How it started
One van, a lot of steam boilers
Miguel Salazar served his apprenticeship on the steam systems of Sunnyside in the mid-nineties, at a time when everybody in the trade was already calling them obsolete. They were not obsolete then and they are not obsolete now — a great many of them are still heating this neighbourhood — and learning to balance one properly turned out to be the best possible training for everything that came after.
The shop on Queens Boulevard opened in 1998 with one van and a sheet metal brake. The brake is still here. So is the habit of making a piece to fit rather than forcing a catalogue fitting into a pre-war joist bay, which is a large part of why our installations look the way they do.
What has changed is the range: heat pumps, ductless systems, controls, load calculations and a licensed engineer who does the design work. What has not changed is that the person who quotes the job works here, the person who does it works here, and the person who answers when it goes wrong works here too.
What we hold ourselves to
Four commitments, in plain language
Same-day service, and a real emergency line
Call before noon on a weekday and you are almost always seen that day. After hours the phone is answered by a person in Woodside, not a call centre that takes a message and hopes.
Flat-rate pricing, approved before we start
You are quoted the whole repair — parts, labour and the visit together — and you say yes or no before a wrench comes out. No hourly meter, and no invoice that surprises you at the door.
Licensed, insured, and certificates on file
A licensed and insured contractor with EPA 608 certified technicians, and a certificate of insurance your co-op board or managing agent can have the same day they ask for it.
The same faces, year after year
Our technicians are employees, not a rotating cast of subcontractors. Several of them have been here longer than the boilers they service.
Why we do not pay commission
The single decision that shapes everything else
This trade has a reputation problem, and most of it comes from one structural cause: technicians paid a percentage of what they sell. Put a person on commission and you have made it expensive for them to tell you that the cheap repair is the right one.
Our technicians are paid for the day. Nobody here earns more by fitting a compressor than by fitting a capacitor, and nobody earns anything at all by telling you that your system has ten good years left in it. That is not a moral position; it is just the only arrangement under which the advice you get is worth anything.
It costs us work, occasionally. It also means that when we do tell somebody their system is finished, they tend to believe us.
- No commission on parts or equipment, at any level.
- Repair-or-replace priced both ways, with the running-cost difference shown.
- The failed part shown to you, with an explanation of what killed it.
Licensing and insurance
The paperwork, since somebody always asks
Licensed and insured
Home improvement contractor licensing and refrigeration registrations on file, with a certificate of insurance issued to your building or managing agent the same day it is asked for.
EPA 608 certified
Every technician holds EPA Section 608 certification. Refrigerant is recovered and documented on every removal — it is a legal requirement and it is also simply the right thing to do.
Permits and filings
Filed where the work requires them, with the inspection arranged and the paperwork handed to you rather than left in a drawer here.
The shop
Where the work happens
In their words
What customers tell us
Illustrative comments written for this demonstration site. They are not real customer reviews and are deliberately not marked up as ratings anywhere in this page's structured data.
They talked me out of the expensive option.
Two other companies quoted a whole new system for a top floor that never got cool. These people measured the ducts, found the return was a third of what it should be, fixed that, and charged me a tenth of the quote.
Eleven at night, in February, with a newborn in the house.
I did not expect anyone to pick up, let alone show up. It turned out to be a forty-dollar part. They charged the call-out and the flat rate and nothing else, which I still think about.
Somebody who actually understands steam.
Our building had been told for years that the boiler needed replacing. He spent a morning changing vents and adjusting the pressure. The top floor has been comfortable ever since and the board still has its reserve fund.
My restaurant did not lose a Friday night.
The rooftop unit went down at four in the afternoon in July. They had someone on the roof within the hour because we are on a contract, and we opened on time. That contract has paid for itself several times over.
Same-day service in most cases
Book a visit, or call the 24-hour line
Tell us what the system is doing and we will tell you honestly whether it needs somebody tonight or whether it will keep until the morning. Diagnostics are $119 and credited in full against any repair you approve.