When the old boiler at a four-story apartment building in Seattle’s U-District quit over the summer, the owners had a window to act before the cold months arrived. The building sits in a busy off-campus neighborhood, where reliable heat and hot water matter to every tenant. The commercial cast-iron boiler had failed, and the hot water tank was at the end of its repairable life. Both needed to be replaced, and both were on the roof.
Watch the recap video on YouTube here: How’d we get a 1,000 lb boiler off a rooftop?
Both the boiler and the water heater lived in a rooftop mechanical room. The cast-iron boiler fed the building’s baseboard radiator heating system, and once it stopped working there was no way to keep the apartments warm. The tank supplying domestic hot water for the sinks and showers had also reached the point where repairs no longer made sense. Patching two aging systems would only have meant more breakdowns and more tenant complaints, so replacing them together was the smarter long-term move.
Rooftop mechanical rooms make replacements tricky. The old equipment weighed close to 1,000 lbs, and there was no practical way to carry it down through the building. We brought in a crane to lift the old boiler and hot water tank off the roof, then lifted the new equipment up so our technicians could set it in place and get to work. Careful planning around the installation kept the project safe and kept disruption to the building and its tenants to a minimum.
We replaced both systems with commercial-grade equipment built for multi-unit building:
Weil-McLain is a trusted name in commercial hydronic heating, and Bradford White is well known for dependable commercial water heaters. Together they give the owner proven, serviceable equipment, with parts and support easy to find in the Seattle area.
A late summer failure is the best time to find out a boiler is done. With the heating season still ahead, the building had time for a proper replacement instead of an emergency scramble on a cold night. For apartment owners and property managers, getting ahead of the weather keeps tenants comfortable and avoids the cost and stress of a mid-winter outage.
Multi-family and commercial buildings across Seattle, and especially older properties near the University of Washington, often run on equipment that has been in service for decades. Watch for these warning signs:
If you manage an apartment building, condo, or other commercial property in Seattle and see any of these signs, a planned boiler replacement and commercial water heater replacement can save money and headaches compared to waiting for a breakdown.
Janes Radiant has served Western Washington since 1986, with expertise in hydronic heating for homes and commercial properties. From rooftop installations that need a crane to routine service calls, we handle commercial boiler repair and replacement for apartment buildings, condos, and other multi-unit properties. Contact us to get started.
