What counts as an emergency
No heat when it is below freezing outside. A smell of gas, which you should treat by leaving the house and calling your gas utility first, then us. A carbon monoxide alarm. A furnace making a loud, repeated bang or grinding noise. Water pooling around the furnace from a frozen or blocked condensate line. If you are not sure, call anyway; we would rather talk you through it than have you wait.
If the house is still above freezing and the furnace is simply not keeping up, a same-day furnace repair booking during business hours is usually the cheaper route, and we will tell you so on the phone.
A no-heat checklist before you call
Three minutes on these fixes a surprising number of no-heat calls before anyone is dispatched. Check the thermostat is set to Heat and the setpoint is above the room temperature, and replace its batteries if it takes them. Check the furnace switch (it looks like a light switch, on or beside the furnace) and the breaker in the panel. Pull the filter; if it is grey and dense, replace it and give the furnace ten minutes. On a high-efficiency furnace, look at the two white pipes outside and clear any snow or ice from the ends. Finally, turn the furnace switch off for thirty seconds and back on to reset the control board. The full list, with what each symptom means, is in furnace not turning on.
How quickly we get there and what it costs
When you call, you are given an arrival window, not a promise to "get to you soon". Overnight and holiday calls carry a call-out premium that is quoted on the phone before a technician leaves; the repair itself is then priced in writing on site, the same way as a daytime visit. Members of a maintenance plan go to the front of the queue when the weather turns.
While you wait
Open cabinet doors under sinks on exterior walls and let taps drip a little so the pipes keep moving. Close off rooms you are not using. Do not run an unvented fuel heater indoors, and do not use the oven to heat the house. If a carbon monoxide alarm is sounding, get everyone outside first and call from there.