Boiler repair & HVAC in Crown Heights, Brooklyn

We serve Crown Heights from our Ridgewood shop, about 16 min away. Plumbing, HVAC, boiler repair, heating, drains and gas piping. Emergency calls answered 24/7.

Crown Heights North contains one of the largest collections of intact late-19th-century row houses in Brooklyn, built from the 1890s through the 1920s — primarily three- and four-story limestone and brownstone-fronted townhouses along Eastern Parkway, St. Marks Avenue, and Dean Street. The construction era places most of the original plumbing squarely in the galvanized-supply, cast-iron-DWV generation, with one-pipe steam heat common in the larger townhouses and the apartment buildings that replaced some mansions by the 1920s and 1940s. Crown Heights South has a different character: more modest brick two-family and three-family houses from the same era, plus scattered postwar construction. The combination of large heated townhouses and dense multi-family stock means boiler service, steam system repairs, and supply-line replacement are recurring work throughout the neighborhood.

Our Crown Heights townhouse has steam radiators that only get warm on one side — what's happening?

A one-pipe steam radiator that only heats on the supply side has a failed air vent on the opposite end. The vent is what allows air to escape as steam enters — if it's stuck closed, steam can only enter partway before hitting an air pocket it can't displace. Replacing the vent (a straightforward repair) restores full radiator heating. If multiple radiators in the building have this issue, the main vents on the steam distribution mains may also need replacing.

We're buying a Crown Heights townhouse — how do we evaluate the heating system before we close?

A pre-purchase boiler inspection in a Crown Heights townhouse should cover: boiler age and section condition (cast-iron sections crack over time and cannot be repaired), operating pressure (a properly set steam system runs at under 2 psi — higher pressure indicates control or system problems), condition of the steam mains and pitch, and whether the radiator vents and traps are functional. We offer pre-purchase plumbing and heating inspections and will give you a written report covering what's there and what it's likely to need in the next 5 years.