Project Overview & Homeowner Objectives in McCandless & North Park

Throughout the established neighborhoods of Ingomar, Peebles Road, and the wooded hills surrounding North Park in McCandless, PA, thousands of spacious four-bedroom split-levels and colonials built in the 1960s and 1970s still rely on their original mechanical backbones. In this comprehensive infrastructure overhaul, the homeowners were preparing for an interior renovation and needed to resolve three critical pain points simultaneously: a 28-year-old single-stage furnace that left the second-floor bedrooms 10 degrees hotter than the first floor in July, a maxed-out 100-amp Federal Pacific electrical panel that prevented adding a Level 2 EV charger, and pinhole leaks in 50-year-old Type M copper and galvanized plumbing lines.

Property Profile & Pre-Renovation Challenges

Hiring three separate mechanical companies would have meant weeks of overlapping service calls, nobody taking responsibility for drywall and framing chases, and conflicting utility paths in the basement ceiling.

Scope of Work & Single-Team Turnkey Execution

• Complete in-house HVAC installation with motorized two-zone damper balancing and custom sheet-metal transitions.
• Full 200-amp electrical service upgrade, EV charger rough-in, and whole-home surge protection.
• Turnkey plumbing repipe using Uponor PEX-A manifolds and a high-efficiency condensing tankless water heater, followed by complete drywall and carpentry restoration.

Zoned HVAC Engineering, 200-Amp Electrical Upgrade & PEX-A Plumbing

ACCA Manual J Load Balancing & Two-Stage Zoned HVAC

Rather than swapping out a furnace box blindly, our HVAC division performed an ACCA Manual J load calculation and inspected the existing ductwork. We installed a 96% AFUE two-stage variable-speed ECM natural gas furnace paired with a 16-SEER2 central air conditioning system, fabricating a custom sheet-metal supply plenum outfitted with Honeywell motorized zone dampers and an automatic barometric bypass damper. By splitting the first and second floors onto independent smart thermostats and adding a dedicated high-wall return air chase on the upper landing, we eliminated the classic McCandless split-level temperature imbalance.

200-Amp Square D Service Upgrade & Level 2 EV Charging

Coordinating directly with Duquesne Light, our licensed electricians replaced the weathered exterior meter socket, masthead, and 4/0 copper service-entrance cable, upgrading the interior load center to a 200-amp 40-space Square D QO copper-bus panel. We installed an Eaton whole-home surge protector at the bus bar, upgraded kitchen and bath circuits to dual-function AFCI/GFCI protection, and ran 6-gauge copper conduit into the attached garage for a 50-amp Level 2 electric vehicle charger.

Allegheny County Code Plumbing Repipe & Tankless Water Heating

Simultaneously, our plumbing team removed the corroded galvanized and thin-wall piping, installing a central Uponor AquaPEX expansion manifold with dedicated home-run shutoffs for every fixture, paired with a wall-hung Navien NPE-240A2 condensing tankless water heater vented with dual Schedule 40 PVC intake/exhaust lines. Once all Town of McCandless, Allegheny County Plumbing, and third-party electrical inspections passed, our in-house carpenters and drywall finishers closed every wall access chase under EPA Lead-Safe Certified Firm dust-control protocols.

Dependable Home Solutions | PO Box 23, Worthington, PA 16262 | (724) 243-2553 | https://www.dependablehomesolutions.net | PA HIC #PA212478 | EPA Lead-Safe Certified Firm | Hours: Mon–Fri 8:00 AM – 4:00 PM