06/11/2026
If you live in the Tidewater Virginia area you are used to having visitors during the summer. Everyone wants to come and visit the beach! Many of you live in other beach or resort areas. Maybe it’s friends, kids, grandkids, or whatever. Please instruct them not to touch the “Emergency Switch.” The Emergency Switch looks like a regular light switch, except it’s red. They are usually located in the hallway or the garage. These switches will turn you’re A/C system off. It seems to happen every year. Customers call because their A/C system is not working. We go out and find that someone (usually a visitor) turned the switch off. The customer then gets upset because they get a bill for us “flip a switch.” They don’t understand why they should have to pay for something so simple. Don’t get me wrong, not all of the customers get upset and are just happy that it wasn’t something more expensive. Sometimes the visitor flips the switch off and back on again really fast. If this happens, the system may not come back on again and has to be reset. I have become very accustomed to walking them through the process. Naturally this seems to always occur outside of business hours on the hottest days of the year. My techs are already exhausted and need some rest. I got such a call last night around 10 o’clock. The man has been a customer for almost 30 years, and he’s always just a fantastic person to talk with. After a few quick questions, I discovered that his grandson flipped the switch off and on quickly, but the system did not turn back on. The temperature inside the house shot up to 85 degrees in a couple of hours. It happens that his wife has a medical condition and can’t take the heat. It would have been an expensive “Overtime” service call for him, but I was able to walk him through the process. Naturally, he was very grateful. I’m just saying to please tell your visitors, especially the kids, not to mess with that switch when they first get there.
