Princeton, NJ · Since 1999
Tay River Builders has been remodeling, restoring and insulating homes around Princeton for more than twenty-five years. The Big Chill is our heating and cooling division, so one company works on the shell of your house and on the equipment that heats and cools it.
No heat or no cooling? Call (609) 279-0722 or book a service call online.
We build kitchens, baths and additions, restore heritage trim and do custom carpentry. We also do energy audits, air sealing and insulation. Your house doesn’t have to look like a space-age bubble to be more energy efficient.
We design and install heat pump systems, and we repair and maintain all HVAC systems. We aim for cost-effective, environmentally sustainable solutions, sized for your house.
Why we do both
The parts of a house affect each other. Tighten the attic and the old furnace is suddenly oversized. Replace the furnace without fixing the ducts and the upstairs is still too hot. Too few contractors understand how the pieces relate, so we work on the shell, the ducts and the equipment together.
We start by testing: blower door, duct leakage, airflow and room-by-room temperatures.
Air seal and insulate where it pays: attics, rim joists, ducts. In deep upgrades we often cut air leakage in half and triple insulation values.
Then we design heating and cooling for the house you’ll have afterward. That usually means smaller equipment and, more often than not, lower bills. We run your numbers first.
A year after we finish, we come back to review the design and the construction with you.
Selected work
The photos are from the jobs themselves, and many were taken mid-construction.
In their words
4.8 on Google · 16 reviews“On a 90 degree day the window A/C’s can actually maintain a constant 75 degrees in the house. … For the comfort alone it is money well spent.”
“They took their time to do everything properly and went above and beyond as if they were doing this on their own house.”
“Not only are we enjoying lower utility bills, we are more comfortable in our home after Tay River’s work. Jesse was very receptive to our questions, and took time to explain everything.”
“Thanks again for all the fantastic work you and your crew did. My house is so much more comfortable from your efforts and we really appreciate everything, including how generous you were helping me understand a little bit of your very complicated business.”
The Big Chill Heating & Cooling
Our heating and cooling division moves homes off fossil fuels and onto air-source heat pumps, and looks after the systems you already have. It works the same way the rest of us do: we measure before we recommend, and we tell you when sealing the house will do more than a bigger unit.
One efficient system for heating and cooling, designed around your house and its ductwork instead of a rule of thumb.
Furnaces, boilers, air conditioners and heat pumps. We’ll service almost anything.
Fresh air where it’s needed, and duct and return fixes for rooms that never seem to get comfortable.
Who you’ll work with
Tay River was founded in 1999 by brothers Jesse and Abel Smith. Abel is a highly skilled craftsman with the hands-on know-how to build things properly. Jesse is an avid researcher of building science.
Between them they’ve restored and remodeled houses across central New Jersey, completed more than 2,000 energy retrofits, and spent years as an authorized contractor in New Jersey’s Home Performance with ENERGY STAR program. Jesse also holds a New Jersey master HVAC license. Much of their work comes from referrals and repeat clients.
Our story & approach“Turns out people think you’ll be more successful improving performance if you actually measure stuff. Who knew!”
Start a project
Send us a note or call, and tell us what’s bothering you about the house. We’ll talk it through and tell you what we’d do first.
