Custom Sheet Metal Fabrication in Acadiana
F & R Air Conditioning runs its own sheet metal shop in Abbeville. That means when a job needs a plenum, a transition, an offset, or a duct run that no supplier stocks, we build it rather than forcing a stock part to work.
It’s an unusual thing for an HVAC contractor to still do in-house, and it’s one of the reasons we’ve been able to take on the installations other companies pass on. A house built in 1948 with rafters in the wrong place, a restaurant kitchen with six inches of clearance above the equipment, a builder who needs forty identical boots by Thursday: those are shop problems, and having the shop means we can solve them.
What We Fabricate
Most of what leaves the shop falls into a handful of categories.
Plenums. The box that connects your air handler or furnace to the duct system. Getting this right matters more than most homeowners realize, because a plenum that’s undersized or badly shaped restricts airflow at the point where the whole system starts.
Transitions and offsets. Pieces that move air from one duct size or shape to another, or route around framing, plumbing, and structure that won’t move. This is the bulk of custom work in older homes.
Fittings. Elbows, tees, takeoffs, boots, and end caps built to the actual dimensions on site rather than the closest available size.
Straight duct. Rigid metal duct in the lengths and gauges a job calls for, including runs sized for the static pressure the system actually needs.
Light commercial pieces. Exhaust transitions, custom hoods, equipment curbs, and one-off pieces for kitchens, shops, and small commercial buildings around Acadiana.
Why In-House Fabrication Changes the Job
There’s a version of duct work where the installer arrives with a truck full of stock fittings and adapts each one until it fits. Every adaptation is a cut, a splice, and a seam, and every seam is a place air escapes. Do that eight times in an attic and you’ve built a system that leaks before it ever runs.
The Department of Energy puts typical duct loss at 20 to 30 percent of conditioned air. In a Louisiana attic that hits 140 degrees in July, that loss isn’t abstract. It’s the reason a properly sized system still can’t keep the back bedroom comfortable, and it shows up on the power bill every month for the next fifteen years.
Building the piece to the measurement removes those seams. It also removes the temptation to accept a restriction because the right fitting wasn’t on the truck.
Lead time is the other piece. When a part has to be ordered, the job stops. When we can cut and build it the same week, it doesn’t.
Coastal Considerations
Abbeville sits about twenty miles from Vermilion Bay, and salt air reaches a good deal further inland than most people assume. It affects exposed metal, outdoor equipment, and anything installed in a space that breathes humid coastal air.
For customers in Delcambre, Erath, Kaplan, and the lower parishes, we’ll often recommend a different material or coating than we would for a job in Opelousas or Sunset. Stainless costs more up front and outlasts galvanized by a wide margin in the right application. Which one makes sense depends on where the piece lives and what moves through it, and that’s a conversation worth having before the metal is cut.
Who We Build For
Homeowners replacing a system, adding a room, or fixing airflow problems that stock parts never solved. Custom fabrication frequently comes up alongside ductwork repair and sealing or a full AC installation.
Builders and general contractors on new construction, where duct routing gets decided alongside framing and the pieces need to arrive on schedule.
Business owners with commercial HVAC requirements that don’t come in standard sizes, particularly kitchens and older buildings that have been through several renovations.
Other trades who need a piece built and don’t have a shop. We fabricate for people whose systems we didn’t install and won’t be servicing.
How It Works
Someone comes out and takes measurements, or you bring us yours. We confirm the material, gauge, and dimensions, then quote the piece. Once you approve, it goes into the shop schedule, and we either install it or have it ready for pickup.
For pieces tied to a larger job, fabrication happens alongside everything else, so it doesn’t extend the timeline. For standalone pieces, turnaround depends on complexity and what else is in the shop that week. We’ll give you a realistic date rather than an optimistic one.
Seventy Years of Building Things
F & R has been in Abbeville since 1956. The shop is a big part of why we’re still here: it let us take work that required solving a problem instead of ordering a part, and it built the kind of reputation that keeps a family business running through seven decades of a region’s ups and downs.
If you have a piece that needs building, or an installation that stock parts can’t handle, get in touch and we’ll tell you honestly whether it’s something we can help with.