Plumbing and HVAC Service in Portage Park, Chicago

Two-flats and shared systems

Portage Park has more two-flats than the neighborhoods further northwest, and that changes how we work. Two units may share one boiler, one water service and one building sewer, or each may have its own furnace and water heater in a shared basement. When the first-floor tenant reports a backup or the second floor has no heat, we start by working out which equipment serves which unit, because a problem in one often shows up in the other.

Owners who live in one unit and rent the other usually want a clear written note of what was found and what was done. We provide that as a matter of course.

• Steam and hot-water boiler repair in two-flats
• Separate furnace and water heater service for each unit
• Stack and building-drain cleaning on shared lines
• Water heater replacement in tight shared basements
• Gas leak checks and gas line repair on older piping

Six Corners storefronts and mixed-use buildings

The older brick buildings around Six Corners and along Irving Park and Cicero often have a shop on the ground floor and apartments above, with plumbing that has been altered by every tenant who passed through. Grease from food businesses, undersized drains from a converted space and water heaters serving more fixtures than they were sized for are common calls. We look at the building as a whole, not just the fixture that stopped working.

Older frame houses and galvanized pipe

Some of the frame houses in Portage Park are older than the bungalows around them, and galvanized steel water piping is still common in both. Galvanized rusts from the inside and narrows over decades until upstairs fixtures lose pressure. Replacing the worst runs usually does more than new faucets or a pressure booster. We'll show you where the restriction is before quoting the repair, and point out where the service line comes in so you know its material too.

Furnaces, boilers and cooling

Bungalows here run both forced air and radiators, roughly evenly. Furnace calls are usually ignition, condensate or airflow problems; boiler calls are usually water level, venting or circulation. In summer, condensers squeezed into gangways between houses often struggle for airflow and collect debris, and a cleaning and capacitor check solves more no-cool calls than people expect.

How service works in Portage Park

Right Away is based at 2093 Rand Rd, Des Plaines, IL 60016 — we don't keep an office in the city — and Chicago addresses are dispatched on 773-250-6060. Tell us what the equipment is doing and roughly how old it is, so the right parts are on the truck. Same-day visits when the schedule allows.