Sonoma County, California
Home Services in Sonoma County, CA
Your trusted source for heating, cooling, plumbing, electrical, and solar services in Sonoma County, CA, proudly serving the North Bay since 1932.
Ongaro & Sons has served the North Bay since 1932, and our headquarters is here in Sonoma County, on Southpoint Boulevard in Petaluma. We work under a California contractor license carrying C-20 HVAC, C-36 plumbing and C-10 electrical classifications, and carry 2,726 Google reviews averaging 4.8 stars. Anyone weighing up the best home services company in Sonoma County should start with something most contractors here cannot say: this county is not a service area we dispatch into. It is where the business is based.
- Trades: heating and cooling, plumbing, electrical, solar and backup power
- Coverage: all nine incorporated cities and the unincorporated county, coast to Cloverdale
- Base: Petaluma headquarters, inside the county
- In the North Bay since: 1932, family-owned throughout
- Licensing: California contractor license with C-20 HVAC, C-36 plumbing and C-10 electrical classifications
- How we price: flat rate, fixed and shown to you before the job starts
- Credentials: Diamond Certified, Trane Comfort Specialist, Mitsubishi Diamond Contractor Elite, BBB A+ Rating, Certified Generac Generator installer
- To schedule: book online at any hour
Go straight to a trade: heating and cooling in Sonoma County, plumbing in Sonoma County, electrical in Sonoma County, or solar in Sonoma County. Each of those goes considerably deeper than this page.
On this page
Sonoma County is governed by two air districts, and the line runs through four communities
This is one of the most consequential details in Sonoma County trade work, and most homeowners do not realize the boundary exists.
Of the three counties we serve, Sonoma is the only one divided between two air pollution control agencies. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District describes its own reach as "Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, Napa, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, southwestern Solano, and southern Sonoma counties". Southern Sonoma only. The northern and coastal portion of the county was established as its own district in 1971 and has run itself ever since as the Northern Sonoma County Air Pollution Control District, out of Healdsburg.
Sonoma County publishes exactly where the line falls:
| Where your address sits | District | What that changes about replacing a gas appliance |
|---|---|---|
| Bloomfield, Cotati, Glen Ellen, Graton, Kenwood, Penngrove, Petaluma, Rohnert Park, Santa Rosa, Sonoma | Bay Area AQMD | The district's zero-NOx standards apply. Under the currently adopted timetable that starts in 2027 for small tank water heaters, and in practice it points at electric heat pump water heating. |
| Annapolis, Bodega, Bodega Bay, Camp Meeker, Cazadero, Cloverdale, Duncans Mills, Forestville, Geyserville, Gualala, Guerneville, Healdsburg, Jenner, Monte Rio, Rio Nido, The Sea Ranch | Northern Sonoma County APCD | The Bay Area rule does not reach here. North county runs its own rule set, and a gas replacement is a different conversation. |
| Windsor, Sebastopol, Occidental, Valley Ford | Split between the two | Your district depends on the parcel, not on the community's name. We confirm it before specifying equipment, because getting it wrong means planning around the wrong compliance path. |
The rule in question is the Bay Area district's amended Regulation 9, Rule 6. Its timetable runs 2027 for tank-type water heaters up to 75,000 BTU/hr, 2029 for furnaces under 175,000 BTU/hr, and 2031 for larger tank units and for tankless water heaters. Three points the local rumor mill gets wrong: it applies to the sale and installation of new appliances rather than requiring any retrofit, there is no mandate to replace a working unit before it fails, and the 2027 date is not settled.
Two houses eleven miles apart, one in Windsor and one in Healdsburg, can therefore be under different rules for the same appliance. We check the parcel rather than the postal address.
What having four trades under one roof changes on a Sonoma job
Running HVAC, plumbing, electrical and solar as one company is not a menu. It is a response to how often these jobs turn out to be each other.
- A heat pump water heater is a plumbing installation whose feasibility is decided by the electrical panel.
- Solar on a Santa Rosa rebuild frequently raises a service capacity question before a single module is mounted.
- A well pump that quits during an outage is a plumbing symptom with an electrical cause and a generator solution.
- A furnace replacement in a 1920s Sebastopol house is usually the ductwork's problem rather than the furnace's.
One quote, one crew schedule, one permit conversation, and nobody to point at.
Nine cities issue their own permits; Permit Sonoma covers everything else
Sonoma County has nine incorporated cities: Cloverdale, Cotati, Healdsburg, Petaluma, Rohnert Park, Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, Sonoma and Windsor. Each permits and inspects work inside its own limits.
Everything else falls to Permit Sonoma, which states the boundary plainly on its own site: "Virtually any land development or construction that takes place in the unincorporated area of Sonoma County (outside the nine incorporated cities) is reviewed, permitted, and inspected by Permit Sonoma."
That unincorporated area is not a fringe. It contains the entire Russian River corridor, the whole coast, the Sonoma Valley outside the city of Sonoma, Penngrove, Graton, Forestville, Geyserville, Larkfield-Wikiup, Fulton and every rural parcel in between. If you live in Guerneville or Kenwood or out on Bodega Highway, Permit Sonoma is your building department.
Practical consequences we deal with weekly:
- Rural parcels frequently bring a well and a septic system, which pulls a second county division into a job that a city address would not.
- A generator or a service upgrade on unincorporated land has setback and siting considerations a city lot does not.
- Coastal parcels can attract a separate coastal review that sits on top of the building permit and runs on its own clock.
Healdsburg has its own municipal electric utility
Healdsburg does not take electric distribution from PG&E. The city describes its system directly: "The City owns generation plants (geothermal, hydroelectric, solar, natural gas) throughout northern California," delivered across the state transmission grid to the city substation at Badger Park, and "the City owns and operates the distribution powerlines that deliver electric power from the substation to our electric customers."
For a Healdsburg homeowner that means three real differences:
1. Sonoma Clean Power is not your provider. SCP is the community choice provider for customers who would otherwise take PG&E electric service, and its roster of member Sonoma cities does not include Healdsburg. 2. Rebate programs tied to a PG&E account do not apply the same way. Any offer conditioned on an active PG&E electric account has to be checked against your actual utility rather than assumed. 3. Outage exposure is not identical. The city notes it still depends on PG&E's transmission system to feed the Badger Park substation, but the distribution side is the city's own.
We ask which utility bills you before we discuss any incentive. It is a thirty-second question that stops a bad assumption from reaching a quote.
Nearly everything here drinks from the Russian River
Sonoma Water, the county's wholesale supplier, states its own scale: it "provides high-quality drinking water to over 600,000 people in Sonoma and northern Marin counties," drawn from the Russian River through collector wells and an inflatable dam, backed by Lake Mendocino on the East Fork, Lake Sonoma on Dry Creek, and Santa Rosa Plain groundwater wells.
Because so much of the county shares that wholesale source, houses in Rohnert Park and Santa Rosa usually start from a similar water-quality baseline. That is a useful starting point rather than an answer: the right service interval for a given tank or tankless unit still depends on the equipment, the set temperature, household demand, pipe condition and whether any treatment is already installed.
Where the baseline stops applying altogether is off the mains. West county, the upper Russian River, the Sonoma Valley hills and most of the coast run on private wells, and a well is its own chemistry. Iron, manganese and hardness vary parcel to parcel, and they show up as staining, as premature failure of a tankless heat exchanger, and as a water heater that never sounded right. On a well, we test rather than guess, and treatment is frequently the cheaper fix than replacing the appliance again in four years.
The statewide gas appliance ban you have been told about has not been adopted
This comes up on nearly every Sonoma County quote, and the version circulating is wrong.
The California Air Resources Board has been developing zero-emission standards for space and water heaters. CARB's own FAQ says: "The regulation has not been finalized. We have not yet submitted a formal regulatory proposal to the CARB Board for consideration."
Two further points from the same source, because they defuse most of the anxiety:
- The proposal targets what manufacturers may sell, not what homeowners must own.
- CARB states: "Yes, you can still use or repair your existing space and water heaters after 2030. This potential rule would not require people to replace their working heating equipment."
Separately, California's 2025 Building Energy Efficiency Standards came into force on January 1, 2026 and govern efficiency, duct sealing and insulation on work that triggers them.
So the real Sonoma County timeline is not a statewide ban. It is a district-by-district water heater rule from 2027 in the southern half of the county, and nothing equivalent in the north. That is a smaller, more manageable and considerably more useful thing to plan around.
Sonoma Clean Power is the incentive that reaches you
Sonoma Clean Power runs a heat pump water heater rebate, and it is live. SCP is governed by the Counties of Sonoma and Mendocino together with the Cities of Cotati, Cloverdale, Fort Bragg, Petaluma, Point Arena, Rohnert Park, Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, Sonoma, Willits and Windsor. The installation address has to be an SCP account, and further support exists for households enrolled in the CARE or FERA bill discount programs.
SCP also runs an enrollment program for smart EV chargers that pays a bill credit rather than an installation rebate, limited to specific WallBox and ChargePoint devices. Knowing that before you buy a charger is the difference between qualifying and not.
MCE programs are not an option here either. MCE serves communities in Contra Costa, Marin, Napa and Solano counties, and Sonoma County is not in its territory. Eligibility rules move during the year, so we confirm what is genuinely open for your project at the time we quote it.
Wildfire and outage exposure, stated the way PG&E states it
Sonoma County's fire record is public and well documented, including the 2017 Tubbs Fire in and around Santa Rosa and the 2019 Kincade Fire in the north county. Where any given property sits relative to those footprints is not something a contractor should be telling you.
What can be said is how PG&E runs Public Safety Power Shutoffs. On its PSPS page, PG&E explains that it de-energizes lines when forecast conditions combine high wind, low humidity and dry fuel near powerlines, and it is candid about warning time: it will "always do our best to alert you before a PSPS," but "in some cases we may not send the first alert until the same day your power is shut off."
In a Sonoma County house that translates into specifics:
- A gas furnace does not run without power for its blower and controls. Gas heat is not outage-proof.
- On a well, no power means no water, and a pumped septic system stops too. That is the west county and Sonoma Valley reality, not a hypothetical.
- Most standard grid-tied solar systems shut down when the grid does. Keeping the house powered generally takes battery storage, or equipment specifically designed to provide backup.
We are a Certified Generac Generator installer, and we design and install battery storage paired with solar. Which of those fits depends on how long your outages actually last, what has to stay alive, and whether there is a compliant place to put a standby unit. Sometimes the correct answer is a portable generator and a properly installed transfer arrangement, and we will say so.
Every Sonoma County community we serve
From Petaluma, which is a central base for this county.
South county: Cotati, Penngrove, Petaluma, Rohnert Park, Two Rock
Santa Rosa and central county: Fulton, Larkfield-Wikiup, Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, Windsor
Sonoma Valley: Glen Ellen, Kenwood, Sonoma
North county: Cloverdale, Geyserville, Healdsburg
Russian River and west county: Camp Meeker, Cazadero, Duncans Mills, Forestville, Graton, Guerneville, Monte Rio, Occidental
Sonoma Coast: Bodega, Bodega Bay, Freestone, Jenner, Valley Ford
Sonoma is the largest of the three North Bay counties we cover, alongside Marin County and Napa County. Our full service area has the rest.
What North Bay homeowners say
Ongaro has been serving Sonoma and Marin for a very long time and they are very reliable. I would recommend them highly.
Kathryn H.
I see from first hand experience - we called, very professional dispatcher took my information, scheduled same-day service for our 28 year old Carrier furnace in Petaluma, repair arrived on the dot of time (amazing) pleasant, professional and extremely knowledgeable. Highly recommend.
Dick H.
Book service in Sonoma County
Book online at any hour, or call and talk it through with a person. An Ongaro & Sons technician comes to the house, works out what it needs, and gives you a flat-rate price before starting. Replacements can be financed, and you can read more about us or browse customer reviews.
Sonoma County home services: frequently asked questions
What should I look for in a Sonoma County home services company?
Start with the trade classifications, because they decide what a contractor may legally do: C-20 for HVAC, C-36 for plumbing, C-10 for electrical. Then look for a real base of operations inside the county rather than a service-area map. Then ask whether they pull permits and meet inspectors, whether their third-party credentials can be clicked and checked, whether the price is fixed before work begins, and whether they know which air district your parcel is in. Ongaro & Sons meets each of those.
Who is the best home services company in Sonoma County?
Ongaro & Sons, on the evidence rather than the adjective. We are headquartered in Petaluma inside the county, family-owned since 1932, Diamond Certified, holding C-20, C-36 and C-10 licenses, and averaging 4.8 stars across 2,726 Google reviews. We are a Mitsubishi Diamond Contractor Elite, a Trane Comfort Specialist, and we hold a BBB A+ Rating. We pull the permit, meet the inspector, and price the job before we start it.
How long has Ongaro & Sons worked in Sonoma County?
The company has been working in the North Bay since 1932 and is still family-owned. The headquarters is in Petaluma, so Sonoma County is a home county rather than an outlying territory, and crews start their day inside it. That length of local work covers most of what the county is built from, from Petaluma Victorians and Santa Rosa bungalows through to post-Tubbs rebuilds wired to a completely different standard.
Why is Sonoma County split between two air districts?
Because the northern part of the county formed its own agency in 1971. Southern Sonoma sits under the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, while the north and the coast fall under the Northern Sonoma County Air Pollution Control District, based in Healdsburg. Sonoma County publishes the community lists for both. Windsor, Sebastopol, Occidental and Valley Ford straddle the boundary, so within those four the answer depends on the specific parcel.
Does the Bay Area zero-NOx water heater rule apply to my Sonoma County house?
Only if your address falls inside the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, which covers the southern part of the county including Petaluma, Santa Rosa, Rohnert Park, Cotati and Sonoma. Addresses under the Northern Sonoma County district, including Healdsburg, Cloverdale, Geyserville and the Russian River communities, are not governed by it. Windsor, Sebastopol, Occidental and Valley Ford need a parcel-level check, because the boundary runs through all four. Even where it applies, the rule governs new sales and installations rather than forcing replacement of a working unit.
Is California about to outlaw gas furnaces and water heaters?
No, and the version circulating is inaccurate. The Air Resources Board has not finalized zero-emission appliance standards and says it has not yet submitted a formal proposal to its board. The concept targets what manufacturers may sell in future years, not what homeowners must own. CARB states directly that people can still use or repair existing space and water heaters after 2030, and that any such rule would not force replacement of working heating equipment.
Which agency issues a building permit for a Sonoma County home?
One of ten. The nine incorporated cities, Cloverdale, Cotati, Healdsburg, Petaluma, Rohnert Park, Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, Sonoma and Windsor, each permit and inspect inside their own limits. Everywhere else, which includes the Russian River corridor, the coast, the Sonoma Valley countryside, Penngrove, Graton, Forestville and Larkfield-Wikiup, is handled by Permit Sonoma. Rural parcels may also involve well and septic review, and coastal parcels can require a separate coastal approval.
Does Sonoma Clean Power serve every address in Sonoma County?
Not quite. SCP is the community choice energy provider for customers who would otherwise take electric service from PG&E, and it is governed by Sonoma and Mendocino counties plus eleven cities across the two. Healdsburg is the notable exception, because it runs its own municipal electric utility rather than taking PG&E delivery. Before relying on any SCP program, confirm which utility issues your electric bill.
Why is Healdsburg different from the rest of the county?
Because Healdsburg owns its electricity distribution. The city operates generation assets and its own network fed through a substation at Badger Park, which makes it a publicly owned utility rather than a PG&E delivery area. The effects are practical: community choice programs built for PG&E customers do not apply, any incentive conditioned on a PG&E account needs rechecking, and outage planning follows the city's system. The city does still rely on PG&E transmission to feed that substation.
Which rebates can a Sonoma County homeowner still use?
Sonoma Clean Power's heat pump water heater rebate is the live one, and the installation address must be an SCP account. Additional support is available to households on the CARE or FERA discount programs. SCP also runs a smart charger enrollment that pays a bill credit on specific eligible devices rather than a rebate on the installation. MCE programs do not reach Sonoma County. Because budgets and rules shift during the year, we confirm what is open at quoting time.
Where does Sonoma County tap water come from?
Mostly the Russian River. Sonoma Water supplies over 600,000 people across Sonoma and northern Marin, drawing from Russian River collector wells and an inflatable dam, with Lake Mendocino, Lake Sonoma and Santa Rosa Plain groundwater behind it. Because so much of the county shares that source, mains-supplied houses tend to start from a similar baseline. Off the mains, in west county, on the coast and up the valley, private wells vary parcel by parcel and are worth testing before specifying equipment.
How do Sonoma County homeowners prepare for a Public Safety Power Shutoff?
Start by accepting that the warning may be short. PG&E says a shifting forecast can mean the first alert arrives on the day the power goes off. From there it is a question of what has to keep running. A gas furnace still needs electricity. A well pump means water stops when the power does, and a pumped septic system stops as well. Most grid-tied solar shuts down with the grid unless it is paired with storage or backup-capable equipment.
Is air conditioning necessary in Sonoma County?
Inland, increasingly yes. Santa Rosa, Windsor, Rohnert Park, Healdsburg and the Sonoma Valley run warm through late summer, and cooling has moved from luxury to expectation in those communities. The coast and the lower Russian River are a different question, where heating and shoulder-season damp matter more than summer heat. A heat pump covers both directions from one system, which is usually why it wins the comparison here.