Service
Boiler Repair and Service in Ferndale, MI
Steam and hot-water systems, radiators, and the older houses in this area that still run on them.
A good part of the prewar housing in Ferndale and the surrounding towns is still heated by a boiler and radiators, and those systems behave nothing like forced air. They fail differently, they are diagnosed differently, and plenty of contractors would rather not touch them.
What this covers
- Steam and hot-water (hydronic) boiler diagnosis and repair
- Cold radiators, partly warm radiators, and radiators that bang
- Circulator pump and zone valve failures on hot-water systems
- Low-water cutoff, pressuretrol, and aquastat faults
- Air in the system, bleeding, and pressure problems
- Boiler no-heat emergency calls
What the symptoms point at
- One radiator cold, the rest fine: air trapped in that radiator, or a stuck valve on it.
- Radiators warm at the bottom and cold at the top: air in the system, which on a hot-water setup means bleeding.
- Banging or hammering pipes on a steam system: usually condensate trapped where it cannot drain back, often from pitch that has shifted.
- The boiler runs but nothing gets warm: on hot water, commonly a failed circulator pump; on steam, often a water-level or venting fault.
- The boiler will not fire at all: safety controls have shut it down, and which control tripped is the diagnosis.
Steam and hot water are not the same system
It is worth knowing which one you have, because the answers differ completely. A steam system has one pipe or two running to each radiator, a sight glass on the boiler showing a water level, and radiators that hiss through an air vent. A hot-water system has a circulator pump, an expansion tank, and radiators with a small bleed valve at the top. Telling us which you have when you call saves time.
Old cast-iron boilers have a reputation for lasting, and it is earned. It is not unusual to find one still running well past the age at which a forced-air furnace would have been replaced twice. The parts that fail are usually the controls and the pumps around it rather than the vessel itself, and those are replaceable.
Where an old boiler does cost you is in gas. A heavy atmospheric boiler from mid-century runs at an efficiency that a modern unit would be embarrassed by. That is a real trade-off worth putting numbers to, and it is not the same trade-off as a cracked heat exchanger, which is a safety question with only one answer.
Ferndale, Royal Oak, Berkley, Oak Park, Madison Heights, and the rest of the south end of Oakland County. The shop has been at the same Nine Mile address for three generations, which is the short answer to how far we travel.
Boiler repair: common questions
Why is one radiator cold when the rest of the house is warm?
On a hot-water system it is almost always air trapped in that radiator, which is cleared by bleeding it at the valve on top. If bleeding does not fix it, the next suspects are a stuck or closed valve at the radiator, or a circulation problem in that branch of the loop.
My steam pipes bang. Is that dangerous?
Water hammer in a steam system is a symptom worth attending to rather than living with. It happens when condensate collects somewhere it cannot drain back to the boiler and steam slams into it. The usual causes are pipe pitch that has settled over the decades, a failed steam trap, or a water level that is being carried too high.
Should I replace my old cast-iron boiler?
Not automatically. A well-maintained cast-iron boiler can outlast several generations of forced-air equipment, and the components that typically fail around it are replaceable. The case for replacement is fuel cost rather than imminent failure, so the sensible approach is to see what the current unit is actually costing you to run.
Do you work on radiators as well as the boiler?
Yes. Most boiler complaints turn out to be about distribution rather than the boiler itself: a radiator that will not heat, a zone that stays cold, air in the loop. Those are part of the same system and part of the same call.