HVAC, Plumbing & Electrical in Hollis, NH

An old farm town on the Massachusetts line

Hollis sits in the southwest corner of Hillsborough County, with the Massachusetts state line as its southern border and the city of Nashua pressing against it to the east. It is a spread-out town of a little over eight thousand people across some thirty-two square miles, and it still wears its farming history plainly - the apple orchards, corn, and pumpkin fields that made its name are giving way, orchard by orchard, to a bedroom community of larger homes on wooded lots. The housing runs from eighteenth and nineteenth century farmhouses around the village to new construction out on former fields, and almost none of it is on town water or town sewer. Keeping a home comfortable, dry, and safe here means working with the granite underneath, the cold that settles over these hills, and the wells and septic systems that every property runs on its own.

Zone 5A winters put your heating on trial

Hollis falls in USDA hardiness zone 5A, and the numbers behind that are a real winter: close to sixty inches of snow in an average year and stretches of January where the temperature does not climb above freezing for days. Cold like that finds every weak point in an undersized or aging furnace or boiler, and it tends to find them on the coldest night of the year, when a heating failure is not an inconvenience but a race against frozen pipes. We size heating to a real load calculation for the house instead of a rule of thumb, service furnaces and boilers before the season rather than during the first hard freeze, and when a system reaches the end of its life we replace it with equipment matched to a Hollis winter. Heat that holds through the coldest week is the whole reason you own the system.

Cold-climate heat pumps and a humid summer

Modern cold-climate heat pumps now hold their efficiency well below zero, which makes them a genuine option even in a southern New Hampshire winter, and paired with backup heat for the hardest snaps they heat, cool, and dehumidify a home from one system. Summer here is short but humid, and humidity is where sizing matters most. An oversized air conditioner cools the air quickly and then shuts off before it pulls the moisture out, leaving the house cool and clammy and the basement musty. We size to the actual load and set up the dehumidification properly, and for the older farmhouses that were never built with ductwork we add ductless mini-splits that deliver heat and cooling without tearing plaster and horsehair walls apart.

Private wells and the granite underneath

There is no municipal water system serving most of Hollis, so nearly every home draws from its own private well, and in this part of New Hampshire that means a well drilled into granite bedrock. That bedrock is the reason well testing matters here more than almost anywhere. Southern New Hampshire granite is a well-documented source of naturally occurring arsenic, radon, and uranium in drinking water, and a share of the bedrock wells in this region test above the safe limit for one or more of them. The water can also run hard and carry iron and manganese that stain fixtures and laundry. None of it shows up in taste or color, which is exactly why guessing is dangerous. We test the water for what is actually in it, then build the treatment the results call for - arsenic and uranium removal, radon aeration, a softener for the hardness, filtration and UV where they are needed - so the water is safe to drink and your plumbing lasts.

Brooks, rivers, and a wet basement

Water moves through Hollis on all sides. The Nissitissit River winds through the western part of town, the Nashua River clips the southeastern corner, and Pennichuck and Witches Brooks drain the northern sections, and the whole town sits inside the Merrimack watershed. Homes on the low ground near those channels sit over a high water table and fight groundwater pressing against the foundation, and even well away from the water a heavy snowmelt or a fall storm can push a basement to the edge. A sump pump is the front line, and a sump with no backup fails on its one big test, because the water peaks during the same storm that knocks the power out. We install sump systems sized for real storm volume, add battery or generator backup so they keep running when the grid does not, and correct the grading and drainage that let water reach the foundation to begin with.

Farmhouses, old panels, and modern loads

The homes around the Hollis Village Historic District and out along the old farm roads were built long before central air, electric ranges, heat pumps, and car chargers existed. Many still run on undersized panels, fuse boxes, and cloth-wrapped or knob-and-tube wiring that was never meant to carry a modern home's 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 old plaster, wide-plank floors, and trim, and add the circuits a modern home needs, including a properly installed EV charger, all done to code and inspected.

Power that stays on through an ice storm

Out here the bigger threat to the grid is not summer thunder but winter ice. Southern New Hampshire sits in the belt that takes freezing rain, and an ice storm loading the trees and lines can drop power to a rural town like Hollis for days, not minutes - the December 2008 ice storm left parts of this region dark for over a week. That matters twice as much when your water comes from a well, because a dead well pump means no water at all, on top of no heat. A whole-home standby generator keeps the furnace, the well pump, and the sump running through a multi-day outage, starting on its own when the utility drops and shutting down when it returns. On a well-and-septic property that is not a luxury; it is what keeps the house livable when the lines come down.

One call instead of five

The right-sized heating, the heat pump, the well testing and 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 line up 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 Hollis

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

• Water Treatment - Cleaner, safer water for your whole home.
• Generator Install - Keep your home powered no matter what.
• Boiler Repair - Restore heat fast with reliable service.
• Heat Pumps - Repair or replace modern heat pumps.
• Furnace Repair - Restore heat fast with reliable service.
• Panel Upgrades - Boost home power and improve safety.
• Oil-to-Gas Conversion - Upgrade your home to use modern, efficient fuel.
• Water Heaters - Repair or replace tank and tankless units.

We also serve near Hollis

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

• Brookline, NH
• Nashua, NH
• Milford, NH
• Hudson, NH
• Amherst, NH
• Litchfield, NH