Heating Repair
Heating repair across Suffolk County, Long Island.
This is the broad no-heat page. It covers every heating system this company works on — forced air furnaces, hot water boilers with baseboard or radiators, steam systems, oil burners, and heat pumps — and it sends you to the deeper page for whichever one you have. Residential only. No commercial work. If the heat is out, call (631) 873-5844 and say what kind of system you have and what it is doing.
The single biggest thing this company has: it works on oil burners and boilers, not only forced air and heat pumps. Most heating and cooling companies in this area will not touch an oil burner and hand it to the fuel dealer. We do not. We service and repair oil burners and boilers. Say that plainly, because it is true and because almost nobody else on Long Island says it.
Travis Hart is the person on the job. He has worked in heating and air conditioning since 2017 and founded Hartworx HVAC in 2026. The company is new, and the person who answers is the person who shows up.
The problem from the homeowner's point of view
The thermostat is calling and nothing happens. The furnace comes on and blows cool air. The boiler is hot to the touch but the baseboard along the back wall stays cold. One radiator never gets warm. The oil burner ran all night and now it will not restart. The heat pump is running but the air out of the register feels cool. There is a bang in the pipes every time the heat comes on.
Those symptoms come from very different systems, and the first job on the call is finding out what is actually in the basement. A forced-air furnace, a hot water boiler, a steam system, an oil burner, and a heat pump each fail in their own ways, and the work on each is different.
What we actually do, step by step, by system type
Forced air furnace
Thermostat and power first, then the filter. We check for a call for heat, the inducer and the pressure switch (which proves the vent is clear before the burner fires), the igniter and the flame sensor, the limit switches that protect against overheating, the blower, and the flue.
Hot water boiler and baseboard
Thermostat, then the circulator that moves the water, the aquastat that controls water temperature, the zone valves, air in the loop, the expansion tank and the pressure, and purging the air out of a cold zone.
Steam
Water level and the low-water cutoff, the venting on the mains and radiators, and the pitch of the pipe and the radiator — a banging pipe is usually not the boiler's fault, it is a pipe that has settled and lost its pitch so condensate cannot drain back against the steam.
Oil burner
The nozzle, the electrodes, the cad cell (the flame sensor), the primary control and what the reset button actually does, the oil filter and strainer, the pump pressure, and a combustion test — which is not optional. We service oil; we do not convert it.
Travis Hart is on the job rather than a dispatcher. The deeper page for each system — furnace repair and replacement, boiler service and repair, and oil burner service — goes further than this overview.
How we diagnose
A technician is reading the temperature rise across a furnace against the rating plate on the unit, the supply and return water temperature on a boiler, a combustion analysis on an oil burner or gas appliance, the static pressure across the duct, and the delta-T across a heat pump coil. We read what the control board and the lockout codes are actually saying.
A system that runs and then locks out is telling you something specific — a failed ignition, a pressure switch that did not prove, a high-limit that tripped — and clearing the lockout without reading it is how the same call happens twice. We read it first, then we fix the thing it pointed to.
What makes this job go wrong in this part of Long Island
This housing stock is largely post-war, and a lot of it is still on oil, still on a boiler, and still on baseboard or radiators. An HVAC company that only understands forced air is guessing on half the houses here. That is exactly why this company services oil burners and boilers and not only forced air and heat pumps.
Aging oil tanks, filters that have not been changed, and sludge in the bottom of a tank after a delivery stirs it up — a very common mid-winter no-heat call in this area. The burner runs, the filter clogs, the burner locks out, and the homeowner presses the reset button until it will not restart.
Boilers, burners, and air handlers sitting in unconditioned crawlspaces and half-height basements, with distribution piping and duct run through cold space and insulation long gone. Houses where a heat pump or air handler was added onto a house that kept its original boiler, so there are two heating systems, two controls, and nobody has explained to the homeowner how they are supposed to interact. Chimneys and flues on older houses serving appliances they were not originally sized for — we check it, and we do not make a claim about any specific house without seeing it.
Safety. If anyone smells gas, leave the house and call the utility or the fire department from outside — do not wait for a heating company. If a carbon monoxide alarm is sounding, get everyone out and call the fire department. This is safety guidance, not a sales pitch.
When repair beats replacement, and when it does not
For heating, the honest answer usually favours repair. Boilers in this housing stock are frequently older than the homeowner expects and still perfectly serviceable, and a circulator, a zone valve, an aquastat, or a burner component is a repair, not a reason to replace a system.
What does push toward replacement: a leaking boiler section, a heat exchanger failure, or repeated failures across different components in the same season. And be direct about what we do not do: this company services and repairs oil burners but does not do oil-to-gas conversions and does not swap heat exchangers. We send those readers on honestly rather than pretending otherwise. If you also have heat pump installation and service questions, that page covers it, and seasonal tune-ups and inspections is how you keep a heating system from becoming a no-heat call in February. If the problem is on the cooling side, AC repair is the page for that.
Availability
Someone picks up seven days a week, 7 AM to 10 PM — 9 AM on Thursdays. Most heating and cooling companies on Long Island close at 5. Call and we'll tell you honestly when we can be there. Winter no-heat calls are exactly why the evening hours exist. No promise of speed or arrival time of any kind.
Questions about heating repair
Some rooms are warm and some are cold. Is that a repair or is the system just too small?
Usually it is a distribution problem, not a size problem. On a forced-air system it is often a duct or return issue; on a hot water system it is often a zone valve, air in the loop, or a circulator. We read the temperatures and the pressures before we conclude anything about size. A system that is actually too small is rare; a system that cannot move heat to one part of the house is common.
My boiler is hot but the baseboard along one wall stays cold. What causes that?
The boiler is making heat but it is not moving to that zone. The usual causes are air trapped in that loop, a zone valve that is not opening, or a circulator that is not running. We check the zone valves, the circulator, the expansion tank and pressure, and purge the air out of the loop that is cold. It is a repair, not a reason to replace the boiler.
My oil burner keeps locking out and I press the red reset button. How many times is it safe to do that?
Once, and then call. Pressing the reset repeatedly pushes unburned oil into the chamber and makes the next firing worse — it can flood the combustion area and create a harder, smellier restart. The lockout is the primary control telling you something failed at ignition: the nozzle, the electrodes, the cad cell (the flame sensor), the oil filter and strainer, or the pump pressure. We find which one instead of resetting it again.
Do you work on steam systems, or only hot water?
Both. Steam and hot water are different animals and we work on each correctly. On steam, the common calls are water level and low-water cutoff, venting, and the pitch of the pipe and the radiator — a banging pipe is usually not the boiler's fault, it is a pipe that has settled and lost its pitch so condensate cannot drain back against the steam. We check the water line, the low-water cutoff, the vents, and the pitch before we touch anything else.
My heat pump is blowing air that doesn't feel warm in winter. Is it broken?
Not necessarily. A heat pump in heating puts out air that is cooler than a furnace does — around 90 to 105 degrees — so it feels cool to the hand even when it is working. It also goes into defrost cycles, where it briefly switches to cooling to clear ice off the outdoor coil and may run supplemental heat. We read the delta-T across the coil and the pressures to tell whether it is actually underperforming or just doing what a heat pump does in cold weather.
Do you service oil burners, or do I have to call my fuel company?
We service oil burners. Most heating and cooling companies in this area refuse oil work and hand it to the fuel dealer. We do not. We service and repair oil burners — the nozzle, electrodes, cad cell, primary control, oil filter and strainer, pump pressure, and a combustion test, which is not optional. We service oil; we do not convert it. We do not do oil-to-gas conversions and we do not swap heat exchangers.
There's a burning smell the first time the heat comes on in the fall. Is that dangerous?
Usually it is dust burning off the heat exchanger after a summer of sitting — the first cycle smells, and it passes. What is not that: a smell that persists, smoke, a hot or scorched electrical smell, or any smell of gas. If you smell gas, leave the house and call the utility or the fire department from outside — do not wait for a heating company. If a carbon monoxide alarm is sounding, get everyone out and call the fire department. Those are not dust; shut the system down and call.
Call and say what kind of system you have.
Tell us what is in the basement and what it is doing. The fastest way to a real answer is a phone call.
(631) 873-5844Thart@hartworxhvac.com
Fri–Wed 7 AM – 10 PM · Thu 9 AM – 10 PM
Heating repair at a Suffolk County home
Real photo to be supplied
Rather send a message?
If your heat is out right now, call — that is faster. Otherwise tell us what kind of system you have and what it is doing.