HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical in Exeter, NH

A Seacoast town at the fall line

Exeter sits at the spot where the freshwater Exeter River drops over the old falls and becomes the tidal Squamscott, which carries the tide up from Great Bay. It is one of the oldest towns in New Hampshire, chartered in 1638, and it served as the state's Revolutionary capital before Concord. Phillips Exeter Academy has anchored the downtown since 1781, and the streets around it hold Federal and Colonial houses that predate central heat, indoor plumbing, and electricity entirely. Out past the historic core, the town runs to Victorian neighborhoods, mid-century capes, and newer subdivisions on what used to be farmland. Keeping any of them comfortable and dry means working with the tide, the Seacoast winter, and the granite the wells draw from.

Seacoast winters and an oil-heat town

Winter on the New Hampshire Seacoast is long and it does not bluff. Nor'easters track up the coast and drop heavy, wet snow, and the cold settles in for weeks at a stretch, so your heating system carries the house from November into April with almost no rest. A lot of Exeter still heats with oil, on boilers and furnaces that were installed decades ago and quietly lost capacity year over year. That is fine in a January thaw and a real problem during a hard cold snap, which is exactly when an undersized or worn-out system falls behind and a failure turns into frozen pipes. We size heat to an actual load calculation for the house, service oil and gas systems before the season instead of during the first deep freeze, and when a system is done we replace it with equipment matched to a Seacoast winter rather than a guess.

Cold-climate heat pumps and humid Great Bay summers

Modern cold-climate heat pumps hold their efficiency well below zero now, which makes them a real option on the Seacoast, and for a lot of Exeter homes still burning oil they cut the fuel bill while adding air conditioning the house never had. Paired with backup heat for the coldest nights, one system heats, cools, and dehumidifies. That last part matters here, because summers off Great Bay run humid, and humidity is where sizing goes wrong: an oversized air conditioner chills the air fast and shuts off before it pulls the moisture out, leaving the house cool and clammy and the basement musty. We size to the real load and set the dehumidification up right. For the old downtown homes that never had ductwork, ductless mini-splits deliver heating and cooling without cutting into plaster and original trim.

Granite wells, arsenic, and hard water

Exeter runs a municipal water system fed from the Exeter Reservoir and town wells, but step just outside the built-up center - into the outlying roads and the neighboring towns like Stratham, Newfields, and Kensington - and many homes draw from private bedrock wells. New Hampshire's granite is one of the reasons the state has some of the highest naturally occurring arsenic in well water in the country, and the same bedrock puts radon, uranium, and manganese into the supply in this part of Rockingham County. None of it changes the look or taste of the water, so the only way to know is to test. We test private wells for what is actually in them and build the treatment the results call for - arsenic removal, a softener for the hardness that scales your water heater and clogs fixtures, filtration and UV where they belong - so the water is safe to drink and the plumbing lasts.

The Exeter River and a wet basement

The river that named the town also floods it. The Exeter River has pushed into the downtown and the low neighborhoods along its banks in the big spring storms, and the Mother's Day flood of 2006 put water through parts of the historic center. Since the Great Dam came out in 2016 the river runs freer through downtown, but the low ground still sits over a high water table, and the tidal Squamscott means the river's lower reaches answer to the tide as well as the rain. Even short of a true flood, homes on the flats fight damp basements and groundwater pressing on the foundation. A sump pump is the front line, and a sump with no backup fails on its one big test, because the water peaks in the same storm that knocks the power out. We install sumps sized for real storm volume, add battery or generator backup, and fix the grading and drainage feeding the problem.

Historic homes, old panels, modern loads

The blocks around the academy and the old downtown are full of houses built long before anyone wired a home for an electric range, central air, or a car in the driveway that needs charging. Many still run on fuse boxes, undersized services, and knob-and-tube or cloth-wrapped wiring that was never meant to carry a modern load. That is both a safety problem and a hard ceiling on what you can add. We upgrade services to a safe 200-amp panel, replace outdated wiring with routing that protects plaster, trim, and finishes in a house you care about, and add the circuits a modern home needs, including a properly installed EV charger - all done to code and inspected.

Power that holds through a nor'easter

Seacoast storms take the power with them. Nor'easters and the ice storms that glaze this part of New Hampshire pull trees onto the lines, and outages here are measured in hours and sometimes days, not minutes. A whole-home standby generator keeps the heat, the water, and - for a home on the low ground near the river - the sump pump running through a multi-day outage, starting on its own when the utility drops and shutting down when it comes back. On a flood-prone lot that is not a luxury; it is the difference between a dry basement and a flooded one during the exact storm that cut your power.

One call instead of five

The right-sized heat, the heat pump, the arsenic and hardness treatment, the sump and its backup, the panel upgrade, and the generator are one licensed, veteran-owned team out of our New Hampshire branch, not five contractors to chase and coordinate. Same-day service where we can, permits pulled and inspections handled, and a lifetime workmanship guarantee behind every bit of it.

What we get called for in Exeter

The work that comes up most around here. Same team, same guarantee, whichever one you need.

• Heat Pumps - Repair or replace modern heat pumps.
• Water Treatment - Cleaner, safer water for your whole home.
• Generator Install - Keep your home powered no matter what.
• Water Heaters - Repair or replace tank and tankless units.
• Panel Upgrades - Boost home power and improve safety.
• Boiler Repair - Restore heat fast with reliable service.
• Drain Cleaning - Clear slow or clogged drains quickly.
• AC Install - Energy-efficient AC replacements.

We also serve near Exeter

Same team, same guarantee, a short drive away. Find your town for the local details.

• Stratham, NH
• Newfields, NH
• North Hampton, NH
• Hampton, NH
• Epping, NH
• Rye, NH