About a year ago, I was asked to redesign the website for Wheeler’s Plumbing, Heating & Cooling—a family HVAC company in the Brighton / Denver metro area.
When I opened the site, it wasn’t just “dated.” It was fragile: an old WordPress install, old plugins, and a host I didn’t control. As I updated plugins to stabilize things, the site broke. I figured out how to fix it—but I didn’t have backend access. Another company owned the hosting relationship.
I wrote a clear email explaining the fix and gave it to the client’s rep to pass along. The hosting company wouldn’t talk to me because I wasn’t the account owner. Fair from their side; frustrating from mine.
The site did come back up with the partial repairs I’d managed before it went down. Then I heard they didn’t feel comfortable continuing to work with me. That stung, but I respected it and left the live domain alone.
A year later I checked again. Same site. Broken forms. Code showing where graphics should be. Logo issues. Still waiting on a stack that needs constant babysitting.
So out of that frustration—and because the business still deserves a site that matches how they work—I rebuilt it. With AI-assisted design help, the first solid redesign came together in roughly 30 minutes of focused work (then we polished type, photography, products, logos, Formspree, and hosting over the next sessions).
This post is the honest version of that story, plus what’s under the hood.
Before and after
Before: wheelersphcc.com — WordPress on a third-party host, DNS at GoDaddy. Real history and trust signals, trapped in a brittle CMS.
After (preview): wheelers-redesign.steveknowsweb.workers.dev — plain HTML, CSS, and a little JavaScript. No WordPress. No plugin roulette. Versioned on GitHub. Easy to host and improve—and the hosting is on Cloudflare’s free tier.
[widgetkit id="2"] sitting on the page where a widget should render.
Important: the live domain is untouched. DNS still points at the old host until everyone is ready for a careful cutover. The redesign is a preview you can share, not a surprise takeover.
What the redesign includes
A static multi-page site—a folder of pages, not a CMS.
- Home — hero, trust strip, services, family story, service area, call-to-action
- Services — maintenance, repair, install
- Products — equipment hub plus air conditioners, furnaces, heat pumps, water heaters
- About — family history and credentials
- Contact — phone, hours, address, and a working inquiry form
Design system: Fraunces (headlines) + Plus Jakarta Sans (body/UI); deep navy, teal, and copper on warm sand; custom square mark + “Wheeler’s” wordmark with Plumbing · Heating · Cooling; sticky header with phone; strong “call an owner” messaging.
Copy and product facts were pulled from the existing site (tightened, not invented)—so it stays honest to the business.
Under the hood
1. Static front end — No React build. No database. Browsers load HTML/CSS/JS and images. That means fast loads, cheap hosting, and far fewer ways for a plugin update to take the whole business offline.
2. Formspree (contact form) — The old site’s forms were part of the pain. The redesign doesn’t need WordPress mail or a server mailbox on the host.
- Visitor fills out name, phone, email, message
- JavaScript sends the data to Formspree
- Formspree emails the notification to the inbox you configure
Why Formspree? Browsers can’t safely send email alone. Formspree is the middleman.
Lessons from wiring it:
- A honeypot field meant to stop bots can get auto-filled by browsers—and land in Formspree’s Spam tab. We removed it.
- Free-plan Formshield can be aggressive; turning it off helped real tests arrive.
- Captcha can stay off for a low-volume local form until bots show up.
- Domain verification works for domains you control (like steveknowsweb.com). A
*.workers.devpreview usually can’t be verified the same way—and that’s fine for a preview.
3. GitHub (source of truth) — Private repo for the redesign. Every meaningful change can be committed and pushed so the work doesn’t live only on one laptop.
4. Cloudflare Workers (preview) — free hosting — Live preview at wheelers-redesign.steveknowsweb.workers.dev. Hosting sits on Cloudflare’s free tier. No monthly WordPress host bill. For a local service site this size, free is usually enough: global CDN, HTTPS, and room to grow before you’d ever need a paid plan.
5. What we deliberately didn’t touch — Live wheelersphcc.com still points (via GoDaddy) at the old company’s servers. No DNS cutover yet. When the time is right: attach the domain with Cloudflare’s custom domain / CNAME flow—not by guessing an IP.
Folder → GitHub → Cloudflare (short version)
- Build locally
- Commit & push to the private GitHub repo
- Deploy the Worker on the free plan and open the
*.workers.devURL - Wire Formspree on the contact page; tune spam settings so real messages aren’t buried
- Optional later: point www only after stakeholder sign-off
Why this stack fits (especially after WordPress pain)
- A family “owners on the tools” brand needs a site that’s clear and call-first—not a fragile CMS.
- Static + Formspree avoids the plugin trap that broke things last time.
- GitHub + Cloudflare (free hosting) means the preview is under control and cheap to run, while the client’s live domain waits until trust and timing are right.
- And yes: a solid first pass in about half an hour is possible when you’re not fighting plugins—you’re just designing and shipping pages.
What’s next
- Share the preview for feedback
- Swap stock photography for real job / family photos when available
- Careful DNS cutover only when everyone’s ready
- Optional later: a simple admin/CMS path—without going back to brittle plugins
Built with respect for Wheeler’s Plumbing, Heating & Cooling—family-owned since 1995.
Preview: wheelers-redesign.steveknowsweb.workers.dev · Stack: HTML/CSS/JS · Formspree · GitHub · Cloudflare (free hosting)