Six weeks a year when nothing is right
Crest Harbor works on heating, cooling and ventilation for downtown Buffalo buildings and the houses around them. The calls we get most are not in January or July — they are in April and October, when a building cannot decide, and when half the complaints are not faults at all.
Spring and autumn, explained properly
Five complaints that arrive every shoulder season, what is actually happening, and — the part nobody says out loud — which of them are limits of the system rather than faults in it.
What the page gives you
For each complaint: what is going on, what can genuinely be fixed, and what cannot. Two of the five end in “this is the building, not a fault”, with an explanation of why — which is a better answer than a visit that finds nothing.
Why it matters here
Buffalo gets a long, undecided spring and a long, undecided autumn. A building on a two-pipe system can only be in one mode at a time, and for six weeks either mode is wrong for somebody. Knowing that in advance changes the conversation entirely.
Six panels
Everything we are asked for, in buildings and in houses.
Heating
Steam and hot-water systems, boilers, pumps, zone valves and gas furnaces. Combustion tested with an analyser and the readings written down, so the next visit has something to compare against.
Cooling
Rooftop and split systems, chilled water where it exists, ductless and through-wall units. Charge measured against the conditions and the plate rather than topped up on sight.
Controls
Schedules, setpoints, deadbands and changeover — read against how the building actually works rather than what was set the day it went in. Most shoulder-season complaints start here.
Ducts and airflow
Static pressure, register-by-register airflow, leakage, and returns interrupted by partitions built after the fit-out.
Ventilation
Extract for kitchens, salons and workshops, make-up air to replace what is thrown out, and outside air in offices where the complaint is stuffiness rather than temperature.
Maintenance
Two visits a year on buildings, annual on houses, with a record per unit including what the controls are set to.
Buildings and houses
Buildings
Downtown offices and professional suites, storefronts, restaurants, clinics and small industrial. Surveyed before anything is scheduled, with the control settings recorded alongside the model and serial numbers.
Houses
Doubles, singles and converted flats across the city and the inner suburbs. Steam and hot-water heating, cooling added to buildings that never had it, and the room that never keeps up measured rather than argued about.
What this website will not tell you
Each one would be a number we invented.
| Not stated | Why |
|---|---|
| A price | A changeover setting and a failed pump are not the same visit. You get a fixed figure on the phone once we know what is installed. |
| A response time | We will not promise an hour on the first cold night of the year when half of Erie County has lost heat. |
| A saving | “Cut your bills by a third” depends on the building, the hours and the tariff. It cannot be known from a web page. |
| A deadband or changeover setting | The right figures depend on the building and its occupants. Anybody printing numbers has not seen it. |
Asked often enough to answer here
Half the building is hot and half is cold in spring. What is wrong?
Frequently nothing is wrong. On a mild day the sun does most of the heating, so a south and west elevation gains heat all afternoon while the north side loses it — and a two-pipe building can only be in one mode at a time, so whichever mode it is in is wrong for one side. What can genuinely be fixed is sensor placement, zoning that spans two elevations, and air balance. What cannot is the basic limit of the design, and we will not pretend otherwise.
The system heats in the morning and cools by lunchtime. Is that a fault?
Usually it is the deadband — the gap between the heating and cooling setpoints — being too narrow, so the building crosses it on a day that starts cold and warms quickly. It is worth fixing because heating a space you then pay to cool is the most expensive thing a building can do. If the deadband is already wide and it still swings, something is calling that should not be, and that is a genuine fault.
Nothing is running and people still complain. Why?
Because in most buildings the fresh air arrives with the heating or the cooling. In the shoulder season the building sits inside its deadband, so the system barely runs, so there is no air movement and no outside air — and the space is the right temperature and still feels stale. Running the fans on occupancy rather than only on a call usually fixes it, though it uses electricity and on a humid day it can bring moisture in, so it is a trade rather than a free improvement.
Do you record what the controls are set to?
Yes, on the survey, alongside the model and serial numbers. Schedules, setpoints, deadbands and how changeover is decided. It is the field that prevents the most complaints and the one nobody else writes down — control programmes get set once by whoever installed the equipment and then belong to nobody.
Should the outdoor unit be raised off the ground?
In this city, yes. A condenser at grade spends part of every winter partly buried, and a heat pump has to be able to shed defrost water rather than stand in it and freeze. Raised mounting is not an upgrade here, it is the correct installation.
Which areas do you cover?
Buffalo, Cheektowaga, Amherst, Tonawanda, West Seneca, Lackawanna, Kenmore and Hamburg.
Where we are
41 Court St, Buffalo, NY 14202. Monday to Friday, 7.30am to 4pm.
We cover Buffalo, Cheektowaga, Amherst, Tonawanda, West Seneca, Lackawanna, Kenmore and Hamburg.