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McClain Bros.
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HVAC in Bucks County, MontCo & Philadelphia

Heating and cooling is the system you notice only when it stops. Around here that means a furnace or boiler doing the real work from November to March, an air conditioner or heat pump carrying July and August, and a great deal of equipment that has quietly passed its design life. The work is diagnosis, repair, replacement, and the maintenance that keeps the first two rare.

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What that covers

What a call includes

  • Furnace, boiler and heat pump repair — gas, oil, propane and electric
  • Central air conditioning repair, replacement and new installation
  • Ductless mini-splits for the rooms and houses the ducts never reached
  • Replacement systems sized to the house, not copied from the old nameplate
  • Seasonal tune-ups: cooling in spring, heating in fall
  • Thermostats, including smart and programmable models
  • Ductwork inspection, sealing and repair
  • Refrigerant leaks, compressors, blower motors, igniters and control boards

What people describe

  • The system runs but the house does not get warm, or does not get cool
  • It will not turn on at all, or short-cycles — on for a minute, off, on again
  • A strange noise: a squeal, a bang on start-up, a rattle that was not there last year
  • An oil burner that locked out, sometimes because the tank is lower than anyone realized
  • Upstairs too hot in summer and too cold in winter while the thermostat says all is well
  • Ice on the outdoor unit or on the refrigerant line in the middle of summer
  • Water on the floor around the indoor unit or the furnace
  • A bill that climbed without the weather changing

How a visit goes

  1. 01

    Assessment

    The technician starts with what the system is doing and what it is supposed to be doing: fuel, power, thermostat call, airflow, refrigerant, combustion. Most failures come down to one of those, and testing in order finds it without guessing. On an older system, that is also when the heat exchanger or the coil gets a look.

  2. 02

    Options

    A repair is quoted against what the system is worth going forward. A ten-year-old furnace with a failed igniter is a repair; a twenty-five-year-old one with a cracked heat exchanger is not. If replacement is on the table, you get the sizing reasoning and the efficiency trade-offs, not just a model number.

  3. 03

    The work

    Repairs are done with the correct part, not the closest one on the truck. Replacements are sized to the house — a system that is too large cycles constantly and never dehumidifies — and installed with the duct, drain, electrical and venting work the equipment needs to run the way its rating says.

  4. 04

    Sign-off

    The system is run through a full cycle, temperatures and pressures are checked against what the equipment should produce, and the thermostat is set up with you. You are shown the filter, the shut-off and the drain, and what to watch for.

When it is an emergency, call

No heat in a freeze and no cooling in a heat wave are health matters, not comfort matters — especially for the very young, the very old and anyone unwell. Call.

  • No heat when it is at or near freezing outside
  • No cooling during a heat advisory, in a house with someone vulnerable to it
  • A furnace or boiler making a burning or gas smell — shut it off at the switch and call
  • A carbon monoxide alarm sounding: get everyone out, then call from outside
  • Water pouring from an air handler in an attic or over a finished ceiling
(215) 788-0803— 24 hours

Questions people ask

How often should a heating and cooling system be serviced?
Once a year for each half: the heating side before the cold season and the cooling side before summer. A tune-up catches the cracked belt, the dirty coil and the failing capacitor while they are cheap, and it is what most manufacturers require to keep a warranty in force.
Is it worth repairing an old air conditioner?
As a rule, a repair on a system under about ten years old is worth doing; past fifteen, the money is usually better put toward replacement, particularly since older systems use refrigerants that are being phased out and getting expensive. In between, it depends on what failed — a capacitor is trivial, a compressor is not.
What size system does my house need?
Not necessarily the size that is there now. Sizing depends on the floor area, insulation, windows, orientation and ductwork, and a proper load calculation accounts for all of it. Oversizing is the most common mistake: the system cools the air quickly, shuts off before it has pulled the humidity out, and leaves the house clammy.
Why is one floor always the wrong temperature?
Heat rises, and most duct systems were designed for one thermostat on one floor. The fixes range from balancing dampers and sealing leaky ducts, to a zoning system, to a ductless unit for the one room that never behaves. Which one makes sense depends on the ductwork, and that is a ten-minute look.
Should I switch from oil to gas or to a heat pump?
If gas is at the street, a conversion usually pays back through lower fuel cost and less maintenance. A heat pump suits many houses here, particularly with a backup for the coldest days, and can replace both the heater and the air conditioner in one system. The right answer depends on the house and the fuel bill, and deserves a proper conversation rather than a rule of thumb.

Heating & Cooling by town

The same crew in every one of these — and a page on what heating & cooling work looks like in each town's houses. Distances are straight-line from our Levittown yard.

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