No heat
Gas and oil furnaces, boilers, heat pumps and air handlers, any make. We find the fault, say what it costs to put right, and say plainly when the money is better spent elsewhere.
Syracuse, New York
Heating that has to work in the snowiest city in America
Syracuse gets more snow than any other large city in the country, and that changes what a heating contractor here actually has to think about. It is not only that the season is long. It is that the equipment outside — and increasingly the pipes that vent it — spend four months being buried.
We service and repair heating, cooling and ventilation for houses and businesses across Onondaga County: gas and oil furnaces and boilers, heat pumps, ductwork and airflow, and the commercial plant on the roofs downtown.
There is also a page on this site about snow depth, because a blocked vent terminal is the one winter risk here that is genuinely dangerous and almost nobody is told about it.
What we do
Six columns of it, and no more than that.
01
02
Annual service
Combustion tested with instruments, heat exchangers and flues inspected, safeties tested rather than observed. Booked in September rather than found in January.
03
Vent terminals
Direct-vent appliances breathe through two pipes in a wall. In this city those pipes are frequently at snow height, and that is a safety item rather than an inconvenience.
04
Heat pumps
Defrost behaviour, back-up heat staging and mounting height. A heat pump sitting at ground level in Onondaga County needs to be up out of the snow and able to drain.
05
Ducts and airflow
Static pressure against the blower’s own rating, room-by-room airflow, return sizing, and leakage into an attic you are already fighting to keep cold.
06
Cooling
Short season, real season. Central air where there are ducts, ductless heads where there are not, and sizing that accounts for how little of the year it runs.
A direct-vent terminal with the snow bank close beneath it. This is the item the snow page is about.
The winter item nobody mentions
Not an emergency, and not something to leave either.
Older appliances vent up a chimney. Newer ones — high-efficiency furnaces and boilers, and a great many water heaters — vent through the side wall of the house through two plastic pipes: one takes combustion air in, the other pushes exhaust out.
Those terminals are usually a foot or two above the ground at installation. In a city that measures its snowfall in feet, a drift or a roof slide can put them under. When that happens the appliance either shuts itself down on a safety, which is the good outcome, or it does not, which is the other one.
What to do is simple and free: know where your terminals are, keep a path to them, and clear snow away from them by hand rather than with a shovel blade. Working carbon monoxide alarms on every floor are not optional in a house with a combustion appliance.
We will show you where yours are on any visit, and we will say so in writing if we think they are mounted too low for this climate.
Homes and businesses
Residential
Houses across Onondaga County
Syracuse, Camillus, Liverpool, DeWitt and the hills south of the city. Older housing stock, long heating seasons, and a great many houses on their third appliance connected to their original ductwork.
Commercial
Shops, suites and light industrial
Retail, professional suites, clinics, restaurants and small industrial units. Maintenance with a record per unit, rooftop plant, extract and make-up air, and work timed around when you trade.
Common questions
Why does snow matter so much to a heating system?
Because modern high-efficiency appliances vent through two pipes in a side wall rather than up a chimney, and those terminals are usually a foot or two above the ground. In a city that measures snow in feet, a drift or a roof slide can bury them. Blocking either pipe is a carbon monoxide risk, not an efficiency question.
My furnace keeps shutting off in deep snow. Is it broken?
Check the vent terminals before assuming anything. A blocked intake is exactly the condition a safety device exists to catch, and an appliance locking out in those circumstances is the system protecting you. Clear both pipes by hand — a shovel blade cracks them — and see whether it runs.
Does a heat pump work in Syracuse?
Yes, and what decides it is the installation rather than the technology. The unit needs to be mounted well up out of the snow with clear space beneath it so defrost water can drain, the back-up heat needs to be staged correctly, and the thermostat has to be configured for the equipment.
My heat pump was steaming in January. Should I worry?
No. That is a defrost cycle finishing. Frost forms on the outdoor coil in cold damp weather and the system briefly reverses to melt it off. It looks alarming, it is over in minutes, and it is meant to happen.
Do you deal with ice dams?
Not as a repair — that belongs to insulation and roofing contractors. What we can tell you is whether duct leakage or an attic bypass is putting heat into the roof space and contributing to it, because sometimes it is. We will name the trade that should do the work.
Which areas do you cover?
Syracuse, Camillus, Liverpool, DeWitt, Manlius, Baldwinsville and Fayetteville.
Where
Syracuse and Onondaga County
416 W Seneca Turnpike, Syracuse, NY 13207. We cover Syracuse, Camillus, Liverpool, DeWitt, Manlius, Baldwinsville and Fayetteville.
Monday to Friday, 7am to 4pm.