Cohoes grew up around a canal-powered mill boom
Cohoes' name traces to the falls at the head of the Mohawk, and the settlement's fortunes tracked the water beneath it: the Cohoes Manufacturing Company incorporated in 1811, and once the Champlain (1823) and Erie (1825) canals opened up the region, the Cohoes Company took control of the falls' water rights in 1826. Harmony Mills followed in 1836 and had become, by 1872, the largest cotton-mill complex on earth -- pulling in a wave of mill-worker rowhouse construction that still defines much of the city's older housing stock.
Heating a Cohoes mill-era rowhouse through Capital District winters
Brick rowhouses built during that 1836-1872 mill boom were framed for coal heat long before ductwork existed, so most have gone through at least one retrofit -- a boiler swap, a squeezed-in air handler, a mini-split bolted to a masonry wall. With Albany-area winters regularly producing a handful of 5-inch-plus snow days and at least one bigger storm most years, a system sized for a modern envelope on a 19th-century mill house tends to underperform on the coldest nights.
HVAC services for a Cohoes rowhouse
What to bring to the estimate
Have the age of your current equipment, any rooms that run hot or cold, and a sense of your ductwork (or lack of it) ready to discuss. Ask each provider to walk through load calculations rather than just quoting a tonnage number.