What HVAC Services Does Shavitz Heating and Air Conditioning Offer in Roscoe Village?
Shavitz Heating and Air Conditioning installs, repairs, and maintains furnaces, boilers, air conditioners, heat pumps, ductless systems, and indoor air quality equipment for homes and businesses throughout Roscoe Village. We’ve served the Chicago area since 1904, and our Carrier-certified technicians are as comfortable working on a vintage two-flat’s steam system as a newly built condo’s heat pump. Call 847-861-5559 or request service online to schedule service.
Family-Owned & Operated Since 1904 | Carrier Factory Authorized Dealer & President’s Award Winner | NATE-Certified Technicians | 5.0★ Average Across 2,900+ Google Reviews
Air Conditioning Repair & Installation
A system that won’t stop running, one that won’t start, or warm air coming out of the vents almost always points to something specific rather than a dead unit outright. Our air conditioning technicians diagnose the issue before touching anything, repair whatever’s fixable, and when a unit is undersized or past its useful life, we’ll say so and handle the replacement properly.
Roscoe Village’s older greystone two-flats and courtyard buildings were mostly built without central air in mind, so a lot of the cooling work here involves fitting a system into a house that wasn’t designed for one, not just swapping out an old unit for a new one near Hamlin Park.
Furnace Repair & Installation
Most furnace issues, whether that’s a house that never quite gets warm or a system that shuts off before it should, trace back to one part doing its job wrong: an igniter, a flame sensor, a pressure switch. Our furnace technicians find that part first. When it’s the furnace itself that’s failing rather than a component, we handle the replacement and size the new one correctly instead of matching whatever was there before.
The frame houses and brick cottages built in the neighborhood’s earliest years, before Riverview Park closed and the area filled in with two-flats, still turn up with furnaces that were never quite matched to the size of the house they’re heating.
Boiler & Steam Heat Service
Plenty of Roscoe Village’s vintage two-flats and greystones still run on steam or hot water heat, and for the same reason people kept it: it’s warm without the noise or the dry air forced air brings with it. Our technicians handle boiler repairs, radiator work, and full replacements on systems like these regularly, not as a rare specialty call.
Buildings converted from the rooming houses that once served Riverview Park’s amusement park workers often carry heating systems patched together over multiple owners, and sorting out what’s original versus added later is usually step one before recommending anything.
Heat Pump Installation & Repair
A heat pump handles heating and cooling from a single system, which is the draw, though whether it can carry a Roscoe Village home through a real Chicago winter depends on the equipment and how well the building holds heat. Our technicians install, repair, and maintain heat pump systems and can tell you plainly whether a standard system will do the job alone or needs furnace backup for the coldest weeks.
The newer construction and gut-rehabbed buildings that replaced older structures near the old Riverview Park site are where we see heat pumps chosen most often, usually alongside other efficiency upgrades done in the same renovation.
Geothermal Heat Pump Services
A geothermal heat pump system pays off over time through lower operating costs, but it needs a loop field that most city lots simply can’t provide. We’ll say this plainly rather than pitch it where it doesn’t fit: on a standard Roscoe Village lot, there usually isn’t room.
Between narrow lot widths and alley-facing yards that leave little open ground, geothermal is a realistic option for only a small share of properties here, mostly larger corner lots or homes with unusually deep back yards. Our technicians will tell you honestly whether yours is one of them.
Mini Split & Ductless Systems
Cutting new ductwork into a building that was never built with any is expensive and disruptive, and in Roscoe Village’s older two-flats, it’s often not possible without opening up finished ceilings and walls. A ductless system gets around that entirely, cooling or heating a room, floor, or addition without touching the rest of the building.
This is one of the most common calls we get in the neighborhood, particularly in vintage buildings near the Roscoe Street strip where converted attic units and rear additions were never connected to central ductwork in the first place.
Indoor Air Quality Services
Before recommending a new filter, purifier, or ventilation component, we look at what your building’s indoor air quality setup is already handling and where it’s coming up short. Sometimes that’s a straightforward repair or filter change; other times the existing equipment just isn’t built for what’s circulating through the space.
Older buildings near the Chicago River’s edge of the neighborhood tend to run more humid basements than properties further east, and the right fix depends on whether that’s the actual driver of an air quality complaint or whether dust and ventilation are the bigger factors.
Zone Control System Installation
In a lot of these tall, narrow city houses, the top floor bakes in July while the basement stays cool no matter what the thermostat is set to, which is a zoning issue more often than it’s a sign the equipment can’t keep up. Installing a zone control system adds dampers and independent thermostats so each level runs at its own setting, and we repair or maintain existing zoning setups too.
The larger, renovated single-family homes near Hamlin Park, many of them older two-flats converted back into one unit with an added third floor, are where zoning tends to matter most, since a single system rarely keeps a home that tall evenly comfortable.
Water Heater Repair & Replacement
Slower recovery between showers, water that runs lukewarm instead of hot, or a new rattling noise are the early warning signs before a water heater fails outright. When it’s still fixable we fix it, and when it isn’t, we’ll go over whether a straight swap or a switch to tankless makes more sense for your building.
Two-flats and courtyard buildings with multiple units sharing hot water demand routinely push a standard tank harder than a comparable single-family home does, which is usually when tankless starts to make more sense than another tank.
Commercial HVAC Services
The retail strip along Roscoe Street between Damen and Western is one of the neighborhood’s defining features, and the restaurants, cafes, and shops that make it up depend on reliable heating and cooling as much as any office building does. Our commercial services team handles installs, replacements, and maintenance contracts built around a business’s hours, not ours.
Downtime costs a small storefront more than most owners plan for, so when something breaks during a lunch rush or a Saturday afternoon on Roscoe Street, we prioritize getting it fixed fast over working through a routine queue.
HVAC Maintenance Plans
A maintenance visit involves a lot more than a fresh filter. Our technicians test electrical connections, check refrigerant charge and airflow against spec, and flag the kind of wear that turns into a real repair, or an early replacement, if it goes unnoticed for another season. Shavitz maintenance plans include two visits a year, along with discounts and priority scheduling.
Fall visits matter most for the neighborhood’s older steam and hot water systems, which tend to show problems the first cold snap after a summer of sitting idle, while spring checks catch AC issues before the heat arrives near Fellger Playlot Park and the rest of the neighborhood.
Why Roscoe Village Residents Choose Shavitz Heating and Air Conditioning
Working on a hundred-year-old two-flat’s steam boiler one call and a brand-new condo’s heat pump the next isn’t unusual for us, it’s most of what we do across the neighborhoods we serve. Bronson Shavitz, the current owner, represents the fourth generation of his family to run this company since 1904.
That history comes with credentials to match: Carrier Factory Authorized Dealer status, the Carrier President’s Award, and NATE-certified technicians. A 5.0-star average across nearly 2,900 Google reviews is the kind of record that’s hard to build without showing up and doing the work right.
Roscoe Village HVAC Questions, Answered
Do I need a permit to replace my furnace or AC in Roscoe Village?
Not always. Chicago doesn’t require a permit to repair or replace a furnace, boiler, or air conditioner in a residential building up to four stories, as long as it’s an in-kind swap, meaning the same type, size, and capacity as what’s already there. Changing the fuel type, capacity, or the location of the equipment does require a permit. We can tell you which category your project falls into before work starts.
Can central air be added to an older Roscoe Village two-flat that was never built with ductwork?
Yes, but usually not with standard ducted equipment. A high-velocity system uses small flexible tubing that fits through existing wall cavities without the demolition standard ductwork requires, and a ductless mini-split works room by room with no ductwork at all. Which one makes more sense depends on the layout and how much of the building needs cooling.
Is a boiler in an older two-flat worth repairing, or should it eventually be replaced with forced air?
Usually worth repairing, especially if the radiators and piping are in reasonable shape. Converting a whole building from steam or hot water heat to forced air means adding ductwork the building was never designed for, which is a bigger project than most owners expect once the walls and ceilings are involved. Most of the time, keeping the boiler and addressing what’s failing is the more practical route.
Is geothermal ever realistic for a property in Roscoe Village?
Rarely, and it comes down to lot size more than anything else. A standard 25-foot-wide city lot doesn’t leave room for a loop field once you account for the building, the yard, and the alley setback. It’s worth asking about if you’re on a wider or deeper lot than typical for the neighborhood, but for most properties here it isn’t a realistic option.
What’s the most common HVAC problem you see in Roscoe Village’s older buildings specifically?
Equipment that was sized for a different building than the one it’s currently in. A lot of these two-flats and courtyard buildings have had additions, deconversions, or finished basements added over the decades without anyone re-evaluating whether the original system could still handle the space. That mismatch shows up as hot and cold spots, short cycling, or a system that runs constantly without quite keeping up.
Do you handle HVAC for the restaurants and shops along Roscoe Street, not just residential buildings?
Yes. Commercial HVAC for a storefront or restaurant kitchen works differently than a residential system, both in scale and in how much downtime costs the business, and we handle installs, repairs, and maintenance contracts for that kind of building the same way we do for a house nearby.
What makes Shavitz Heating and Air Conditioning a good fit for a neighborhood with this much of a mix in building types?
Most HVAC companies get comfortable with one kind of building and stay there. Roscoe Village doesn’t really allow for that, a single block can have a century-old two-flat next to a gut renovation next to new construction. Four generations in this business means our technicians move between all three without treating any of them as the unusual case.
Schedule HVAC Service in Roscoe Village
Whether it’s a steam boiler in a building that predates Riverview Park’s closing or a heat pump installed last year near the Roscoe Street strip, Shavitz Heating and Air Conditioning handles what’s in front of us. Call 847-861-5559 or request service online to schedule your appointment today.