What Counts As An Emergency At 11pm, And Who Gets To Decide
It is 11:40 on a Tuesday night. The phone rings. No heat, and it is 28 degrees outside.
Who answers it? Can they send a truck without calling you, and what can they charge?
If the answer is "it depends who picks up," you are the policy. It holds until the first night you are not reachable, and then somebody guesses.
That is not a judgment problem. Nobody ever handed them the rule, only the outcome, which is your phone number.
I carried that phone for seven years as an HVAC service technician. The bad nights were never the hard repairs. They were the ones nobody had defined.
If your phone died tonight at 9pm, would your team know what to do with a call at 11pm?
First, what the 11pm call is actually worth
Most owners treat after hours as a cost. Structured right, it is one of the highest margin hours you sell.
| Line | Example | |
|---|---|---|
| A | After hours calls you take a month | 8 |
| B | Average after hours ticket | $625 |
| C | Monthly after hours revenue (A times B) | $5,000 |
| D | Incremental cost: premium pay, vehicle, parts | $2,100 |
| E | Monthly contribution (C minus D) | $2,900 |
| F | Calls you turn away or miss overnight | 5 |
| G | Contribution sitting in line F | $1,812.50 |
Line G is the argument for a rotation. $2,100 across 8 calls is $262.50 a call, so each ticket carries $362.50. Five missed calls is $1,812.50 nobody billed, on trucks and a phone number you already pay for.
The line: what is a true emergency, by trade
You write this once instead of re-deciding it at midnight. A true emergency is objective, not "whatever the customer says is urgent." Think about last winter's calls. Nearly all fit one of two columns.
| Trade | True emergency, dispatch now | Waits until morning |
|---|---|---|
| HVAC | No heat with outdoor temps at or below freezing. No cooling in extreme heat, or with an infant, an elderly occupant, or a medical need. Any gas smell. A burning smell at the unit. Water coming through a ceiling from an air handler. | One room not conditioning while the rest of the house is fine. A blank thermostat in a comfortable house. A condensate drip into a pan that is holding. |
| Plumbing | Active flooding or an uncontrolled leak. Sewage backing up into the living space. No water to the whole property. A water heater leaking or venting improperly. The only toilet in the home out. | A slow drip with a bucket under it. One slow drain with the others working. No hot water in mild weather. |
| Electrical | Total loss of power. Burning smell or scorching at a panel or device. Sparking or arcing. Water getting into a panel. Any exposed live conductor. Power lost to medical equipment. A downed service conductor, which also means calling the utility. | One dead outlet or one dead circuit with the rest of the house working. A breaker that trips, resets and holds. |
| Roofing | Water coming into the living space during a storm. Tarp tonight, repair in daylight. | Missing shingles, or a ceiling stain with no active drip. |
One rule overrides every trade on that list. If anyone smells gas, it is not a dispatch decision. Leave the property, call 911 and the gas utility from outside, then call us back. Write that line at the top of your page.
Two edits make it yours. Freezing is the standard line, but your market sets it, and mild climate shops often write 40 degrees. And if one or two accounts carry 10 percent of your year, they get dispatched any hour, within reason.
The six questions, in order, in the tech's own words
Put these in the on call phone, to be read half asleep.
- "Is anybody in danger right now? Do you smell gas, see sparking, or is there water near electrical?"
- "Tell me what is happening and when it started."
- "What is the address, and is that the same as the account we have?"
- "Is the water shut off, is the breaker off, is the unit off right now?"
- "Here is our after hours rate. Are you okay with that before I send someone?"
- "Who will be there, and what is the best number to reach them on the way?"
Question 3 is early on purpose, so a customer who hangs up still leaves you an address. Question 4 turns a 1am dispatch into an 8am appointment.
Question 5 saves you money. Price BEFORE the truck moves, the same way every time:
"Our after hours trip charge is [$X], and that covers the tech coming out and diagnosing the problem tonight. Any repair beyond that he will price for you on site before he does the work, and you can decide then. If you would rather wait until the morning, our regular rate is [$Y] and I can get you the first slot. Which would you like to do?"
Always give them the morning option. A customer who chose the premium does not dispute the invoice. Log that it was quoted and accepted, with the time.
Who gets to decide without calling you
If the tech does not need to call you, write the rule down. The more you list, the fewer calls at midnight. Answer these yes or no tonight:
- Dispatch to any true emergency on the list
- Quote and approve the posted trip charge
- Turn away a call that does not meet the definition
- Approve a repair over $[ ] on the spot
- Red tag and shut off gas, water or power
Then the call out chain: 1st on call, 2nd on call, GM, 15 minutes before each escalation. The owner is the absolute LAST resort, and if a call reaches you, the 1st and 2nd on call owe you a conversation about why it got that far.
They will get one wrong occasionally. Fix the definition, not the person. If two techs made the same wrong call, the list was unclear.
Questions owners ask about after hours on call
What counts as an emergency service call for an HVAC company?
No heat with outdoor temps at or below freezing. No cooling in extreme heat, or with an infant, an elderly occupant or a medical need. Any gas smell. Water coming through a ceiling from an air handler. Everything else, including one room not conditioning, waits until morning.
What should an after hours on call policy include?
Five things, on one page. What is a true emergency and what waits, by trade. Who is first, second and third on call, and how long before escalating. What the tech can decide alone. The trip charge and how it is quoted. And what gets logged after.
How much should you pay a technician for being on call?
Three models work in the trades. A flat stipend for carrying the phone plus premium hourly, which techs find fairest. Premium hourly only, cheap on quiet weeks, but the phone gets carried for free. Or a percent of the ticket, which rewards speed but needs a boundary. What you owe for standby time and overtime is set by wage rules, so have your accountant check the model before you post it.
Can you charge more for after hours service?
Yes, and you should. The premium covers the night rate your tech earns, which most shops set at 1.5 times normal or better, and it discourages calls that are not actually urgent. A two hour billed minimum is common, and it protects the tech's night on a fifteen minute fix.
Write it this week
Fill in the emergency list only: what is a true emergency, what waits, and which two or three customers get dispatched regardless. One page, thirty minutes, and it ends most of the midnight phone calls to you. Then text it to every tech, save it in the on call phone, post it in the shop. A protocol nobody can find at 11pm does not exist.
Then ten minutes every Monday: every call logged, every job invoiced, every temporary repair scheduled, every unlisted call added to a list. A call that lives only in one tech's memory never gets billed, the same way a quote dies of silence.
Start with the free Quote Leak Check: four numbers, about two minutes, and it shows what the quotes that went quiet are worth.
Or book a free 60 minute working session and we will build the list together, on your actual calls. You keep the page either way. We run three of these a month. No deck, one hour of real work.
Which version of tonight do you want, the one where they decide, or the one where they call you?
Run the Quote Leak Check →Rather talk first? Book your free working session.