HVAC companies across Massachusetts have been inundated with calls for air conditioning repairs during the latest heatwave.
Scott MacFarlane, owner of MacFarlane Energy in Dedham, told Boston 25 News that his company has been getting up to 100 requests for service daily.
He said his Cape Cod office is currently dealing with a three-day backlog.
The staggering stretch of days surpassing 90 degrees has been taking a toll on systems big and small.
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“It’s like you trying to hire someone to plow your driveway in the middle of a snowstorm,” said MacFarlane. “The design temperature for Massachusetts, Greater Boston is 85 degrees.”
MarFarlane said some air conditioning systems aren’t designed for weather this hot and humid.
“We do get many calls when it’s been 95, 95, 98 degrees. I can’t get my air conditioning under 78 degrees,” explained MacFarlane. “A lot of it can just be a design question.”
He said a lot of the issues he’s seeing with broken air conditioning units have been related to overdue maintenance.
“They need to be serviced once a year or, at the very least, every other year,” advised MacFarlane. “They need to be cleaned and checked so you don’t get mold and bacteria, to make sure the pressures are operating properly and that the filters are changed.”
In some cases, air conditioning systems have simply been overworked by constant use.
“It’s been brutal. The second floor was really intolerable,” said homeowner Ellen Caronna.
Caronna went nearly two days without air conditioning in her Needham home before it was fixed.
She believes the thermostat was set too low for her system to handle.
“Pushed it beyond its limits. It can’t keep up,” said MacFarlane.
A service technician worked to resolve the problem Monday afternoon in a crawl space that surpassed 100 degrees.
“It’s such a relief,” she added. “We have our house back.”
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