How Fireside Heating & Air Co. Was Born
We remember the exact afternoon. It was late fall in Lancaster, and we’d just finished a service call on a heat pump that three other companies had given up on. The homeowner, a woman in her seventies, had been running space heaters for two weeks because every quote she’d gotten started with “replace the whole system” and ended with a number that made her hands shake. We found a failed reversing valve, a $340 part, and had her warm by dinner. She paid with a check she wrote at the kitchen table, then asked why nobody else had bothered to look that hard.
That night, we couldn’t sleep. We kept seeing the space heaters lined up in her hallway, the way she’d apologized for the house being cold when we walked in. The HVAC trade was broken. Too many outfits were running on commission, not craftsmanship. Too many technicians were trained to sell, not to fix. We started Fireside the following spring with one promise: we’d treat every furnace and every homeowner like they were our own family. No parting people from their money, no replacing what could be repaired. That was 1984. What began in Lancaster has grown into a network of locations across the country, but that kitchen-table conversation still drives every decision we make.
Glen Hartman’s Personal Connection to the HVAC Trade
Glen Hartman didn’t stumble into HVAC work. He was pulled into it by the smell of warm dust when a furnace kicks on for the first time in October, by the satisfying click of a contactor engaging, by the quiet that falls over a house when a rattling blower motor finally gets balanced right. He started as a teenager, carrying tools for a tradesman who trained him in a garage that smelled of oil and solder and the particular sweetness of brazing rod. Back then, you learned by watching, then by doing wrong, then by doing better. There was no shortcut.
Forty-two years later, Glen still puts his hands on equipment when he can. He’ll tell you the best part of this work isn’t the technical puzzle, though he loves that too. It’s the moment a homeowner realizes they’re going to be okay. The furnace failed on the coldest night of the year, the pipes were at risk, the kids were bundled in coats, and then someone showed up who actually knew what they were doing. That relief, that particular exhale, is what gets Glen out of bed. He says if he weren’t doing this, he’d probably be fixing old tractors or restoring a farmhouse somewhere, because the impulse is the same: make something work the way it’s supposed to, and make it last.
The work has changed. Equipment got smarter, refrigerants changed, diagnostics went digital. But the core of it hasn’t. You’re still walking into someone’s home at a vulnerable moment, and how you treat that space, that person, that trust, is the whole job. Glen has trained hundreds of technicians over the decades, and he tells every one of them the same thing: the homeowner doesn’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. It’s not sentimental. It’s practical. A technician who rushes, who doesn’t listen, who treats the house like a jobsite instead of someone’s sanctuary, will miss the real problem every time.
Meet Glen Hartman - The Person Behind Every Job
Glen Hartman is the Owner and Founder of Fireside Heating & Air Co. He holds state licensure and has spent forty-two years in the field, from apprentice to journeyman to master technician to the person who now sets the standard for every location bearing the Fireside name. His training spans the evolution of the trade itself: from early oil-fired systems to modern variable-speed heat pumps, from manual J load calculations done by hand to the software that now assists them. He’s certified to work on equipment from Bryant, Carrier, and Trane, and he insists that every technician under the Fireside network meet the same bar.
What sets Glen apart from a corporate franchise technician is simple: he still answers his phone when a longtime customer calls, and he still carries a multimeter in his truck. On weekends, you’ll find him restoring a 1968 Ford pickup or walking his two German shepherds through the Pennsylvania countryside. Those walks, he says, are where he thinks through the stubborn problems, the callbacks that shouldn’t have happened, the ways the network can do better. His personal commitment to every homeowner who calls Fireside is direct and unchanging: “Your home gets the same care I’d give my mother’s. No exceptions, no shortcuts.”
Our Promise to Homeowners
We built our business on four words that still guide us: a square deal, always. That starts with honest pricing. Every Fireside location provides a free written estimate before any work begins, and the price quoted is the price paid. No surprises on the bill, no hidden fees that materialize after the job is done. We learned early that trust, once broken, costs more than any single repair.
We use quality parts because we’ve seen what the cheap ones cost in the long run. A capacitor that fails in eighteen months, a contactor that welds itself shut, a compressor that dies because someone cut corners on the install. Our K.E.Y.S. values code governs every job: Krafted right with trained journeymen and proper materials, Every time with the same care on the four hundredth call as the first, Your home first with the respect we’d show our own mother’s house, and Standing behind it with our trademarked Keystone Standard - ninety days, in writing, no arguing. If it’s not right, we come back. No paperwork, no runaround.
Our Credentials
Every professional working under the Fireside Heating & Air Co. name is required to hold the state license and insurance their jurisdiction requires. Our network maintains insured and bonded status. We’ve been in business since 1984, forty-two years of showing up when we say we will. We’ve built a strong local reputation market by market, earned through repeated honest dealing, not purchased through advertising.
Here’s why each of these matters when you’re letting someone work in your home:
- State-licensed: Licensing means a third party has verified training and competence, not just claimed it. It means there’s a regulatory body you can turn to if something goes wrong.
- Insured and bonded: If a technician damages your property or is injured on your premises, you’re not left holding the bag. This protection exists for your peace of mind, not ours.
- Forty-two years in business: Longevity in the trades means we’ve seen the fads come and go. We know which innovations last and which ones are marketing. It means we’ll still be here if you need us next season.
- Strong local reputation: In an age of purchased reviews and paid ratings, a reputation built neighbor by neighbor is the hardest thing to fake and the easiest thing to verify. Ask around. We encourage it.
Rooted in the Communities We Serve
Our home base remains Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where Glen Hartman first hung out his shingle. From there, the Fireside network has grown to serve homeowners across multiple regions, with local teams in Lancaster, Phoenix, Charlotte, Indianapolis, Denver, Oklahoma City, Washington, Detroit, Louisville, Portland, Memphis, and Leola. Each location hires local, trains apprentices into journeymen, and answers the phone with a person - because a company that plans to be in town in thirty years acts like it. We’re named for the warmest word in the American memory, and we try to live up to that warmth in every home we enter.
Written by Glen Hartman, Owner at Fireside Heating & Air Co., serving homeowners nationwide since 1984.