Saskatchewan cold stretch sees increase in furnace calls

With Saskatchewan in the midst of an extreme cold stretch, furnace companies have been busy.

Curtis Beingessner, owner of Arrow Plumbing and Heating in Regina, said requests for his business have tripled during this stretch.

“Business has definitely picked up. A lot of no-heats going on and we’re getting to a point now where there are some homes that have been long enough without heat that they are starting to freeze,” Beingessner said Wednesday.

“It takes roughly around 24 hours at -40 C for a house to start to freeze, so we’ve got some homes now where there was a glitch or an issue where they just haven’t been able to get their heat going or they have gone away on holidays and come back and realized they’ve got no heat.

“You can crack toilet tanks (and) frozen water pipes if it gets cold enough. If you have a high-efficiency furnace, you can have issues with that as well because they do have water in them. You can wreck your furnace if it gets too, too cold inside your home.”

Extreme cold warnings remained in place across Saskatchewan on Wednesday, with wind chill values of -40 C expected.

He said in order to help ensure furnaces continue to work, it’s important to make sure vents are clear and filters are cleaned on high-efficiency furnaces.

“Check your batteries in your thermostats and make sure they’re fresh. It’s very important people have a (carbon monoxide) detector or a smoke detector in their home as well and make sure that the batteries are fresh in those as well,” Beingessner said.

He also said people who are travelling should have someone in charge of checking in on their home to make sure everything is running properly.

“We have some clients who give us a phone call and say, ‘Hey, we’re going away for a few days and we have someone checking our home.’ Even if you have a new furnace, you should have someone checking your home because you just never know when something is going to go wrong,” Beingessner said.

If a furnace isn’t working, Beingessner said it’s important to try and find ways to get heat flowing through the home until someone can take a look at the furnace.

“If you think it’s starting to get cold in there, get some temporary heat of some sort – some electric heaters or something downstairs – and get that heat generated so it rises up into the rest of the home as best you can,” Beingessner said.

“If you have a fireplace or whatever, turn that on. Another thing you could do is turn your fireplace on as an auxiliary heat source and turn your fan on on your furnace just to help circulate that air throughout the house so that would help until you get someone there to repair it.”