TAMPA, Fla. — Scott Dugan’s spent his Friday running from house to house across the Tampa Bay Area bringing desperate families the joy of heat. While his co-workers go home to their families, he will be waiting for his phone to ring.
Once a week each employee that works for Easy A/C, have to be on call. Dugan was lucky enough to have his rotation fall on one of the coldest weeks Floridians have seen in a long time.
“They are home with their families and I am staring at my phone,” Dugan said.
We met up with Dugan at a home in Apollo Beach. It was his eighth call of the day. For the previous seven he was able to get the heat working.
“Most common with the heat is either a heat strip failure or reversing valve,” Dugan said.
Staring at the air conditioning unit Dugan lamented, “got unlucky with this one, yes.”
He had to break the news to this homeowner that he wouldn’t have heat until Monday. The homeowner’s condenser unit went out, an emergency replacement won’t get him through the weekend. They’ll have to order a part.
“It is what it is,” the homeowner said.
With temperatures expected to be in the low to mid 30’s across the Bay Area it will be a chilly night for many who realized too late their heaters weren’t working.
SHELTERS | Cold Weather Shelters now open
Dugan said he went to a home this morning where the inside temperatures was 54 degrees.
“That’s the coldest house I was in today,” Dugan said. “The only one home was the husband because the wife and the kids went to a hotel.”
Dugan said the past three days have been extremely busy. Easy A/C is a 24 hour 7 day a week company and if his phone rings he will do what he can to help the family in need.
The best advice to avoid an emergency routine maintenance.
“Have it looked at twice a year” Dugan said. “Just going over the entire system and trying to catch anything that may fail, before it fails.”
