No heat in January, no cooling during a heat wave, a burning smell from the furnace — here’s how to tell what’s genuinely urgent and what can wait for regular business hours.
It’s 9pm on a Friday in late July, it’s still 89 degrees outside, and your AC just quit. Is this worth an after-hours call, or can it wait until Monday? We get some version of this question constantly, and the honest answer is: it depends on who’s in the house, what the outdoor temperature is doing, and what the equipment is actually telling you. Here’s how we’d walk you through it if you called us right now.
What Actually Counts as an Emergency
No cooling during extreme heat, especially with vulnerable people in the home. Spokane summers regularly push into the mid-to-high 90s, and heat becomes a genuine health risk for infants, elderly residents, and anyone with a respiratory or cardiac condition. If the forecast is hot and your AC is fully down — not just underperforming, but not running at all — that’s an emergency, particularly if anyone in the home is medically vulnerable.
No heat during a hard freeze. The mirror image in winter. A furnace that’s completely down when overnight lows are in the teens or single digits isn’t a “wait until Monday” problem — pipes can freeze, and for anyone elderly, very young, or with health conditions, indoor temperature matters fast.
Burning smells, smoke, or visible sparking. Stop the system immediately (shut it off at the thermostat and, if you’re comfortable doing so, at the breaker) and call. This is not a “monitor it” situation.
Gas smell near a furnace or water heater. Leave the house, don’t operate any switches or open flames, call your gas utility’s emergency line from outside, and then call us. This is the one scenario where the utility, not the HVAC contractor, is your first call.
Water actively leaking from equipment onto a finished floor or ceiling. A condensate line clog or drain pan failure that’s actively causing water damage warrants a same-day response even if the system is technically still running.
No cooling in a building with refrigeration on the line — restaurants, medical offices, server rooms. For commercial spaces where lost cooling means lost inventory or equipment risk, this escalates to an emergency regardless of outdoor temperature.
What Usually Isn’t a True Emergency
Reduced airflow or a system that’s cooling/heating but not quite hitting the set temperature, especially in mild weather. Uncomfortable, worth scheduling promptly, but generally safe to wait for a normal-hours appointment.
A thermostat that seems unresponsive but the house is at a safe temperature. Try the basics first (see our troubleshooting guide for AC issues) before assuming the worst.
Unusual but consistent noise that isn’t new. If it’s been happening for a while and isn’t getting worse, it can typically wait for a scheduled visit.
A system that cycles more than you’d like but is still maintaining temperature. Worth a look soon, not necessarily tonight.
The dividing line isn’t really “is something wrong” — it’s “is there a safety risk, active damage, or dangerous indoor temperature happening right now.” When in doubt, call anyway. Our dispatchers are used to helping people figure out which category they’re in, and there’s no cost to asking the question.
Our Actual Response Times
We’re straightforward about this because vague promises (“as soon as possible”) aren’t useful when you’re deciding whether to also call someone else.
We’re a Spokane-based dispatcher, not an answering service reading from a script — when you call, the request goes to our service manager’s desk directly. Business hours are Monday through Friday, 7:30am to 4:30pm, with emergency response available for commercial accounts and urgent residential situations outside that window. See current details on our FAQ page.
What to Do While You’re Waiting for a Tech
For no cooling in extreme heat: Close blinds and curtains on sun-facing windows, use fans to move air, stay hydrated, and if it’s a vulnerable household member, consider a cooling center or a family member’s house with working AC for a few hours.
For no heat in a freeze: Open cabinet doors under sinks near exterior walls to help prevent frozen pipes, let faucets drip slightly on the coldest nights, and layer up rather than relying on space heaters as a long-term fix (space heaters are themselves a fire risk if left running unattended for extended periods).
For any burning smell or visible damage: Power down the system and don’t attempt to restart it until a technician has looked at it, no matter how urgent your need for heat or cooling feels in the moment.
Commercial Emergencies Are Their Own Category
For restaurants, medical facilities, retail, and office buildings, “emergency” calculus is different — a walk-in cooler failure means spoiled inventory within hours, and a server room losing cooling can mean equipment damage or downtime that costs far more than the repair itself. If you manage a commercial building in the Spokane area, it’s worth having our number saved before you need it rather than searching for an HVAC company mid-crisis. Our commercial service and repair team handles rooftop units, chillers, and refrigeration alongside standard building HVAC.
Preventing the 2am Call in the First Place
Most true emergencies we respond to trace back to a system that was already showing warning signs — a furnace short-cycling for weeks, an AC that’s been running longer and longer to hit temperature, or a compressor making a new noise that got ignored. A maintenance agreement catches most of these before they become a Friday-night breakdown; ask about our maintenance plans when you call, or review our service and repair page for what routine coverage includes.
What Our Dispatchers Actually Ask You
When you call, expect a handful of quick questions designed to figure out how urgent your situation really is and get the right tech dispatched with the right parts on the truck:
- Is the system completely off, or running but underperforming?
- What’s the current indoor temperature, and is anyone in the home elderly, very young, or medically vulnerable?
- Are you noticing any smell — burning, gas, or otherwise?
- Is there any visible water, smoke, or sparking?
- What’s the make and rough age of your system, if you know it?
- Is this a residential or commercial address, and if commercial, is refrigeration or server equipment involved?
None of this is a stalling tactic — it’s how we decide whether you need a tech in the next two hours or a scheduled appointment in the next few days, and it lets the technician show up already knowing roughly what they’re walking into instead of starting from zero on your doorstep.
Save This Number
Whether it’s 2pm on a Tuesday or 11pm on a holiday weekend, call us and we’ll help you figure out what you’re actually dealing with.
(509) 534-0547 — or schedule a non-urgent consultation online if it can wait for regular hours.