Houses built from the gorge
Chestnut Hill looks the way it does because of the rock under it. For generations its builders used Wissahickon schist, a gray stone flecked with mica, for houses, churches, schools and shops. Skilled quarrymen and masons from northern Italy built many of its best-known stone houses and churches. Henry Howard Houston’s houses on the west side went up from the 1880s, and George Woodward’s company added its Cotswold-style singles, twins and quadruple houses after 1921. More than 85 architects designed homes here, in styles from Georgian and Italianate to Shingle, Tudor and Queen Anne.
Solid stone walls leave no hollow cavities to hide ductwork in. Houses of that era were built around a boiler in the cellar and radiators under the windows, since central forced air was still years away. When one of those systems starts to struggle, the useful question is which part has worn out, since the boiler is rarely the only suspect.
When a steam system acts up
Steam heat works on a simple loop. The boiler turns water to steam, the steam rises to the radiators and gives up its heat, and the water runs back down to be heated again. Nearly every complaint comes from something interrupting that loop. A radiator that stays cold often has an air vent stuck shut, so steam can’t push the air out. Pipes that bang are often holding water in a section that has settled over the decades. A boiler that shuts itself off can have a dirty low-water cutoff giving a false reading. None of these calls for a new boiler, and in a house with dozens of radiators it pays to fix them one by one. We troubleshoot first, show you what we found and give you the price before we start.
Cooling without cutting into masonry
Air conditioning came long after these houses were finished, so adding it takes some planning. Running full-size ducts through stone walls and plaster ceilings is rarely worth the damage. The usual answer is an air handler in the attic, which cools the top floors through short duct runs and leaves the masonry alone. Because it sits above finished ceilings, its condensate drain has to stay clear, or a humid week can leave a stain on the plaster below. Cooling the floors beneath means finding a route for ducts through closets or floor cavities, which is easier to judge once the attic and the closets have been looked at. The layout depends on how many rooms you want cooled, how much attic space there is to work in and where an outdoor unit can sit without crowding a garden wall or a neighbor’s window.