HVAC Contractors Serving Pennsburg, PA

Houses from the cigar and railroad era are usually brick or frame, tightly spaced, and have been through several heating systems. Older homes of this type across the region often started with steam or hot-water radiators, and many still have them, sometimes with a boiler from the mid-1900s. Cast iron boilers can last a long time, but a failure tends to come with little warning.

When a boiler does go, you do not have to give up radiator heat. A modern high-efficiency boiler can be matched to the radiators and piping already in the house, and that is often a smaller project than converting to forced air. Where the old system is oil, whether gas is on the street changes the picture, and PECO's territory includes the borough but not every address.

The newer housing is a different job. It is typically built around forced air and central AC, and the equipment is reaching its first replacement. We size those replacements to the house, not to what was there.

On a boiler call we check the pressure and expansion tank, circulator, zone valves, controls and flue before talking about replacement. Weeping at a seam and rust at the base are signs of a boiler nearing the end, while a failed circulator or air problem is often a repair.

If the boiler is replaced, we check whether the radiators and piping are in good shape and size the new boiler to the heat the house needs. Over-large boilers short-cycle and waste fuel, and many old ones were sized generously.

A carbon monoxide and flue check is part of any service on older equipment. A chimney built for an old boiler may not suit a newer unit, and catching a mismatch at the start is cheaper than finding it later.