No heat during a January cold snap or no cooling during a July heat wave is not a problem that waits politely for business hours, and it is not treated as one here. The emergency line is answered by a person, 24 hours a day, every day of the year, not routed to a voicemail that gets checked in the morning.

What counts as an emergency

No heat when the outdoor temperature is near or below freezing, no cooling during genuinely dangerous heat, active water leaking from a failed water heater or condensate line, or a gas smell near any heating appliance. A gas smell specifically means leave the house and call from outside, then call us and the gas utility both. Everything else, a system that is merely underperforming rather than fully down, can usually wait for a scheduled visit, and we will tell you honestly which category a call falls into rather than upselling every call to emergency pricing.

How dispatch actually works

A call to the emergency line goes to Renee or to whichever technician is on call, not a call center in another state reading from a script. You get a real estimate of arrival time based on where the on-call technician actually is, and a callback if that estimate changes. Winter no-heat calls involving small children, older adults, or anyone with a medical condition affected by cold are prioritized ahead of the queue.

Same-day dispatch in winter

Between November and March, a genuine no-heat call gets same-day dispatch as a standing policy, not a best-effort promise. That sometimes means a technician working past normal hours to reach every no-heat call logged that day, which is the trade-off we would rather make than have a family without heat overnight.

Emergency pricing, stated plainly

After-hours and weekend emergency calls carry a higher rate than a scheduled weekday visit, and that rate is quoted on the phone before a technician is dispatched, not discovered on the invoice afterward. Plan members on a maintenance plan have the standard diagnostic fee waived even on an emergency call.

What to do while you wait

For no heat, close doors to unused rooms, run water at a slow drip on exterior-wall faucets if the outage looks likely to run past a few hours, and open cabinet doors under sinks on exterior walls to reduce the chance of frozen pipes. For no cooling in dangerous heat, move to the coolest room in the house, typically a basement, and check on anyone in the household who is elderly or has a health condition affected by heat.

Reaching us

Call the 24-hour emergency line directly, (607) 555-0199, rather than the main office number outside business hours, since the emergency line is the one actually monitored overnight and on weekends.