Lone Star Cooling and Heating
Get help with Emergency HVAC
Call Lone Star Cooling and Heating, have us call you, or describe the issue.
Prefer to talk?
Call (325) 219-0005Heating and cooling failures that put people or property at risk, told apart from the ones that are safe to leave for an ordinary visit, with the steps that limit the danger in the meantime.
01Emergency HVAC
These are the situations where a heating or cooling problem becomes a safety problem.
A smell like rotten eggs is added to natural gas and propane so that a leak can be noticed. It is a danger to the people inside before it is an equipment problem, so the gas utility or emergency services make the building safe first. After that, a technician can check the furnace connections and controls if the equipment is the suspected source.
Carbon monoxide has no smell or colour, and the alarm is the only warning of it. Fuel-burning heating equipment is one possible source, along with other appliances and vehicles. Once emergency services have cleared the building, a technician checks the venting, burners and heat exchanger of any gas or oil heating equipment.
A smell of hot plastic, scorched wiring or smoke from the vents usually means a motor, a wire connection or an electrical part is overheating. The system needs to be off until a technician has found the part, because the fault can grow once it starts.
Losing heat during a freeze puts infants, older people and water pipes at risk, and losing cooling in extreme heat can make people seriously ill. The failure itself is often an ordinary one, but the weather is what makes it urgent.
Water near a furnace, air handler or boiler usually comes from a blocked condensate drain or a leaking fitting, and sometimes from flooding. Water close to electrical parts is a shock risk, and the longer it spreads the more it damages floors and ceilings.
02Urgency
Gas smells and carbon monoxide alarms sit above both columns. For everything else, the risk to people and property decides it.
None of this repairs anything. All of it protects people first and limits the damage second.
Leave the building without switching anything on or off or using a flame, and call the gas utility or 911 from outside. Stay out until they say it is safe.
Get everyone out into fresh air and call 911. Stay outside until emergency services say the building is safe to enter, even if the alarm has gone quiet.
Switch the system off at the thermostat, and at its breaker if the panel is safe to reach. Leave it off until a technician has looked at it.
Infants, older people and anyone with a health condition are most at risk in extreme heat or cold. Move them to a room or building at a safe temperature while the system is out.
Emergency HVAC
Serving Abilene, TX.
03Who comes first
Some emergencies belong to the gas utility or 911 before any heating and cooling work can start.
A smell of gas or a sounding carbon monoxide alarm threatens the people in the building before it threatens the equipment. Emergency services and the gas utility find the source and make the building safe. A heating technician comes in afterwards, once the equipment is the question left to answer.
A system that has stopped in dangerous weather, a burning smell that ended when the power went off, or water pooling at the equipment is a fault in the equipment. The risk comes from losing heat or cooling, or from damage spreading, and the work starts with finding the part that failed.
04Why systems stop
Many sudden failures are a safety control doing its job.
Heating and cooling equipment carries switches whose only job is to shut it down when something is wrong. A limit switch stops a furnace that is overheating, a flame sensor stops the gas when the burner does not light cleanly, a pressure switch stops it when the venting is not drawing, and a float switch stops cooling when condensate backs up. A system that went quiet on its own has often done exactly what it was built to do.
Restarting it over and over repeats the condition the control reacted to, and faults such as an overheating furnace or a blocked flue can become more dangerous with each attempt. Many furnaces and control boards record what tripped them, often as a flashing light, and a technician works back from that record to the cause rather than simply clearing it.
05Questions
Anything that puts people at risk: a smell of gas, a carbon monoxide alarm, a burning or electrical smell, water spreading near the equipment, or no heat or cooling when the weather outside is dangerous. A system that is noisy, uneven or less efficient than it was is worth fixing, but it is rarely an emergency.
No. Leave the building without switching anything on or off or using a flame, and call the gas utility or 911 from outside. A heating technician is the right call once they have made the building safe and the furnace needs looking at.
A faint dusty smell the first time the heat runs after a long break is common, because dust settled on the burners or elements is burning off, and it fades quickly. A smell that stays, gets stronger or smells like hot plastic or wiring is not normal, and the system should be switched off.
Usually not. Many shutdowns are a safety control reacting to overheating, a flame problem or backed-up water, and every restart repeats the condition it was reacting to. Leaving it off and describing what happened before it stopped is more useful to a technician than repeated attempts.
A smell of gas, a carbon monoxide alarm, a burning electrical smell, or no heat or cooling in dangerous weather: urgent. A system that runs longer than it used to, a new noise or one room that is off: worth a visit soon, but not tonight.
If it smells of burning, is leaking water, or the outdoor unit is humming without its fan turning, yes: switch it off at the thermostat. A system that runs but does not keep up can usually stay on until it is looked at.
What the system is doing, when it started, what the thermostat is set to and what it reads, and whether the outdoor unit is running. The age of the equipment and a photo of its label help a technician arrive prepared.
Lone Star Cooling and Heating
Call Lone Star Cooling and Heating, have us call you, or describe the issue.
Prefer to talk?
Call (325) 219-0005