When the house hits 85 at midnight, here's who's driving to you

How far we are from your section

Cook’s is headquartered at 37 Fairmont Ln, at the north end of Palm Coast near Palm Harbor Parkway. These are typical drive times from the shop once a van is rolling; traffic on Palm Coast Parkway and the time of night move them a little either way.

What we count as an emergency

Not every failure needs a technician at 2 a.m., and we’ll tell you honestly on the phone which kind you have. These do:

• No cooling in summer when anyone in the house is elderly, an infant, pregnant or has a respiratory or cardiac condition. Palm Coast’s summer humidity makes an 85-degree house feel far worse than the number.
• Burning or electrical smells from the air handler or the outdoor unit. Shut it off at the breaker and call.
• A breaker that trips again immediately after being reset. Stop resetting; a compressor pulling locked-rotor current will destroy itself.
• Water where it shouldn’t be: an overflowing drain pan, a ceiling stain growing under the attic unit, or a float switch that’s shut the system down during a storm.
• No heat on a freeze night. Palm Coast gets a few nights at or below 32 most winters, and a heat pump stuck in cooling or running only on backup strips is an emergency for the pipes and the people.

A system that’s cooling poorly, or a noise that started last week, can usually wait for the next morning. We’ll offer you the choice.

Call for emergency service

What an after-hours call costs

The same as a daytime call. Cook’s does not add an after-hours, weekend or holiday charge. You’ll be told the diagnostic amount when you book and the repair price before any part goes in, and neither number changes because the clock says Sunday.

While you’re waiting for the van

1. Set the thermostat to off, not just a higher temperature. If the coil has iced over, this starts the thaw; if the drain is clogged, it stops the water.
2. Switch the fan to on for twenty minutes if the lines are iced.
3. Check the filter. A filter packed with spring oak pollen can starve a system badly enough to mimic a failure.
4. Clear the breaker panel and the air handler closet so the technician can start immediately.
5. Close west-facing blinds, run ceiling fans, and move anyone vulnerable to the coolest room until we arrive.

After a storm

Flagler County takes a tropical storm or hurricane roughly every two to three years, and Matthew, Irma, Ian, Nicole and Milton each left Palm Coast systems flooded, surged or buried under a pine tree. If your outdoor unit sat in water, don’t run it until it’s been inspected. If a tree or the pool cage came down on it, photograph everything before it’s moved. Our phones stay staffed through the storm, and afterward the dispatch order is medical needs first, then homes with no cooling at all, then everything else.