Boiler Installation in Middlesex County, MA
Sized for the House, Not for What Was There Before
Opus installs and replaces gas and electric boilers across Middlesex County and the Merrimack Valley, out of North Billerica. Most of the boilers we take out were too big for the house to begin with, so we run a heat loss calculation before quoting anything. The permit, the inspection and hauling the old unit away are inside the written price. Annual service and no-heat calls sit with boiler service and repair.
- Permit, inspection, and haul-away included.
- Booties on, floors covered, every visit.
- Emergency help, around the clock.
Is It Time to Replace the Boiler?
How Long a Boiler Lasts
A cast iron boiler often runs 25 to 35 years, and a high-efficiency unit closer to 15 to 20. Age on its own isn’t the trigger. Five things together usually are.
It's past twenty and the repairs have started stacking up.
The gas bill climbed and nothing else changed.
It short-cycles.
Rooms that were always warm aren't.
Cold upstairs, cold at the end of a zone, radiators that take forever. The boiler may no longer be keeping up with what it once managed.
There's rust, or water where there shouldn't be.
None of that means replace it today.
SUBMIT A FORM & REACH OUT
Most Boilers Around Here Are Oversized
Heat Loss and Boiler Sizing
This is the part of the job that decides whether you’re happy in five years, and it’s the part almost nobody sees.
The lazy way to size a boiler is to read the plate on the old one and order the same output.
A heat loss calculation works from the house instead.
An oversized boiler costs you twice as much.
Gas, Electric, Combi and Steam
High-Efficiency and Condensing Boilers
A condensing boiler pulls a second round of heat out of its own exhaust, which is where the efficiency comes from and why it vents in PVC through a side wall rather than up a chimney.
The catch is that it only condenses when the water coming back to it is cool enough.
A conventional gas boiler is still the right answer in plenty of houses, particularly where venting is straightforward and the existing radiators want higher temperatures. Electric boilers make sense where there’s no gas on the street or venting would be difficult.
Steam is its own world.
Combi Boiler vs Conventional
The trade-off is hot water volume.
The alternative worth knowing about is an indirect tank.
It’s a storage cylinder with no burner of its own, heated by the boiler through a coil, and it gives you tank-like volume with boiler efficiency. If you want endless hot water without changing the heating side at all, tankless water heaters are the other route.
The Part of the Bid You Can't See
Near-Boiler Piping and Venting
Two boilers of the same make and output can be installed well or badly, and the price difference between those two quotes is mostly here.
Near-boiler piping is the pipework immediately around the unit, and it decides how water moves through your system. Done properly, with the circulators and the air separation where the manufacturer specifies, the system runs quiet and every zone gets what it’s owed. Done as a straight swap onto whatever was there, you get noise, air, uneven heat and a boiler working harder than it should.
Venting is the other half, and on a condensing boiler it usually means abandoning the chimney and going out through a wall in PVC.
Which raises something a lot of quotes skip. If your gas water heater has been sharing that chimney, taking the boiler off can leave the flue far too large for the water heater alone.
Exhaust that should go up can spill back into the room instead. It’s a solvable problem, either by relining or by changing the water heater’s venting, but it has to be spotted at the quote rather than after. We check what else is on the flue before anyone prices a boiler.
Brands We Install
Weil-McLain and Utica are what Opus installs most often and what you’ll see on the trust strip. Both are long established, widely stocked in New England, and straightforward to get parts for a decade from now.
We also install and service Viessmann, Lochinvar, Buderus, Burnham and Navien combi units. If you have a preference, say so and we’ll tell you honestly whether it suits your system.
What we don’t do is oil. Gas and electric only. If your boiler burns oil we’re the wrong call, and we’d rather say that on the phone than send somebody who can’t help. We also don’t install forced-air furnaces or heat pumps for space heating, because hydronic is what this company does.
No manufacturer certification is claimed here. We install and service these brands, which is a different statement from holding a badge.
What Moves the Price
Boiler Installation Cost Drivers
We don’t publish figures, because a boiler number without your house attached to it is a guess, and every online estimate you’ve read is a best case. What actually decides it is knowable before we start.
What the heat loss says you need.
Conventional, condensing or combi.
How much has to change around it.
Steam or hot water.
What doesn’t move it is the calendar. The permit, the town inspection and hauling the old unit out are inside the quoted number, not added later. A boiler is one of the larger jobs a house needs, so monthly payments through financing are worth understanding before you decide, and there’s $50 off a first job through our special offers.
If the heat is off right now and it’s freezing, don’t wait on a replacement quote. That’s 24/7 emergency plumbing, and it gets treated as urgent whatever the hour. Every town runs its own inspector and its own schedule, and we pull the permit in all fourteen across our service areas.
The Boiler Standard
Boiler Work Is the Job We Take First
A lot of crews would rather pull your boiler out and sell you a new one than actually work on it, and plenty won’t touch steam at all. Boilers are our first call, not our last. Rick sizes, installs and commissions them himself, steam systems included, and when yours still has years left in it you’ll hear that instead of a quote. That’s the awkward part of selling boilers. Sometimes the honest answer is that you don’t need one. He spent close to 20 years on New England systems, most of it union, working the same houses these boilers are sitting in today.
Our Customer Feedback
Rick Green did an awesome job with all of my plumbing needs during a total renovation. I needed everything in my home connected/redone in the kitchen and bathroom. He took care of the transition from bathtub to standing shower-it’s all …
July 2026
Ricky and the team at OPUS are fantastic! Super knowledgeable, punctual and all around great group of guys. Really grateful to have found them, I sleep easier now knowing I have a great plumbing team (you genuinely never know when you may …
August 2026
I highly recommend (Rick) he was on time fixed everything, was polite and answered all our questions and cleaned up everything when he was done! Thank you so much!
March 2026
April 2026
“Been using Opus for years on a variety of projects. Reliable, transparent and priced well. Rick does great quality work. Highly recommend for homeowners, investors and builders.”
May 2026
“Had a leak in my water heater tank. Ricky and team arrived very quickly, same day to assess the situation. I asked if we could avoid swapping out the water heater and just buy the parts needed to fix (I was being cheap!) – he did he absolute best (a few hours) trying to extract the old part and replace it with a new one. He tried far longer than any other plumber would have tried. After several hours of attempts we all came to the conclusion that it simply wasn’t coming out. I ran to Home Depot (it was Saturday) and grabbed a water heater. Ricky and team had it installed within 15 minutes and my new unit is working perfectly.
Very impressed with Ricky’s transparency and honesty. Most others wouldnt have given me the time of day…”
April 2026
I contacted Opus upon being referred to them by someone they also did great work for. They showed up on time and finished a heating system job for me with the utmost professionalism and quality. I would definitely recommend them to others!!
October 2025
Ricky was Fantastic!!!! Fast and accurate service!!! Highly recommend!!!
March 2026
I highly recommend (Rick) he was on time fixed everything, was polite and answered all our questions and cleaned up everything when he was done! Thank you so much!
March 2026
April 2026
Rick Green did an awesome job with all of my plumbing needs during a total renovation. I needed everything in my home connected/redone in the kitchen and bathroom. He took care of the transition from bathtub to standing shower-it’s all …
July 2026
Ricky and the team at OPUS are fantastic! Super knowledgeable, punctual and all around great group of guys. Really grateful to have found them, I sleep easier now knowing I have a great plumbing team (you genuinely never know when you may …
August 2026
“Had a leak in my water heater tank. Ricky and team arrived very quickly, same day to assess the situation. I asked if we could avoid swapping out the water heater and just buy the parts needed to fix (I was being cheap!) – he did he absolute best (a few hours) trying to extract the old part and replace it with a new one. He tried far longer than any other plumber would have tried. After several hours of attempts we all came to the conclusion that it simply wasn’t coming out. I ran to Home Depot (it was Saturday) and grabbed a water heater. Ricky and team had it installed within 15 minutes and my new unit is working perfectly.
Very impressed with Ricky’s transparency and honesty. Most others wouldnt have given me the time of day…”
April 2026
“Been using Opus for years on a variety of projects. Reliable, transparent and priced well. Rick does great quality work. Highly recommend for homeowners, investors and builders.”
May 2026
Ricky was Fantastic!!!! Fast and accurate service!!! Highly recommend!!!
March 2026
I contacted Opus upon being referred to them by someone they also did great work for. They showed up on time and finished a heating system job for me with the utmost professionalism and quality. I would definitely recommend them to others!!
October 2025
Questions Billerica Homeowners Ask Us
Owner & Master Plumber
How much does a new boiler cost?
How long does a boiler last?
Combi boiler or conventional?
Do I need a permit to replace a boiler in Massachusetts?
Can you replace a steam boiler?
Owner & Master Plumber
The Towns We Cover Across Middlesex County
Opus runs out of North Billerica and covers roughly a 20-mile radius, from the older neighborhoods of Woburn and Winchester to the affluent, boiler-heavy homes in Concord, Carlisle, and Lincoln. If your home is within about 20 miles, we most likely cover you.
Tips for Keeping Your Water Hot and Your Basement Dry
It’s about to get cold
You think something’s leaking
Your boiler needs looking at
It’s about to get cold
You think something’s leaking
Your boiler needs looking at
Your water heater is making you nervous
