 2005 furnace is not a like-for-like swap
Three things have changed since these houses were built. Refrigerant: 2000s systems hold R-410A, and equipment now ships on lower-GWP refrigerants, so coil and condenser are replaced as a matched pair rather than mixed. Efficiency: a 92 percent or better condensing furnace vents in PVC and produces condensate, which needs a drain and a neutralizer the original furnace never had. Code: Pennsylvania moved to the 2021 IRC and 2021 IECC on 1 January 2026, so a replacement is inspected against that code, not the 2003 version the house was built under.
Sizing is the other correction. Fast build-outs oversize. An oversized air conditioner short cycles, never runs long enough to pull moisture out of a tight 2000s house, and leaves it clammy in July. Right-sizing at replacement, against a 91 °F summer and 8 °F winter design temperature, usually means a smaller unit than the one coming out, and a more comfortable house.
Manufactured homes get done properly or not at all
More than 300 of Breinigsville’s housing units are manufactured homes, and they are the most commonly mis-served houses in the valley. The furnace is a downflow unit in a closet, the supply runs in a trunk under the floor, and on a double-wide the two halves are joined by a crossover duct that is the first thing to sag, split or fill with water. New equipment does nothing if the crossover is on the ground. The ductwork under the home gets inspected before a replacement is quoted, and equipment is selected from lines built for manufactured housing, with the clearances and the listing the unit was designed for.
Common questions about HVAC work in Breinigsville
My house is from 2006 and the air conditioner just quit. Is it too early to replace it?
No. Eighteen to twenty years is a normal life for a builder-grade condenser. If the compressor has failed, the repair rarely pencils out against a matched replacement, and the furnace from the same year is worth a look at the same time.
Should I go to a heat pump or stay on gas?
On a gas house, the strongest case is dual fuel: a heat pump replaces the air conditioner, carries the mild two-thirds of the heating season on cheap electricity, and hands over to the gas furnace below a changeover point set for your house. PPL rebates apply to the heat pump.
I live in a manufactured home. Can you work on it?
Yes, and with the right equipment. Manufactured-home furnaces and packaged units are a different product line, and the ductwork under the home gets checked first because that is where most of the comfort problems are.
Who issues the permit?
Breinigsville is part of Upper Macungie Township. The Permit Department is at 7540 Windsor Drive, Suite 311, Allentown, (610) 395-4892, and it has an HVAC Replacement/Alteration application. The township enforces the Pennsylvania Uniform Construction Code.
Reference: housing, climate and permits
- Geography
- Breinigsville is a community inside Upper Macungie Township; the statistics above are for the census-designated place.
- Housing
- Population 7,769. 2,772 housing units, 91.8 percent owner-occupied. Median year built 2005. 2.6 percent built before 1940, 13.9 percent before 1970, and 68.7 percent in 2000 or later. ACS 2020–2024 five-year estimates.
- Heating fuel
- Electricity 10.8 percent, utility gas 70.0 percent, fuel oil 12.1 percent, bottled gas 3.9 percent. ACS 2020–2024, table B25040.
- Design conditions
- Winter 99 percent design temperature near 8 °F; summer 1 percent near 91 °F. About 5,800 heating degree days base 65 at Allentown ABE, NOAA 1991–2020 normals.
- Utilities
- Electricity PPL Electric Utilities. Gas UGI Utilities where a main reaches the street. PPL heat pump rebates apply.
- Permits
- Upper Macungie Township Permit Department, 7540 Windsor Drive, Suite 311, Allentown PA 18106, (610) 395-4892. The township has a dedicated HVAC Replacement/Alteration application.
- Code
- Pennsylvania Uniform Construction Code moved to the 2021 IRC and 2021 IECC effective 1 January 2026.
Nearby areas Unity also covers
Same van, same owner. Each town has its own page because the housing and the fuel genuinely differ.
Every town Unity serves is listed on the service areas page.
Book HVAC service in Breinigsville
Call Unity Heating & Air Conditioning at (267) 644-9516 to get on the schedule, or send details through the contact page. Repairs, cleanings, installations and replacements run out of Macungie. Emergency calls are taken at any hour.
