Small Business

Heat your home in style

With more than 65 years of quality service and expert advice behind them, Taylor Heating and Air Conditioning has expanded it’s Avon Do It Yourself Center to include a 1,200 square foot showroom featuring a variety of alternative home heating products.

Located at 259 East Main Street, the tastefully designed showroom features pellet, wood and gas burning stoves, decorative fireplaces and fireplace inserts in an inviting home-like atmosphere.

The company president and owner of the Avon service center and showroom, Tony DiCiacce, invited the public to share in the grand opening of the expansion with a fall festival last weekend.

Casa Larga Vineyards of Fairport brought the grapes for an old fashioned grape stomping event on Saturday and a wine and cheese tasting on Sunday, along with the Finger Lakes Cheese Trail.

They gave away free pumpkins and everyone enjoyed cider and donuts. WHAM 1180 radio personality Joe Lomonaco appeared on Saturday and tried his feet at grape stomping.

Taylor opened the Avon Do It Yourself Center last year, supplying products, parts, service and advice to residential and commercial HVAC customers. Now the company is adding complete plumbing services to its customers, with the addition of Plumbing Supervisor Chris Tomeno.

DiCiacce says many people are looking for alternative ways to heat their homes this winter, not only to save money, but also to heat them more efficiently. The immediate heat of a wood, pellet or gas burning stove or fireplace, is the answer, and the latest technology makes them easier and more energy efficient than ever before.

Taylor Heating & Air Conditioning’s Avon showroom has them all, and operating in the showroom so you don’t have to imagine what the product can do for you, you can actually feel the warmth.

With quality manufacturers like Lopi and American Hearth, customers can choose from a full selection of cast iron and decorative enamel finish free standing stoves and fireplaces in styles ranging from contemporary to classic.

GreenStart, the latest technology in woodstoves, makes starting a fire as easy as pressing a button. There was a live demonstration of the GreenStart igniter system on a Lopi stove that resulted in a roaring fire within six minutes of pushing the button and without matches and newspaper.

The system normally costs around an additional $350 above the cost of the stove but is available at no extra cost through the end of October.

The stoves and fireplaces come with thermostats and remote controllers, making it possible to set the device to come on and have your home toasty warm as you come in the door from your workday.

Whether wood, pellets or gas, the stoves come in varying capacities to heat one room or your whole house. Partner with DiCiacce in the company, Aurel Cournoyer, can advise customers on what option is best for their particular heating needs.

Showroom Designer Jason Rupp with Empire Distributing worked with DiCiacce on the renovation and décor of the new showroom. The warm colors, location of the various stoves and fireplaces in relation to the natural lighting from the windows, and the homelike decorative appointments were not an accident, says Rupp.

The design was aimed at giving customers a realistic idea of what a fire burning device would look like in their own home. It took about six weeks to renovate the space, with all of the work done by the company employees, the installers and service representatives.

“We didn’t want our customers to have to imagine anything when visiting the showroom to shop for a stove,” Rupp said.

The cool fall day made for some very cold feet outside as visitors stepped inside the vat to stomp grapes, including DiCiacce himself. Fortunately, when the stompers couldn’t feel their toes any longer, they wiped off, went inside and warmed their feet at one of the working stoves and fireplaces. They experienced first hand the heat produced by one of the products.

The first person to try grape stomping was Ila Tomeno of Webster, mother of Chris Tomeno, plumbing supervisor with Taylor, who said his mother always wanted to try grape stomping.

Though it was cold on her feet, Ila was glad she made the trip from Webster to Avon and said she had fun.