Hydronic heat is its own discipline, and it rewards a contractor who treats it that way. We service, repair and replace boilers, and we measure what they are doing rather than guessing at it.
Why a boiler is not just a furnace that uses water
A boiler moves heat with water rather than air, so the failure points are different ones. Circulator pumps, expansion tanks, zone valves, air trapped in the loop, system pressure drifting out of range, a low-water cutoff that has stopped doing its job — none of that exists on a forced-air system, and none of it is diagnosed the same way.
What does carry across is combustion. A boiler burns fuel, and combustion analysis is as much a safety check as a performance one. It is one of the instruments in our High-Performance toolkit, and it goes on the boiler every time we are in front of one.
The other thing that carries across is our method: measure, diagnose, correct, measure again, prove the result. On a boiler the readings are water temperature, system pressure and combustion rather than static pressure and airflow, but the sequence does not change.
What we see most often
Most calls start with a symptom rather than a diagnosis, which is fine — the symptom is where we start too.
- Radiators that stay cold at one end of the house while others run hot
- System pressure that keeps climbing, or keeps dropping, between visits
- Banging, knocking or gurgling in the pipes when the system fires
- A boiler that short-cycles, firing and satisfying and firing again minutes later
- A zone valve that has stopped opening, so an entire zone goes cold
- A pilot or ignition sequence that fails intermittently and always at the worst time
Repair, or replace — and who decides
Boilers often last a long time, and we would rather repair one that has life left in it than sell you a new one. When we do raise replacement, it is because of something specific: the age of the equipment, its condition, the repair history, and the cost of the repair in front of us relative to all of that.
We lay the options out and you decide. There is no pressure in either direction, and there is no version of this conversation where we decide for you. If it helps to read through the thinking before we come out, we wrote it up on repair or replace, and on how furnaces, heat pumps and boilers compare.
On a diagnostic visit there is a standard service fee during regular hours and a different one after hours. The fee is not applied toward the repair. Once we have diagnosed the problem you get the price and your options in writing before any work starts, and nothing happens until you approve it.
Replacement, done with a load calculation
Estimates on new equipment are free. A Comfort Advisor comes to the home, collects data and verifies sizing with a load calculation before anyone quotes anything — because the right size for your house is a question about your house, not about the nameplate on the boiler being removed.
We install Weil-McLain, Peerless and NTI high-efficiency boilers among others; we service equipment regardless of who made it or who installed it. If the comfort complaint that prompted the call is uneven heat rather than a failing boiler, we will say so, and that is usually a hot and cold spot conversation instead.
What comes with the work
Installations carry a two-year labor warranty and a lifetime workmanship guarantee, with a ten-year parts warranty once the equipment is registered. An optional ten-year labor warranty is available on new residential equipment installation. Manufacturer warranties may vary by product, and we will go through exactly what applies to yours. Equipment is registered once the installation is paid in full.
If a workmanship concern comes up afterwards, we come back and address it. Financing is available at 0% for up to 60 months on qualified purchases, and Affirm is available for service repairs — qualification is through the application, and approval is never guaranteed.
Keeping it running
Maintenance on a boiler can include performance measurements, combustion testing, safety checks, documentation of what we found and recommendations for what to watch. Our Bronze, Silver and Gold maintenance memberships cover heating equipment and carry a repair discount; the plans page lays out what each one includes.
A boiler failure in genuinely cold weather is an emergency, because pipes can freeze. We offer 24/7 emergency service on the same number we always use, and after-hours calls are answered by a member of our office staff rather than an answering service.
Talk to our team
Call us at (847) 729-9190 or request service online. After-hours calls are answered by a member of our office staff.