Milwaukie

The houses in Milwaukie are smaller and older than most of the metro, and a good number have no usable route for new ductwork at all. That makes ductless the honest recommendation more often here than anywhere else we go — not because it is fashionable, but because the alternative is soffits through your living room.

Crawl space access is the other Milwaukie constant. Where existing ducting runs under the floor it is frequently sagging, disconnected, or insulated with something that predates anyone thinking about it. That is worth a look before spending anything on a new furnace, because a new furnace pushing air into a disconnected duct heats the crawl space.

Older gravity furnaces still exist here. They are past economic repair and we will say so plainly.