Heating and AC service in Center City condos and towers
About 69,000 people lived in Center City at the 2020 census, and greater Center City has added more than 50,000 homes since 1990. Towers are part of that story, from Society Hill Towers, finished to I.M. Pei’s design in 1964, to the condominium and co-op buildings that replaced most of the mansions around Rittenhouse Square after World War II. In a condo tower, the equipment serving your unit is usually a water-source heat pump in a closet, a fan coil connected to the building’s hot and chilled water, or a through-wall unit under a window. The owner typically maintains that equipment while the association runs the boilers, cooling tower and piping. Some large downtown buildings take their heat from a 41-mile network of steam pipes under the streets, fed by a plant in Grays Ferry, and there the building’s engineers look after the supply side. Buildings often set rules for outside contractors, so check with the management office when you book a repair.
Boiler and furnace repair in Center City brownstones and rowhouses
Society Hill holds one of the largest collections of original 18th- and early 19th-century buildings in the country, mostly brick rowhouses of two to four stories. West of Broad Street, Spruce Street runs past brick and brownstone houses, among them a late 19th-century row of brownstones on the 1900 block, and Washington Square West mixes its rowhouses with condos and mid-rise apartments. Houses this old were built long before forced air, so they commonly heat with a gas boiler and radiators, or with a furnace fitted later into a tight basement. When one stops, we troubleshoot first, give you the price before any work begins, repair it the same day when we can and answer no-heat emergencies at any hour.
Cooling Old City lofts and historic homes
Old City was the city’s warehouse district. From the 1970s, artists and early residents turned its industrial buildings into homes with ceilings of 12 to 17 feet, and the Wireworks at 3rd and Race Streets became condominiums in the mid-1980s. In rooms that tall, warm air pools near the ceiling, so where the supply and return openings sit counts as much as the size of the equipment. In the rowhouses, a furnace fitted into the basement usually brings ductwork that can carry central air too, and if the house already has a high-velocity system, we can retrofit it with new equipment rather than cutting new chases through plaster. Society Hill and Old City are both on the Philadelphia Register of Historic Places, so new outdoor equipment there is reviewed by the Historical Commission as part of the permit.
Replacement and seasonal maintenance in Center City
When a heat pump, PTAC or boiler is near the end of its life, you see the replacement price next to the repair price before you decide. In a tower, a new unit has to match the closet, the wall sleeve or the water connections the old one used, so the model and size need confirming before anything is ordered. In a house, new systems can often go in the next day. Our $54 Seasonal Maintenance visit suits every kind of system downtown, since a clogged filter or a dirty coil costs far less to deal with in spring than during the first heat wave. Our shop in Bala Cynwyd is about seven miles from City Hall, a straight run down the Schuylkill Expressway.