Where we work
Chicago and the western suburbs.
Here is the honest version. We run a range every week, and the edges of it move with the season and the schedule. The towns below are the ones we are in the most. If yours is not on the list, call and ask instead of assuming the answer is no. It takes about thirty seconds to find out.
A service area page is usually written to make a company look bigger than it is. This one is written so you do not waste a phone call.
The list below is grouped the way the work actually runs: the city, the near west suburbs pressed against it, the DuPage County towns, the southwest side of the region, and the far edge out toward the Fox River. Grouping matters because the houses change as you move west. A brick two-flat in the city and a 1970s split level in Woodridge fail in completely different ways, and the truck gets stocked accordingly.
Towns near the outer edge are still worth a call. Some days the answer is yes, and some days it is a longer wait than you want. You will be told which one it is instead of being strung along.
Call (708) 271-3667 and say where you are. If we cover it, we will tell you how soon we can be out. If we do not, we will say so on the phone instead of taking your information and disappearing.
The list
Towns we work in
Heating, cooling, plumbing, and electrical work in every one of these. Same company, same number.
Chicago proper
The city is the anchor. Bungalows, two-flats, greystones, and frame houses carrying a hundred years of other repairs stacked on top of each other. Boiler and radiator heat, cast iron drain stacks, and fuse panels that were never meant to run a modern kitchen. Call with your cross streets and we will tell you where you sit in the week.
Near west suburbs
The ring just outside the city line, where the housing stock is close to what the city has and the lots are a little wider. Plenty of pre-war brick, converted gravity furnaces, galvanized supply lines that have been narrowing for decades, and basements that take on water when the storm system backs up.
DuPage County
The biggest block on the map. Housing here runs from pre-war blocks near the old downtowns in Elmhurst and Wheaton to subdivisions built in the 1960s, 1970s, and later. Ranches and split levels on original ductwork, forced air added to houses that were never designed for it, and water hard enough to shorten the life of a water heater if nothing is done about it.
Southwest suburbs
Down along the Stevenson and out toward the Palos area. Postwar ranches, brick Georgians, finished basements with a sump pump doing serious work, and electrical services that were sized before central air, a second refrigerator, and a garage full of tools.
The Fox Valley edge
This is the outer edge of the range, and we will be straight about it. We get out here, but the farther west you go, the more the schedule decides. Call and ask how soon we can be out before you plan your day around it.
Why the town matters
Houses here break in local ways
Working this region every week means walking into a basement with a short list of suspects already in mind. Chicago area homes have a handful of failures that repeat constantly, and where the house sits tells you a lot about which one you are looking at.
Older housing stock
Much of this area was built before central air and before a house had thirty things plugged into it. That shows up as a fuse panel or a 60 amp service feeding a modern kitchen, knob and tube left live in the wall of an old addition, and cast iron drain lines scaled down to half their opening.
Hard water
Water here is hard enough to leave a record of itself. Scale collects in the bottom of a water heater and becomes the rumbling or popping you hear during a recovery cycle. It plugs aerators and shower heads and crusts shutoff valves so they will not turn when you need them. When a five year old heater is already noisy, mineral buildup is usually why.
Freeze and thaw
Winter here does not hold steady. It swings, and the swings do the damage. Pipes in an unheated crawl space or against an exterior wall freeze on the cold snap and split when it warms back up. Outdoor hose bibs burst behind the wall and nobody finds out until spring. High efficiency furnaces lock out when the condensate drain freezes, which looks like a dead furnace but is a plugged plastic line.
Basement flooding
Flat ground, clay soil, and combined sewers in a lot of these towns. Water comes up through the floor drain in a heavy storm, sump pits fill faster than a worn pump can keep up with, and ejector pumps in finished basements fail quietly until there is a smell. Those pumps also sit on circuits people forget about, so a breaker that tripped in June becomes a wet basement in July.
Pre-war construction
Brick, plaster, heavy framing, and no ductwork anywhere. Heat came from a boiler and radiators, or from a gravity furnace someone later strapped a blower onto. Cooling is the hard part, because there are no returns to work with. Supply plumbing is often galvanized, which shows up as weak pressure upstairs that gets worse every year rather than failing all at once.
Post-war construction
Ranches and split levels from the 1950s through the 1970s. These have ducts, but the returns are usually undersized, which is why the bedroom over the garage is never comfortable. Panels are commonly 100 amp and full. Some homes from the mid 1960s and 1970s have aluminum branch wiring, worth knowing before anyone adds circuits. Cooling was often added years later to a duct system sized for heat only.
One company, four trades
Why that matters more in an old house
In a house that has been worked on for eighty years, problems rarely stay inside one trade. A furnace that will not fire can be a gas supply issue. A basement that floods can be a pump problem, a drain problem, or a dead circuit feeding the pump. A kitchen remodel touches water, drain, gas, and power in the same week.
- One call covers all four. Heating, cooling, plumbing, and electrical are in house, so a job that crosses trades does not get handed to a company you never hired.
- Nobody blames the other guy. When one company owns the whole system, there is no argument about whose fault the problem is.
- Your housing stock is familiar. Telling us the town and the rough age of the house usually narrows the problem before anyone is on site.
- Price before work starts. We diagnose it, show you what we found, and you approve the price before anything gets done.
Before you call
Questions about coverage
My town is not on the list. Is that a no?
Not necessarily. The list shows where we are most weeks, not a hard border. Call and say where you are. You will get a straight yes or no on the phone.
I am right on the edge of the map. Does that change anything?
It can change how soon we get to you, especially during a heat wave or a cold snap when everything is booked. Ask on the phone and you will get an honest window instead of a promise that falls apart.
Do you do all four trades everywhere on this list?
Yes. Heating, cooling, plumbing, and electrical work is the same offering in every town listed here. It is one company, not four different ones sharing a phone number.
Do you work on two-flats and condos, or only single family homes?
Call and describe the building and what it is doing. Residential work is the core of what we do, multi-unit buildings included, and we will tell you plainly if something falls outside what we take on.
What should I have ready when I call?
Your town, the rough age of the house, and what the house is actually doing. No heat, no cold air, water where it should not be, a breaker that keeps tripping. Those three things get you a useful answer fast.
There is a $125 service charge to come out. That pays for the trip and the diagnosis, which means finding what is actually wrong and telling you what it costs to fix. It is a separate charge and is not credited toward the repair. Once you have the repair price, nothing happens until you approve it.
Tell us your town and what the house is doing.
One call gets you an answer on coverage, a read on what the problem probably is, and how soon someone can be out.