Cold Front Pushed North Texas Heating Systems to the Max

This latest cold front has heaters across North Texas working overtime, leading to heating issues and breakdowns.

That's why HVAC companies have been extremely busy and they're warning about what's to come this winter.

With the warmer weather for most of the fall season, the single-digit temperatures from last week’s cold front suddenly tested heating systems and pushed them to the max.

Technicians from companies like Southern Comfort Mechanical in Lewisville have been busy with house calls since last Wednesday.

They were pretty inundated right when the cold front hit, as people cranked up their heaters and quickly found out there were problems. Technicians are still catching up with calls this week.

The biggest issues from residents include thermostats and motors not working, or issues with the heat strips on electric units. Both gas furnaces and electric heating systems were pushed to their limits during the cold front.

"With it being below freezing for such a long period of time, I will say it's made the systems work longer and harder than prior. So it's showing up any issues that people have," said Steve Stewart, owner of Southern Comfort Mechanical.

Stewart said what people need to do right now is to use this downtime between cold fronts to get a tune-up on their heater and other systems at home. When the next cold snap hits, you're not stuck without heat.

"Like your car, if you don't have maintenance done on your car, you've been expected to break down similar on his system, there's moving parts there's airflow things get clogged up,” said Stewart. “I'd recommend to go ahead and get a heating maintenance done. Find a reputable HVAC contractor and get maintenance scheduled.”

Waiting to call for help until the last minute when the next cold front hits means you'll have a hard time finding a technician. We’re told ongoing staffing shortages with trade workers means there's just not enough technicians in the Metroplex to get to everyone quickly.

“With skilled trades, it's still a very tight market. There's not enough trained technicians around so that's going to continue to be an ongoing challenge, just like most other business owners,” Stewart said.

Another good place to start is to check your air filter, which is typically the number one cause of breakdowns.

"This clogs up your system. The air cannot flow through the system. So it's designed to run with a lot of airflow, this will clog it up and cause it to overheat and potentially fail,” Stewart said, holding up a filter that had a thick build up of dust and other grime. “This should be changed at least every three months. So this one's been a lot longer than three months. If I had to guess that's a year or two."

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Since the summer, Stewart's team – like every other HVAC company in Texas – has been dealing with supply chain issues and shortage on parts stemming from the pandemic.

“There's some intermittent delays around furnaces supply chain issues,” said Stewart. “We have new regulations kicking in which are bringing out new models, which is going to cause some problems and headaches. We'll see the supply chain issues keeping through till the end of next year, unfortunately. Hopefully, I'm wrong, but we will continue to see issues.”

Distributors were closed for the holiday so Stewart said they had issues finding special parts this week and had to wait until yesterday when distributors reopened.