Chicago Residential HVAC Co. is a small shop, and we like it that way. Six techs, four vans, one address on Nagle Avenue just off Grand. We do furnaces, air conditioners, boilers and the ductwork in between — for houses and two-flats and the occasional three-flat walk-up, all across the northwest side and the near suburbs. Nobody here is a call-center script. When you ring (872) 320-3504, you get a person who has been in a hundred basements just like yours.
We started in 2009 out of a garage on the 1800 block of Nagle, doing tune-ups for neighbors. Word traveled the way it does in this city — one bungalow tells the next. Sixteen winters later we still run the same way: show up when we say, tell you what's actually wrong, and give you a price before we touch a wrench. If a part can be cleaned instead of replaced, we clean it. If your 1998 furnace has another five years in it, we'll say so and you'll hear it from us, not from a salesman.
Most of what we do is unglamorous. A capacitor that failed in July. A flame sensor that needed ten minutes with steel wool. A blower motor on a two-flat in Belmont Cragin that had been making a noise for three years. That's the job, and we're good at it.
— Marco Villalobos, owner & lead tech
01
No heat, short cycling, a burner that won't stay lit, or a smell you can't place — we diagnose it on the first visit. Annual tune-ups run about 45 minutes: clean the burners, check the heat exchanger for cracks, test the igniter and flame sensor, verify the flue, and swap the filter if you've got one on hand. We carry common parts on the van, so most repairs finish the same day.
02
Chicago summers are short and brutal, and an AC that sat idle for nine months has a way of announcing itself in the first heat wave. We do spring start-ups, refrigerant charge checks, capacitor and contactor replacement, and full condenser cleaning. If your unit is running but the house won't cool, that's usually a charge or airflow problem, and both are fixable.
03
Half the housing stock on the northwest side still heats with a boiler and radiators, and plenty of outfits won't touch them. We will. Annual service on a hot-water boiler means flushing the low-water cutoff, testing the relief valve, bleeding the zones, and checking the circulator. Radiators that are cold at the bottom or knocking when they heat up usually just need balancing.
04
A room that's always ten degrees off is rarely a furnace problem — it's a duct problem. We seal leaking joints, replace crushed flex runs, add returns where a bedroom never had one, and clean out the runs when a remodel has filled them with drywall dust. Sheet metal work is done in our own shop on Nagle, not farmed out.
05
Smart thermostat installs, C-wire runs, and — the part people forget — making sure the thing is actually wired to your equipment correctly. We've fixed a lot of installs where a big-box thermostat was landed on the wrong terminals and the second stage never came on. We'll set up the schedule with you before we leave.
06
When a system is genuinely done, we quote three options — good, better, best — in writing, with the model numbers on them. We'll do a proper load calculation rather than matching whatever size unit is already there, because oversizing is the single most common mistake we see in this city. Permits pulled, old equipment hauled away, floor protected.
Drag sideways to look through the last few months. Swipe to look through.
Feb 4 — Steam boiler, 1918 two-flat on N. Austin. New low-water cutoff and a rebuilt Hartford loop.
May 19 — First 90-degree day. Condenser on a Galewood ranch, capacitor and contactor, back in service by noon.
Jun 2 — Replaced 40 feet of crushed flex in a Portage Park attic. Back bedroom finally holds temperature.
Jun 27 — Smart thermostat on a Belmont Cragin bungalow, plus the C-wire the last installer skipped.
Jul 8 — Four vans out before 7 AM. Two tune-ups, one no-cool, one estimate in Elmwood Park.
Jul 21 — Full system replacement, 1930s bungalow off Nagle. Load calc said 60k, not the 80k that was there.
Aug 3 — Danny, six years with us, on his way to a no-heat call in the middle of a heat wave. It happens.
The diagnostic fee is credited toward the repair if you have us do the work. We tell you the number before we start, and we don't start until you say go.
This is the fastest way to reach us and the way we'd prefer you use. A real person picks up between 6 AM and 11 PM, every day of the week. If we're on a roof or in a crawlspace, leave a message and we'll call back — usually within the hour.
For no-heat calls in winter, say "no heat" first thing and you'll move to the front of the queue.
We're on the east side of Nagle, a block north of Grand, in the same building as the sheet metal shop. Street parking out front. If you're dropping off a part, ring the bell on the side door — the front is usually locked while we're out on calls.
| Monday | 6:00 AM – 11:00 PM |
|---|---|
| Tuesday | 6:00 AM – 11:00 PM |
| Wednesday | 6:00 AM – 11:00 PM |
| Thursday | 6:00 AM – 11:00 PM |
| Friday | 6:00 AM – 11:00 PM |
| Saturday | 6:00 AM – 11:00 PM |
| Sunday | 6:00 AM – 11:00 PM |
Same hours all seven days. No holiday surcharge.
Our regular route runs the northwest side and the near western suburbs. If you're inside this list, you're in our service area and there's no trip charge:
Outside that? Call anyway. We'll tell you honestly whether it's worth the drive.
“They came out on a Sunday night in January when the furnace died with a newborn in the house. Had the part on the van. Charged me the regular rate. I've used them three times since.”
Sixteen winters. Same address. Same phone number.