A furnace that quits on a 10-degree night or an air conditioner that dies in a heat advisory is not a wait-until-Monday problem. Confluence Heating & Air takes urgent heating and cooling calls from Dayton and Miami Valley homes on a local line that is answered around the clock.
Tell us what the Dayton property is doing and we'll take a look.
No heat when the outdoor temperature is at or below freezing, especially with children, elderly residents or anyone medically vulnerable in the home. No cooling during a heat advisory for a household with the same vulnerabilities. A gas smell, a carbon monoxide alarm, or a furnace that is smoking, sparking or making a sound like a bang. Water pouring from an air handler onto a finished ceiling. These get moved to the front of the schedule.
Dayton gets enough of these nights to take them seriously. The airport normal January low is about 20 degrees, there are roughly 109 nights a year at or below freezing and a handful below zero, and a house with no heat at those temperatures can reach pipe-freezing conditions in a matter of hours, faster in older homes with pipes in exterior walls or uninsulated crawlspaces.
What is not an emergency: a furnace that is running but noisy, an AC that cools but not as well as it used to, a thermostat that reads a couple of degrees off. Those are repairs, they are scheduled promptly, and calling them emergencies does not make the actual emergencies get handled faster.
If you smell gas, do not operate switches, do not use your phone inside, and leave the house. Call the gas utility's emergency number from outside; in the Dayton area that is CenterPoint Energy, the former Vectren system. The utility handles the supply side and makes the house safe. Once they have, the furnace and water heater need to be inspected before running again, and that is where an HVAC call comes in.
If a carbon monoxide alarm sounds, treat it the same way: everyone out, call 911 or the utility from outside, and do not go back in to silence it. Carbon monoxide from a cracked heat exchanger, a blocked flue or a backdrafting water heater is the one HVAC failure that is genuinely dangerous, and a furnace that has set off a CO alarm stays off until it has been inspected and the source found.
For no heat: confirm the thermostat is on heat and calling, check the furnace power switch and the breaker, and look at the filter. If the furnace has a sight glass or a flashing light on the control board, note the flash pattern; it speeds the diagnosis. Close doors to unused rooms, open cabinet doors under sinks on exterior walls, and let a trickle of water run at the fixture farthest from the meter if the house is dropping toward the 40s. Space heaters are fine in occupied rooms if they are on the floor, away from bedding, and plugged straight into the wall.
For no cooling: set the thermostat fan to on and cooling to off if there is any ice on the refrigerant lines, so the coil thaws before the visit. Close blinds on the sun side, run ceiling fans, and if anyone in the home is at risk in the heat, do not wait it out; a cooler place for the afternoon is the right call.
For water: shut off the system at the thermostat and, if you can find it, the furnace switch. Most condensate floods are a clogged drain line, and stopping the system stops the water.
The call is triaged on the questions above, and urgent no-heat and no-cool situations are worked ahead of routine service. The technician who arrives carries the common failure parts for gas furnaces, air conditioners and heat pumps: igniters, flame sensors, pressure switches, capacitors, contactors, universal control boards, common motors and thermostats. The large majority of emergency calls are one of those parts, and they are fixed on the spot after the diagnosis.
When the failure is a part that has to be ordered, or when the diagnosis is a cracked heat exchanger or a seized compressor on an old unit, the priority shifts to getting the house safe and habitable while the repair or replacement is arranged. That can mean temporary heat, restoring the furnace with the AC disabled, or getting a replacement scheduled quickly. Emergency service is quoted before the work, including any after-hours charge, and there is no premium hidden in the parts.
No response-time promise appears on this page because the honest answer depends on the weather and the call volume. What is promised is that the line is answered, the call is triaged, and you are told what to expect.
Questions
Any after-hours pricing is stated when the call is triaged and before the visit is scheduled, so you can decide whether to wait for a regular slot. There are no surprise add-ons on the invoice.
That depends on the weather and how many calls are ahead of you, and it would be dishonest to put a number on this page. Whoever answers will tell you what the realistic timing is right then, and urgent no-heat and no-cool calls are worked first.
Turn the furnace off at the switch and call. A faint dusty smell on the first cold day is normal burn-off. A sharp electrical or plastic smell, or any smoke, is not, and the unit should stay off until it is inspected.
When a repair cannot be completed the same visit, the technician will discuss options for keeping the house safe, which may include temporary electric heat. What is available depends on the situation and is agreed with you before anything is left in the house.
Call the local line or send the form, and we will get back to you to set up a visit.
Request a free estimate Call (937) 719-5148