An HVAC emergency in Fort Collins is usually a heating emergency. The city sees about 150 nights a year at or below freezing and about four nights a year at or below zero, and a furnace that quits on one of those nights is a cold house and a pipe-freeze risk within hours. DNA Refrigeration is open 24 hours, every day, and no-heat calls in freezing weather go to the top of the board. Call (970) 932-2324 any time, day or night.
An HVAC emergency is a failure that puts the home, the people in it, or the house itself at risk if it waits until morning. In Fort Collins that is almost always a heating failure in freezing weather: no heat with the temperature below freezing, a furnace that will not light, or a heat pump locked out on a January night. A cooling failure becomes an emergency on the hottest days — the city sees about 30 days a year at or above 90°F — especially where someone in the home is elderly, ill, or very young.
Two emergencies are safety emergencies, not comfort emergencies, and they come first. If you smell gas, leave the house, do not touch any switches, and call your gas utility’s emergency line from outside. If a carbon monoxide alarm sounds, get everyone out of the house and call 911 from outside. Do not try to find the source yourself, and do not re-enter until you are told it is safe. A furnace with a cracked heat exchanger, a blocked flue, or a failed safety control can put carbon monoxide into the house — and that is the one failure that never waits.
The other emergency is water. A furnace or heat pump that is leaking, a condensate drain that has backed up, or a frozen pipe that has burst will do more damage in hours than the heating failure itself. Fort Collins’ freeze risk is pipe freeze and condensate-drain freeze — not ice dams — and the damage is worst in the unheated spaces where the equipment sits: crawl spaces, garages, and attics. If water is running, shut off the water at the main if you can do so safely, and call.
Fort Collins sits at 5,003 feet, and the City’s mechanical guide puts furnace derating at 10–20% at this elevation — sea-level ratings do not apply here, so systems are sized from a Manual J load calculation at altitude, not from square footage alone.
An emergency call is a triage call first and a repair call second. These are the six things it covers.
No heat in freezing weather is the priority. Fort Collins sees about 150 freezing nights a year, and a house loses heat fast once the furnace is down. The call is triaged on the phone — what the furnace is doing, how old it is, whether the house is already cold — and dispatched accordingly.
The two freeze failures in this city are pipe freeze and condensate-drain freeze. A high-efficiency furnace whose drain line has frozen shuts down on a pressure-switch fault; a frozen pipe bursts. Both are diagnosed and thawed, and the drain is rerouted or protected so it does not freeze again.
If you smell gas, leave the house and call from outside. If a gas leak is suspected at the furnace — a failed gas valve, a cracked line, a burner that will not shut off — the gas is isolated and the system is made safe before any repair is attempted.
A carbon monoxide alarm, a cracked heat exchanger, or a blocked flue is a safety emergency. The furnace is shut down, the flue and exchanger are inspected, and combustion readings are taken. A cracked heat exchanger is not repairable — it is a replacement.
Why your AC is not cooling the house on a 90°F-plus day is an emergency where someone in the home is vulnerable. The diagnosis is the same as any repair call — refrigerant, airflow, electrical — but the triage is faster, and the goal is cooling restored, not a lecture about maintenance.
While the technician is on the way: keep faucets dripping to protect pipes, open cabinet doors under sinks on exterior walls, keep interior doors open so warm air circulates, and do not use space heaters unattended. If the furnace is dead and the house is dropping fast, the priority is the pipes — water damage costs more than a cold night.
Call (970) 932-2324 any time, day or night — we are open 24 hours. We ask what the system is doing, how old it is, whether you smell gas, and whether the house is losing heat fast.
The call is triaged: no heat in freezing weather, a gas smell, a carbon monoxide alarm, or water running are the top priority. Safety calls come before comfort calls, and you are told where you stand.
A technician is dispatched with the information from the triage — the system type, the symptoms, and the fault codes if you have them — so the visit starts with diagnosis, not with questions.
The failed component is identified with a meter, and the options are explained before any work starts: repair now, or, where the system is old and the repair is a large share of replacement cost, the replacement picture too.
The repair is made, the system is run through full cycles, and the safety checks are repeated — combustion readings on a gas furnace, defrost on a heat pump, drain flow on a condensing unit — before the job is finished.
Call (970) 932-2324 any time, day or night — we are open 24 hours. We ask what the system is doing, how old it is, whether you smell gas, and whether the house is losing heat fast.
Tests igniters, flame sensors, capacitors, contactors, and control board voltage — the first tool out of the bag on almost every emergency call.
Reads oxygen, carbon monoxide and flue temperature on every gas furnace emergency. It confirms the furnace is burning clean and safe.
Finds refrigerant leaks on heat pump and air conditioning emergencies. Refrigerant handling follows EPA Section 608 rules.
Finds frozen pipes, blocked duct runs, and heat exchanger problems that a visual inspection can miss — fast, in the dark, in a cold house.
Checks gas pressure at the valve and verifies manifold pressure against the data plate at 5,003 feet.
Measures compressor and fan motor current draw. A motor drawing high amps is a motor about to fail — and on an emergency call, that is worth knowing before it fails.
A Midtown furnace that quits on a January night, with the house dropping below 60°F and the temperature outside in the single digits, is the classic Fort Collins emergency. The usual causes are an igniter that has finally failed or a flame sensor that has given up.
After: The visit starts with the triage questions — what the furnace is doing, whether the house is losing heat fast — then the diagnosis, the repair, and a full heat cycle before the technician leaves.
Call (970) 932-2324 →A high-efficiency furnace in Rigden Farm shuts down overnight when the condensate drain line freezes in an unheated crawl space. The homeowner wakes to a cold house and a furnace flashing a pressure-switch fault code.
After: The line is thawed, the trap is flushed, and the drain is rerouted or protected so the same freeze does not shut the furnace down again. The furnace is restarted and the combustion readings are verified.
Call (970) 932-2324 →A dual-fuel heat pump in Southridge ices over on the coldest night of the year: the outdoor coil is a block of ice, the defrost cycle never cleared it, and the system has locked out or is running on auxiliary heat alone.
After: The defrost board and sensors are tested, the coil is cleared, and the furnace handover is verified — so the house has heat from the furnace while the heat pump fault is fixed, and the system hands over cleanly next time.
Call (970) 932-2324 →Most emergency calls fall into one of these four patterns. Here is how each one is triaged.
Ask a pro →A furnace or heat pump that will not heat with the temperature below freezing is the top priority. Call (970) 932-2324 any time — we are open 24 hours. A furnace blowing cold air instead of heat is the same emergency — see why your furnace is blowing cold air in Fort Collins.
A furnace that clicks but never lights, or lights and quits, is usually an igniter or flame sensor failure. The diagnosis is confirmed with a meter before any part is changed. If it stopped after a power outage, see how to reset your furnace after a power outage safely first.
Get everyone out of the house and call 911 from outside. Do not re-enter until you are told it is safe. A cracked heat exchanger or blocked flue is a safety emergency, not a repair call.
A leaking furnace, heat pump, or condensate drain will do more damage in hours than the heating failure itself. Shut off the water at the main if you can do so safely, and call.
Colorado has no state HVAC licence — HVAC work in Fort Collins is licensed by the City of Fort Collins, not the state. Colorado licenses only electricians and plumbers at the state level. Fort Collins licenses HVAC contractors through the City — ask us for our licence details when you call. We pull a mechanical permit for replacements through the City’s Accela portal, and size equipment to ACCA Manual J. Refrigerant handling follows EPA Section 608 rules.
“I manage a liquor store in the mountains and Denis responded immediately to my calls to fix our liquor store walk in cooler and service all our coolers, and when the compressor failed over the holidays, he was there the next day to install a new one. Very professional, super helpful, and extremely timely with his work. Would highly recommend!!”
John MarcusGoogle review · 9 months ago
✓ Verified“Best HVAC company I’ve ever used. Fast response, extremely efficient! Owners are great, will be using for any future issues or upgrades!”
The DazzlefritzGoogle review · a year ago
✓ Verified| Problem | What we check or do |
|---|---|
| No heat below freezing | A furnace or heat pump that will not heat with the temperature below freezing is the top priority. |
| Furnace won’t light | A furnace that clicks but never lights, or lights and quits, is usually an igniter or flame sensor failure. |
| Carbon monoxide alarm sounding | Get everyone out of the house and call 911 from outside. |
| Water leaking from the system | A leaking furnace, heat pump, or condensate drain will do more damage in hours than the heating failure itself. |
Yes. DNA Refrigeration is open 24 hours, every day, and no-heat calls in freezing weather are the priority. Fort Collins sees about 150 nights a year at or below freezing, so a dead furnace in January is an emergency — call (970) 932-2324 any time, day or night.
No heat with the temperature below freezing, no cooling on an extremely hot day where someone in the home is vulnerable, a gas smell, a carbon monoxide alarm, or water leaking from the system. A furnace that is noisy but heating, or a system that is due for maintenance, is not an emergency — it is a routine call.
Leave the house immediately, do not touch any light switches or appliances, and call your gas utility’s emergency line from outside the house. Do not try to find the leak yourself, and do not re-enter until you are told it is safe.
Protect the pipes: keep faucets dripping, open cabinet doors under sinks on exterior walls, and keep interior doors open so warm air circulates. Do not use space heaters unattended. If water is running from a burst pipe, shut off the water at the main if you can do so safely. And keep the phone line open — the technician may call with triage questions.
We are open 24 hours, every day. If the furnace is dead and the temperature is dropping, do not wait until morning — call (970) 932-2324 now, tell us what the system is doing, and we will triage the call and get a technician to you. If you smell gas or a carbon monoxide alarm is sounding, leave the house and call emergency services from outside first.
Call Now (970) 932-2324 →Call us at (970) 932-2324 any time, day or night. We are open 24 hours, 7 days a week. There is no email address for the business — the phone is the way to reach us.