Two households, one boiler, one bill
Lincoln Crest works on heating, cooling and ventilation across South Buffalo and the city’s older neighbourhoods — where a great many houses are doubles, and where a good share of the arguments about heating are not about the heating at all.
Six entries
Everything we are asked for, in houses, doubles and small premises.
Steam, hot water and gas
One-pipe and two-pipe steam, hot-water boilers with circulators and zone valves, and gas furnaces where ductwork exists. Combustion tested with an analyser and the readings written down, so the next visit has something to compare against.
Separating one system into two
Zone valves, circulators, a second thermostat and the controls to run them. In a double this is frequently the whole job, and whether it is possible depends on how the pipework was run in 1920 rather than on the boiler.
Added to buildings that never had it
Ductless heads, small-duct systems through closets and chases, and window or through-wall units where those are genuinely right. Outdoor units go up off the ground here — a condenser at grade spends part of every winter partly buried.
Extract that actually goes outside
Bathroom and kitchen fans that terminate outdoors rather than into an attic or a soffit, and make-up air where a building has been tightened up and the appliances now fight the extract.
Shops, salons and small industrial
Storefronts along the avenues, restaurants, salons and workshops. Planned maintenance with a record per unit, extract with the make-up air it needs, and fit-out work commissioned rather than switched on and left.
A record, not a tick-sheet
Annual on houses, twice a year on premises. Readings, pressures and filter sizes written down, so the file shows a trend rather than a stack of invoices.
The double
Four ways a two-family house is heated, and what each one means for comfort, for bills and for who can change it. Buffalo has tens of thousands of them and almost nothing written about how they actually work.
The arrangement decides the physics
One boiler and one thermostat, one boiler with two zones, two separate systems, or one boiler with the thermostat in one flat. Each produces a completely different set of complaints, and three of the four are common.
Your role decides who can change it
Owner-occupier, landlord living elsewhere, or tenant. The same technical answer has three different next steps, and on one of them the next step is not ours at all.
Houses and premises
Singles, doubles and converted flats
Across South Buffalo, the Old First Ward, Kaisertown and the inner suburbs. Steam and hot-water heating, cooling added where it can be, and the room that never keeps up measured rather than argued about.
Storefronts, salons and small industrial
Usually under apartments, usually in a building older than the equipment by sixty years. Maintained on a schedule with a record per unit, and with the ventilation treated as part of the job rather than an extra.
What this website will not tell you
Each one would be a number we invented.
A zone valve and a boiler replacement are not the same conversation. You get a fixed figure on the phone once we know what is installed.
We will not promise an hour on the first cold night of the year when half of Erie County has lost heat.
“Cut your bills by a third” depends on the building, the occupants and the tariff. Nobody can know it from a web page.
How two households in one building should divide a heating bill is not a question we can answer. We can tell you what is physically metered and what is not, which is the part that has to come first.
New York has no statewide HVAC licence — it is handled at county and city level. We will not print a number that implies otherwise.
Asked often enough to answer here
Upstairs is always warmer than downstairs. Is the system faulty?
In a two-storey house or a double that is physics before it is a fault. Heat rises, the upper floor sits over a heated space and the lower one loses heat to the basement, so the two will never be the same temperature on one thermostat. Balancing is the cheap answer — vents and pitch on steam, lockshield valves on hot water — and it is skipped far more often than it is done. Zoning is the real answer and whether it is possible depends on how the pipework was run.
Can a double be split into two zones?
Frequently, and it depends entirely on the pipework rather than the boiler. If each flat is fed by its own riser or loop it is straightforward. If the pipework alternates between floors it is not, and that is worth establishing with a short visit before anybody prices anything. If the boiler is being replaced anyway, that is the cheapest moment to do it.
One radiator is cold and the rest are fine. Is the boiler going?
No — the boiler is proving it works everywhere else in the building. On one-pipe steam it is usually the air vent on that radiator or the pitch of the pipe. On hot water it is a zone valve, a circulator, a closed valve or an air lock. All ordinary repairs.
I rent the upper flat and I have no thermostat. What can I do?
Report it in writing with dates, and find out whether the other flat has the same problem — that one answer separates a fault from an arrangement. If the thermostat is in the other flat, that explains a great deal and it is worth saying so plainly to whoever owns the building. We will not do work on a building without the owner’s instruction, but we can put the technical findings in writing so you have something to hand over.
My steam pipes hiss. Is that a fault?
Hissing from a radiator vent while the system fills is normal and expected — that is the vent doing its job. Hammering is different: that is water sitting where steam needs to travel, usually because a radiator or pipe has lost its pitch, and it is hard on the system and worth correcting.
Which areas do you cover?
South Buffalo, Lackawanna, West Seneca, Cheektowaga, Blasdell, Hamburg, Orchard Park and Kenmore.
Where we are
243 Maywood Pl, Buffalo, NY 14210. Monday to Friday, 8am to 4.30pm.
We cover South Buffalo, Lackawanna, West Seneca, Cheektowaga, Blasdell, Hamburg, Orchard Park and the city centre.