Emergency HVAC Service

Call immediately: no cooling with outdoor temperatures above roughly 100°, any smell of gas, a carbon monoxide alarm, burning or electrical odor from the equipment, smoke, water actively coming through a ceiling from an air handler, or a total loss of heating during a freeze warning. Vulnerable occupants move any of these up the priority list.

Also call right away for a breaker that trips repeatedly when the system starts. That is not a nuisance — it is a circuit protecting you from something, usually a shorted motor winding or a failing compressor, and resetting it repeatedly is how an electrical fault becomes a fire.

It can wait for a normal appointment when cooling is weak but present in mild weather, when one room is uncomfortable, when the system is noisy but functioning, or when a thermostat is behaving oddly with the house still holding temperature. We will book you a real window rather than charge you for a night call that nothing required.

Check the thermostat: correct mode, setpoint below room temperature for cooling, screen lit, batteries good. Check the breakers — both the indoor air handler or furnace circuit and the outdoor condenser circuit — and the outdoor disconnect box near the condenser. Check the equipment service switch, which looks like a light switch and gets flipped off by anyone working in the attic or closet.

Check the filter. A filter packed solid can freeze a coil and stop cooling entirely. And check for water or ice: standing water at the air handler or ice on the refrigerant lines means a plugged condensate drain or a frozen coil, and in the frozen case the right first move is to turn cooling off and leave the fan on to thaw it while you wait for us.

In extreme heat, move to the coolest room in the house — usually an interior north-facing room on the ground floor — close blinds on every sun-facing window, and run ceiling and box fans. Drink water steadily rather than waiting for thirst, and take a cool shower if you can. Watch for heat exhaustion signs: heavy sweating that stops, dizziness, nausea, confusion, or a headache that will not clear.

If the indoor temperature is climbing past the mid-90s and anyone in the home is elderly, very young, pregnant, or managing a chronic condition, leave. A mall, a library, a cooling center, or a relative's house is the right call, and Maricopa County publishes cooling center locations each summer. Do not tough it out on our arrival time.

In a heating emergency, consolidate into one room, use space heaters plugged directly into wall outlets with three feet of clearance, and never use a range, oven, grill, or generator indoors for heat.