HVAC for Rancho Santa Fe's wooded acre lots
Rancho Santa Fe sits on the east side of US 183 in Liberty Hill, bounded by County Road 258 to the south and Sunset Ridge Drive to the east. Development started in 2016. Homesites are about an acre each, many of them heavy with cedar and live oak, on streets like Ocate Mesa Trail and Cerro Picacho Trail.
Custom and semi-custom builders here have included Giddens Homes, Steve Klein Custom Homes, and Coventry Homes, with Scott Felder Homes plans showing up in later listings. Most homes have four to six bedrooms and average around 3,300 square feet, in one- and two-story plans. Stone and stucco outside, high ceilings and big windows inside. Most of the established homes are in Section 2. Section 3 still has raw land for custom builds.
Each of those details changes the HVAC. Tall ceilings and big glass add cooling load. Two-story plans often need zoning. The trees shade the outdoor units, which helps, but they also drop leaves, oak tassels, and cedar pollen into condenser coils. The oldest homes here are now close to ten years old, so many first systems are due for a hard look. And new homes going up in Section 3 need a load calculation before anyone picks a tonnage.
