Serving the Wasatch Front, Utah · Davis & Salt Lake County
Boiler Services
Boiler problems can involve the burner, controls, pumps, valves, pressure, expansion tank, venting, water quality, or distribution system. CMB HVAC evaluates the complete supported system before recommending repair or replacement.
Boilers are their own discipline. Where a furnace fails in its ignition sequence, a boiler's troubles live in water: pressure, expansion, circulation, zone valves, air in the piping, and water quality. We diagnose them as hydronic systems — not furnaces with pipes — and we're specific about what we support: hot-water (hydronic) systems including combi units that also make domestic hot water.
What we're honest about not claiming: steam systems and new radiant design work are outside what we take on. If your system is one of those, we'll tell you on the phone rather than learn on your dime — and point you toward someone who does that work every day.
Hot-water boilers — gas-fired, including combi units for combined heat and hot water. We'll tell you if yours isn't one of them.
Pressure, expansion tank, pumps, zone valves, and air elimination tested as a system — the water side decides most boiler calls.
Utah HVAC license 12883822-5501, with gas and combustion work performed to code and documented.
Every diagnosis ends with the cause named, the repair quoted flat-rate, and the readings documented.
Boiler symptoms cluster around water behavior — pressure, circulation, and heat delivery.
A system that needs regular top-ups is describing a leak or an expansion problem. Worth finding before it becomes water damage.
Uneven zones point at zone valves, circulation, or air in the piping — the distribution side, not the burner.
The burner, controls, and safeties get tested in sequence — after the water side is proven, not before.
Noises are air, flow, or scale describing themselves. Each has a different fix and none improves with neglect.
Thermostats, aquastats, and safety devices proven before anything else — the sequence must be allowed to run.
Static pressure, expansion tank acceptance, fill valve behavior — the system's blood pressure, measured not assumed.
Pumps and zone valves exercised; cold zones traced to valves, air, or balance rather than blamed on the boiler.
Where accessible: burner condition, ignition, and combustion observed and recorded — gas work to code.
The cause named in plain English, the repair quoted flat-rate, and replacement compared honestly when it belongs in the conversation.
Boiler replacement is a bigger design conversation than a furnace swap — here's how the decision is framed.
Zone valves, pumps, expansion tanks, and controls are ordinary repairs on a healthy boiler — often same-visit work at a flat rate.
Best for: sound boilers with a single failed component
Get through the season, then design the replacement on your schedule — the smart path when the boiler is old but the failure is minor.
Best for: aging boilers with repairable faults
A replacement starts with a heat-loss evaluation and the distribution system's reality — design water temperature, zones, piping — not a like-for-like box swap.
Best for: failed heat exchangers, chronic leaks, or end-of-life equipment
Boiler pricing swings wider than furnace work because the water side and the piping are part of every job's scope.
A zone valve and a heat exchanger are different worlds. Water-side repairs are often modest; sealed-unit and exchanger failures are not.
Packed mechanical rooms and original piping make ordinary jobs bigger. Access is priced into the flat rate, never discovered after.
Hard-water scale and chronic air problems drive repeat failures — sometimes the honest quote includes fixing the cause, not just the symptom.
A new boiler is designed to the heat loss and the emitters — output, turndown, venting, and controls — not matched to the old nameplate.
Repairs are quoted flat-rate in writing before work starts; replacements are quoted as a designed scope after the heat-loss evaluation, with every component itemized. We don't publish boiler price lists — the honest range between a zone valve and a designed replacement is too wide for one number to mean anything.
Free service call: controls, water side, flow, and combustion tested in order until the cause is named.
Flat-rate options, itemized — including the repair-vs-replace comparison when the boiler's age makes it live.
Verified cause fixed with correct parts; replacements designed to the heat loss and commissioned end to end.
Pressure, temperatures, and operation verified across zones. Readings documented and left with you.
Utah is hard-water country, and hydronic systems notice: scale and mineral content show up as noisy operation, circulation problems, and components that age faster than their book life. Add a long heating season and you get the classic local pattern — small chronic issues (a slow pressure drop, one lukewarm zone) that homeowners live with for years before they become a real call. Finding those causes is the quiet value of an actual hydronic diagnosis.
The terms from your invoice, explained — and the anchors for the symptoms above.
A hot-water boiler runs on a sealed, pressurized loop — typically around 12–15 psi cold for a typical two-story home. The expansion tank absorbs the water's growth as it heats; when its bladder fails, pressure swings violently and the relief valve weeps. Chronic pressure loss means the system is describing a leak or a fill/expansion fault — we find which, because top-ups are a habit, not a fix.
Each zone's thermostat opens a valve or starts a pump, and heated water flows where it's told. Cold rooms usually live here: a stuck zone valve motor, a tired pump, air locked in a loop, or balancing that was never right. We trace the cold zone to its cause — valve, flow, or air — instead of turning up the boiler and calling it fixed.
Aquastats, thermostats, and safety devices decide when the burner fires and what happens when something's wrong. A boiler that won't run, runs constantly, or short-cycles often has a control story — and the safeties get tested as part of every diagnosis, because on a pressurized hot-water system they're not optional equipment.
Gurgling is usually air in the piping. Banging can be flow or pipe movement. Kettling — a rumbling like a kettle on the boil — is scale on the heat exchanger trapping steam bubbles. Each noise is a symptom with a different fix, from air elimination to water treatment, and none of them improves with being ignored.
A boiler replacement is a design job: heat loss calculated for the home, output and turndown matched to it, design water temperature checked against the existing emitters (radiators and baseboard were sized for a temperature — the new boiler has to speak it), venting, condensate on high-efficiency models, pumps and controls specified, and the finished system commissioned end to end. A like-for-like box swap skips every one of those steps; we don't.
Book online or call. The water side tested first, the cause named in plain English, and the fix quoted flat-rate.
