HVAC in Highland: High Ground, Old Brick, New Glass

HVAC in Highland starts with a clarification: the official statistical neighborhood is Highland, in northwest Denver. West Highland is a separate official neighborhood to the west, Sloan Lake is a separate official neighborhood to the southwest, and LoHi, or Lower Highland, is the non-official eastern portion of Highland, closest to downtown. A Highland page that imports West Highland or Sloan Lake housing facts is wrong, and a page that calls the whole area LoHi is using a colloquial sub-area name for an official neighborhood. Highland was founded in 1858 by General William Larimer, months after Denver City itself, as a 19th-century temperance town across the Platte. Most homes were built between 1893 and 1939: Victorian, Queen Anne and Italianate mansions in the Potter-Highland Historic District, especially on Vallejo and Zuni Streets between 31st and 36th, Craftsman bungalows, Denver Squares, modest worker cottages, later ranch infill, and in the last two decades glass-and-steel modern townhomes and condos, especially in the LoHi blocks. The blocks were platted square, so every home could face all adjacent streets, with carriage turnarounds in the block centers. The 1890s-1930s brick homes run retrofitted gas furnace and central AC, with upper floors chronically under-cooled and ductless heads the common fix, side by side with new townhomes and condos running modern forced-air or heat pumps.