LA GRANDE — Fire & Ice HVAC just opened a shop and office at 2620 Bearco Loop in La Grande.

Co-owners J.D. Standley and Austin Knight represent a combined 26 years of heating, ventilating, and air-conditioning experience, and they recently added refrigeration service and installation to their service product line.

They serve residential homes, new construction, restaurants, grocers, and other businesses in Baker, Union, Wallowa, Umatilla and Grant counties, Standley said.

The new office is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, but they also offer 24-hour service. They may be reached at 541-910-8008 or for emergency service, call 541-910-7775.

Standley is a native of Union County, being a third-generation member of the Dale Standley century farm family on Standley Road. He and his late father, Jim Standley, started a construction company, Dream Builders LLC, which later became the parent company doing business as Fire & Ice HVAC.

Standley paired up with Knight, a friend of the family. Knight also grew up in the valley, and his father owned Rambling Rotors, so he’s well-known in Union County. He also has 20-years of experience in HVAC work.

“Fire & Ice HVAC offers heating, air conditioning, refrigeration, custom sheet metal work, and duct work here in our shop,” Standley said. “We do pellet and wood stoves, mini splits, furnaces, propane and natural gas line work, anything that heats or cools, including RVs and trailers too.”

Knight and Standley founded Fire & Ice in February 2020, but due to the pandemic, the business experienced a slow start, and there was no shop or office presence just then.

“We started right before COVID took hold, and we went through the heights of COVID starting a new business,” Standley said. “We worked at Brickyard Lanes in La Grande, and that job bridged us over the pandemic.”

From 2022-23, Fire & Ice won the bid for heating and air conditioning installations at the newly built Timber Ridge Apartments in La Grande.

“We did the community center and all of the apartments,” Standley said. “We ended up hiring 13 employees toward the end of COVID when we started that project.”

In March 2024, Fire & Ice HVAC added refrigeration services to its range of products and services. The company’s first refrigeration customer was Nature’s Pantry in La Grande. As word spread, and the business started working at Short Stop, it also did the heating and air conditioning at the Tiger House on I Avenue in La Grande.

“Over spring break, Fire & Ice will be replacing a long stretch of refrigeration units at Elgin Foodtown in Elgin,” Standley said.

Fire & Ace offers service and installation of walk-in coolers, freezers, ice makers, open air coolers and anything a restaurant or grocer would have. In the very near future Standley and  Knight will take a three-day class on how to work on soft-serve ice cream machines.

“We are also going to attend a two-week course that we purchased to learn about servicing and installing bigger freezers and controls like in Walmart and Safeway stores,” Standley said.

Fire & Ice HVAC has two employees. Standley is not inclined to grow into a large company with many employees. He likes that his business has a “family feel” to it.

He is particularly concerned with maintaining a high quality of work, so he keeps his company smaller and manageable.

“We would like to add a couple more service rigs over time, but I don’t think we will ever want to get over six or seven employees again,” Standley said.

Fire & Ice HVAC accepts payments by cash, check, credit cards and via merchant services. Standley and Knight give free estimates, good for about 14 days.