Heating and Cooling companies slammed with furnace repair work

Warren, Mich (WJBK) - With the frigid cold, simple maintenance like checking the furnace can be forgotten, that is until the heat is off. 

John Piggott says he knew something was wrong with his furnace 

“The temperature kept going down and pretty soon it was like 62,” he said.

He says he cranked up his stove and used his fire place to keep his home heated and then he made a call to a heating and cooling company to fix his furnace right away.

“Generally around 80 to 100 calls in a day, right now we’re experiencing double that, it’s an increase just due to the weather, it causes the furnace to work harder so it causes failures,” Dayna Corrigan said with C&C Heating & Air Conditioning Company.

On Wednesday a technician from C&C Heating & Air Conditioning Company responded to a service call to Piggott's home.

Once inside technician Kevin got to work to assess the situation. He says many furnaces are having issues due to the frigid weather.

“It’s long hours, very long hours, we have plenty customers across the area that have no heat,” Kevin Hardy said. 

As Hardy continued to investigate he diagnosed the problem and shared it with the homeowner that it’s cold weather related.

“Well the broken pipe caused the exhaust gas to recirculate into the intake for combustion air and caused that steam to frost, turn into ice and block that pipe completely,” 

If you call for service experts say they are here to help, but they also say there's some things you can do to protect your furnace.

"Annual maintenance, make sure you have your furnace checked in the fall and your air conditioner checked in the spring, and change your filters, that’s so important you’re basically suffocating your furnace if you’re not doing that," Corrigan said.

Piggott says he's happy the problem is being fixed and he says he looks forward to warmer days.