Fifteen years of ductwork, then a repair company
Tony Sardella went to work at nineteen in his uncle's sheet-metal shop on Meserole Avenue in Greenpoint, and for fifteen years he built the paths air travels through Brooklyn houses: runs in gut renovations, conversions carved into two-family houses, systems fitted into brownstones that predate ductwork by a century. The shop also sent him on its callbacks, and callbacks are where this company was actually founded. Again and again the returned-to job held sound equipment and dishonest air: a cold parlor at the end of a leaking run, a roasting top floor fed by the shortest duct in the house, a new air handler losing an argument with a building nobody had read as a whole.
He began writing down the order in which rooms complained, farthest from the machine first, and the notebook became the method the company still uses. When the shop's book was sold in 2019 to an outfit that wanted install crews, Tony took the notebook instead, rented a bay off McDonald Avenue in Kensington, and opened Brooklyn Air Care as a repair company that reads houses before it judges machines.
The crew
Tony Sardella, 46, founder. Runs the airflow bench and most of the duct and central work. His question opens every visit: which room complained first?
Keisha Boateng, 39, heating lead. Twelve years with a Brooklyn boiler service company before joining in 2021. Steam traps, pressuretrols, circulators, and the cellar geography of the prewar stock are her ground. A heating call in this borough is a boiler call until proven otherwise, and Keisha is the proof department.
Marek Zielinski, 41, cooling lead. Ten years installing and servicing ductless systems for a Queens contractor. He runs the mini-split bench: heads in brownstones where the plaster is original, line sets routed like the house matters, condensers placed where a landmark facade and a narrow yard both allow.
What the company is, stated plainly
Brooklyn Air Care is operated by ZT Direct LLC and works as a local repair crew for the borough's owner-held houses: brownstones, two to four family homes, co-op and condo owners with their own systems, and the detached stock of the southern neighborhoods. It repairs heating and cooling. It does not clean chimneys, does not sell maintenance theater, and does not pretend a window unit is a repairable system. The estimate that opens the work is free, hassle-free, and no-obligation, and any figure for work is confirmed by the contractor before work begins.
Call Call for same-day help, Mon-Sat 7am-7pm, or write to hello@brooklynaircare.com.