From a sharp increase in emergency repair jobs to delays in starting new installations, bitter cold weather creates challenges for local heating, ventilation and air-conditioning companies.
Low temperatures at the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton International Airport plummeted to 6 degrees Tuesday and 1 degree on Wednesday, according to the National Weather Service at Binghamton, N.Y.
Additionally, the low temperature remained in the teens seven times during the first three weeks of January, including the first four days of the new year, per the NWS.
Many of the temperatures throughout December also put a strain on heating systems, with lows dropping to 3 degrees on Dec. 9 and 6 degrees on Dec. 5. The month also featured 10 days with lows in the teens, including six consecutive from Dec. 12-17.
Prolonged cold spells typically cause heating equipment to malfunction, several business owners from throughout Lackawanna and Luzerne counties noted.
“We normally get a big influx anytime it gets down into the teens and stays there for a few days,” said Gerald Smurl, longtime proprietor of Scranton-based Smurl HVAC. “Everything is running full blast, so they’re bound to break down. This has been a tough winter so far — it’s been very cold.”
While there have been some main culprits, Smurl has seen a variety of problems created by the frigid temperatures.
“It’s everything,” he said. “A lot of inducer, or blower fans, have small motors that last 15 to 18, or 20, years sometimes,” he said. “They’re getting near the end of their life and a lot of that stuff is burning up because it’s running pretty much constantly. I’ve heard a lot of people calling the fire department lately because of the weather. Controls go bad and boilers overheat and fill the house with either smoke or steam. You simply can’t keep up with it — nobody can.”
Smurl compared the recent rush of heating jobs to the first string of high temperatures during the summer.
“It’s like the first good heat wave with high humidity, when you get all the air-conditioning calls,” he said.
Smurl offered some tips to keep heating equipment operating smoothly during the winter months, including making sure steam boilers remain about three-quarters full of water.
“We run into a lot of cracked boilers when they run out of water,” he said. “They run dry, and have a malfunction on a control, and they burn right up.”
He also stressed it’s important to change filters on warm air furnaces.
“Blocked filters are a big, big problem,” Smurl said. “They burn motors out and cause a lot of headaches.”
Jim Heery, technician for Smurl HVAC, operates a threading machine to thread black iron pipe for a gas line in the back of his truck to repair a steam boiler for a Dickson City resident on Thursday, Jan. 22, 2026. (SEAN MCKEAG / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER)
Cody Orr, co-owner of Kingston-based K.O. HVAC Heating and Cooling, estimates calls for emergency repairs were about tripled last week.
“Most of the time, you get a big spike in the morning when people wake up and their stuff is not working, or when they come home in the afternoon to a colder house,” Orr said.
An above-average volume of calls also kept crews on the roads at least two to four hours longer in recent days, Orr said while driving to a job in Dickson City for a resident without heat Wednesday around 5:45 p.m.
“From the freezing temps, condensate lines are freezing up and some systems are having trouble keeping up in the cold,” he said. “And, if they have a heat pump system in the unit outside that froze up, we have to thaw it out to work on it.”
Acquiring parts to repair boilers and furnaces has also become somewhat challenging, said Chuck Osenkarski, owner of CVO Mechanical LLC in Plains Twp.
“In terms of anything that breaks down, a lot of the parts aren’t universal anymore,” he said. “We rely on our supply house, whether they have a part in stock, sometimes it may take a day, maybe three days to get a part. It definitely has an impact on any company. We’re a small business, it’s myself and my son, but whether it’s us, or a large company, when you have weather like this, and things start breaking, it backs everybody up.”
The extreme cold has also been affecting the ability of contractors to start new projects, Osenkarski said.
“It’s backing up our new construction because it’s very difficult for our framers in conditions like this,” he said. “Everything slows down. On (Wednesday), I was installing the outdoor unit and the furnace on a brand new construction (job) and working outside really takes double the time. I was out there 15 minutes — trying to put things together, and everything you touch is basically frozen, our screwdrivers and wrenches, and even the unit itself. You have to keep going back inside just to warm up.”
Additionally, the influx of repair jobs cuts into other work typically done during this time of the year, Smurl noted.
“Usually, during the winter, we have a lot of central air conditioning going in because in the summertime the attics are 130, 140 degrees,” he said. “We delay those people until this time of the year, but now it’s very cold in the attics, too. It’s difficult with these low temperatures, but most people understand if you tell them we’re running three of four days behind because of the drastic cold. They’d rather see people with heat on.”