Boiler Out in Alexandria? How Fast We Can Get There, and What It Costs

The short answer: typically the same day or the next day, anywhere in Alexandria, and we’ll tell you honestly when we can get there. If it can’t wait for morning, we run 24/7 emergency service. A boiler repair starts with a $99 diagnostic, a tune-up is $69, and a new boiler runs $9,900 to $16,500 installed. From about $165 a month at 0% APR for 60 months, the whole price financed, on approved credit.

Call (703) 997-9757 any hour, or book a time online.

Isn’t Chantilly a long way from Old Town?

Farther than a shop in Old Town, sure. But how fast someone gets to your boiler has less to do with where the shop is than with whether a tech who knows boilers has an opening. Our shop is on Lafayette Center Drive in Chantilly. Our techs aren’t sitting in it. They’re out across Northern Virginia all day, and we have someone working in Alexandria nearly every weekday, in the City and on the Fairfax County side.

So if another company told you next week, call us and ask. When we can’t beat it, we’ll say so on the phone.

A boiler in Alexandria, in the cold of early 2025

In the deep cold of early 2025, an Alexandria customer’s boiler had to be replaced. She wrote this in her Google review that February:

…excellent service when my boiler needed to be replaced during the polar vortex. Alex Hittle came quickly, … and replaced my boiler quickly. Alex even managed to change their schedule, with the kind permission of their other customer so that I could have heat again in the freezing weather.

Elizabeth W., Google review, February 2025. Moving a schedule like that takes another customer saying yes, so it can’t happen every time. When it can’t, we tell you when we can come.

We’re rated 5.0 stars across 1,131 reviews on Google, Angi, Yelp, the BBB and Facebook, and a few of those are from boiler customers in Reston, Woodbridge and Alexandria.

Before anyone gets there: four checks

None of them need tools, and any one of them can save you a visit.

• The thermostat. Set to heat, a few degrees above the room, fresh batteries if it takes them.
• The switch and the breaker. A boiler has its own on and off switch, usually on the wall near it or at the top of the basement stairs. It looks like a light switch, and it gets flipped by accident.
• The pressure gauge. Most home hot water boilers are filled to about 12 psi cold, a little more in a tall house, and should stay under about 24 psi hot. Near zero means the system is low on water. Climbing toward 30, or water dripping from the relief valve, usually points at the expansion tank or the fill valve. Never cap or plug a dripping relief valve. It’s the part keeping the boiler from going over pressure.
• The radiators. One that’s cold at the top and warm at the bottom has air in it. Bleed it with a radiator key and a cup, then look at the pressure gauge again, because letting the air out drops the pressure a little.

If you smell gas, don’t flip anything on or off or use your phone inside. Get everyone out, then call 911 and Washington Gas at 844-WASHGAS (844-927-4427) from outside. A carbon monoxide alarm going off means the same thing: out first, then call.

What it costs in Alexandria

Monthly figures: 60mo @ 0% APR on each starting price, the whole price financed, on approved credit. Longer plans lower the payment and cost more in total. The lender sets the final terms.

Those ranges are the boilers we’ve actually replaced on current pricing, not a teaser. Yours gets written down at the house before any work, and a repair gets its price in writing before we start. You decide.

If the new boiler is rated 95 percent AFUE or higher, Washington Gas customers get $750 back. The boiler has to go in through a contractor in Washington Gas’s Home Energy Savings network. We’re in it, and we file the rebate for you. If you’d like a closer number before anyone comes out, the boiler price estimator asks a few questions about yours and shows the range for that job.

Why a $69 tune-up now beats a no-heat call in January

A boiler often warns you first. The pressure creeps up a little more every cycle. A pump that used to hum starts to grind. One radiator never quite gets hot. When it’s the pressure in one of the City’s older radiator houses, it’s often an expansion tank that’s lost its air charge, and that’s a repair, not a new boiler.

A tune-up is $69 a system, regularly $99, the same price as a furnace tune-up, and it’s the price every day, not a coupon with a deadline. If it turns up something, you get that price in writing before any work.

What we work on, and what we don’t

Hot water boilers, the kind that heat radiators or baseboard, on natural gas or propane. That covers the old cast iron boilers in Old Town, Rose Hill and Fort Hunt basements and the Navien combis that make a house’s hot water too. We install Navien, Weil-McLain and Force, and we service the boilers already in people’s basements, Peerless included.

Steam boilers, oil-fired boilers and radiant floors aren’t ours. If that’s what you have, we’ll tell you on the phone rather than send someone out, and switching to a gas or propane boiler or a heat pump is ours to price.

Why both trades matter on a boiler

A hot water boiler is half heating system and half plumbing. The burner, gas valve, flue and controls are heating work. The water loop, circulator pumps, expansion tank, relief valve and zone valves are plumbing. SwiftPro holds a Virginia Class A contractor license, #2705192276, and runs separate heating and plumbing teams, so each half of your boiler gets a tech who does that trade every day.

How to pick who works on your boiler

Ask anyone you call these, us included.

1. When can you actually be here? A day and a window, not “we’ll call you.”
2. Do both trades come to the house? Or does a heating tech hand the water side to somebody else later?
3. Do I get the price in writing before you start, and is the gas permit in it? In the City of Alexandria, swapping a gas boiler takes a gas permit and an inspection, even like for like.
4. Can I look up your license? Virginia’s DPOR license lookup takes a minute.
5. Who else in Alexandria have you done this for? Reviews from boiler customers say more than a star count.

Every street and neighborhood question, from the Old Town chimney to the Kingstowne townhouse closet, is on our Alexandria boiler page.

Questions we get from Alexandria

Can someone look at my boiler today?

Often, yes. Typically we get there the same day or the next day, and we’ll tell you honestly on the phone which it’ll be. No heat in freezing weather counts as an emergency, and we have 24/7 emergency service.

Do you come to the City of Alexandria, or just the Fairfax County side?

Both. Old Town, Del Ray, Rosemont, Seminary Hill and the West End in the City, and Rose Hill, Kingstowne, Franconia, Fort Hunt and Mount Vernon on the county side.

I’m in Old Town. Does a new boiler need the Board of Architectural Review?

Only if the change shows from a public street or alley. A boiler that stays on the chimney usually doesn’t change what anyone sees. A high-efficiency boiler vents out the wall in plastic pipe, and in the Old and Historic District a vent under a cubic foot, painted to match the wall, can usually get staff approval. Anything bigger or more visible goes to the Board. Houses in Parker-Gray follow their own residential guide, and the Board has new mechanical equipment guidelines in draft, so call BAR staff at 703-746-3833 before the vent goes in.

My boiler is in a condo building. Can you work on it?

If the boiler heats only your unit and it’s yours, yes. In a lot of City condo buildings the boiler in the basement belongs to the association, so check your documents first.

Is my old boiler worth repairing?

Age alone doesn’t decide it. A leaking heat exchanger means a new boiler. A pump, a valve or an expansion tank is a repair. The $99 diagnostic tells you which, in writing, before anything gets opened up.

See your boiler price, or book a tune-up

What a new boiler costs in your house. The boiler price estimator prices a cast iron, high-efficiency or combi boiler for your home, installed, from $9,900. From about $165 a month at 0% APR for 60 months, the whole price financed, on approved credit. We work on hot water boilers, not steam.

Get it tuned up before the cold. A boiler tune-up is $69, regularly $99, one boiler per visit. What we check is on the boiler page.