Plumber & HVACin Montclair, New Jersey.

Montclair has some of the oldest housing stock we serve, and it shows up in every part of the work. The big Victorians and colonials of Upper Montclair and the estate sections were built for coal heat and servants' staircases, not for modern mechanicals — so the systems that run them today are layers of adaptation: steam or hot-water boilers, radiators that have outlived several owners, and pipe runs that follow the logic of a house built before indoor plumbing was standardized. The south end runs denser, with two- to four-family homes where one boiler often serves several households.

Steam heat is a specialty here, and it punishes generalists. A steam system that bangs, spits or heats unevenly usually has a pitch, venting or near-boiler piping problem — not a boiler problem — and the honest diagnosis is often far cheaper than the replacement a less careful contractor might lead with. Our boiler page covers how we approach it; the short version is that we measure before we recommend.

Below the radiators, the story is stone foundations, cast-iron stacks and clay sewer laterals that street trees have had a century to find. Recurring drain backups get a camera before they get a quote — see drain cleaning and sewer line repair. And when a Montclair basement leak turns urgent, our Montclair leak detection page covers exactly how we find it without opening walls on a hunch.

Cooling an old Montclair house is its own craft. Many were never ducted, and the historic districts add a wrinkle: equipment visible from the street can need Historic Preservation Commission review. We flag that before we quote — see AC replacement in Montclair for how we handle it.

• Steam and hot-water boiler service, including near-boiler piping corrections that fix "mystery" banging.
• Multi-family buildings: written diagnoses so owners and tenants know what failed, where, and whose responsibility it is.
• Historic-district installs planned around HPC review, not surprised by it.

PSE&G provides electric and gas in Montclair, and the township runs its own Water Bureau from 54 Watchung Avenue — billing, mains and hydrants are municipal business here, which matters when a job touches the service line at the street.

The bigger water story in Montclair is the one under the floor. Stone-foundation basements were built to be damp; a century later, many are finished living space, and the storms of the last few years — Ida in September 2021 most of all — put water into Montclair basements that had never flooded before. The Toney's Brook corridor through the center of town is the area we hear about most. A properly sized sump pump with a battery backup is the difference between a wet vac and an insurance claim in these houses.

The same age that makes the housing beautiful makes the plumbing fragile: original galvanized supply lines fail from the inside out, and a pinhole behind a plaster wall can run for weeks before it shows. That is exactly the case our leak detection service exists for, and our emergency line answers 24/7 when it can't wait.

PSE&G is the electric and gas utility in Montclair, and its programs offer instant rebates on qualifying furnaces, boilers, central AC, heat pumps and water heaters. A participating contractor applies the rebate directly on the invoice, so the discount shows up on your quote instead of in a mail-in form. Rescue handles that paperwork as part of every qualifying installation.

There is no federal tax credit for this equipment in 2026; those credits ended December 31, 2025. For current program details, see our NJ rebates page or request a quote. We also serve Bloomfield, Newark and the rest of Essex County.