1937
Founded on Bailey Avenue
Joseph Zenner and William Ritter open a one-truck heating-oil delivery and service shop at 3404 Bailey Avenue, Buffalo NY. Same address, three generations later.
Since 1937
Three generations of Buffalo craftsmen.
We started with one truck on Bailey Avenue in 1937. Today we're the largest residential home services company in Greater Buffalo — and we're still at the same address, still family-owned, still answering our own phone.
Our promise
The Buffalo difference.
Buffalo doesn't tolerate corner-cutting — the weather catches it within a season. That climate has shaped how we work for nearly 90 years: real load calculations, real licensed people, real permits, real warranties.
When you call us, a dispatcher in our Bailey Avenue office picks up the phone. A technician in a Zenner & Ritter truck shows up at the scheduled time. The same crew you met for the estimate is the one doing the install. The job is done to code. We follow up two weeks later.
That's not marketing — it's the operations playbook the second-generation Zenner brothers wrote in 1968, and it's still the playbook we run on.
Our story
87 years on Bailey Avenue.
1962
Second generation
The founders' sons take over and add air conditioning. Cooling becomes a real business in Western New York for the first time.
1991
Plumbing license added
We become one of the first Buffalo shops to add a master-plumber-led plumbing division alongside HVAC. Whole-home service from one call.
2008
Electrical division opens
The first multi-trade home-services company in WNY to staff master electricians in-house. Same crew, four trades.
2019
5,000 reviews milestone
We pass 5,000 Google reviews at a 4.9 average — among the highest review counts for any residential HVAC company in the Northeast US.
2026
Today
100+ team members, 32 service vehicles, the largest residential home-services operation in Western New York — still family-owned, still answering the phone ourselves.
The team
Built like a small union shop, scaled to serve a region.
More than 100 people across four trades. We don't subcontract — every truck on a Zenner & Ritter job is a Zenner & Ritter truck driven by a Zenner & Ritter employee. Hand-picked, fully W-2, drug-tested, background-checked, and trained up the same way we trained their fathers.
- NATE-certified HVAC technicians
- NY State master plumber
- NY State master electrician
- Carrier Factory Authorized Dealer team
- Generac certified installer team
- EV Tesla certified installer team
- Tankless water-heater specialists
- In-house customer-service dispatch
Ready to put 87 years of Buffalo experience to work?
(716) 714-0131