How HVAC Companies, Contractors and Property Management Firms Use OnPage for Emergency Response

Over the past couple of weeks, as snowstorms and extreme cold swept across much of the Northeast, something interesting started happening on our end at OnPage.

Our phones lit up.

Not from healthcare teams or IT operations/tech teams, which is where many people expect us to be used, but from HVAC companies, contractors, and property management firms scrambling to prepare for what they knew was coming. Frigid temperatures meant frozen heat pumps, blocked exhaust vents, burst pipes, and a long weekend of emergency calls. And many of these teams realized their existing after-hours setup simply wasn’t built to handle the surge and the urgency.

The messages we received were strikingly similar.

One HVAC company told us they were a 24/7 plumbing and HVAC service and needed a better way to make sure that their emergency calls reached the right on-call technician. Another explained they wanted a single emergency phone number that could be used by their answering services to automatically reach the scheduled on-call techs, possibly even multiple numbers for different service areas (HVAC, plumbing, etc), without having to constantly reconfigure things manually. A third was more direct. They just wanted a system their emergency response team could rely on when things went wrong.

What all of these conversations had in common was urgency. During winter storms, HVAC and property management teams don’t get the luxury of slow response times or missed calls. Tenants without heat, buildings with frozen pipes, or systems shutting down in subzero temperatures quickly become high-risk situations. That’s where emergency communication becomes mission-critical.

Before getting into how these teams use OnPage, it’s worth stepping back and looking at the kinds of HVAC issues that tend to spike during snowstorms and cold snaps.

Common HVAC Emergencies During Snowstorms

When temperatures drop and snow accumulates, heating systems are pushed to their limits. One of the most common issues we hear about is outdoor units getting buried or blocked by snow and ice. When airflow is restricted, heat pumps can freeze up and stop functioning altogether. High-efficiency furnaces are also vulnerable when intake or exhaust vents become blocked by snowdrifts, triggering safety shutoffs that leave buildings without heat.

Frozen pipes are another major concern. Extreme cold can cause pipes to freeze and burst, often turning a heating issue into a plumbing emergency that needs immediate attention. Physical damage is also common, especially when heavy ice slides off roofs and impacts outdoor HVAC units, damaging cabinets, fans, or grills. On top of that, the sheer demand placed on systems during prolonged cold spells can expose underlying issues like cracked heat exchangers, faulty ignition systems, or tripped breakers.

Even when systems don’t fail completely, uneven heating can become a problem. Poor airflow or struggling equipment can leave parts of a building cold, prompting emergency calls from tenants or building managers who need fast answers.

All of these scenarios share one thing in common. When they happen, someone needs to be reached immediately, and it needs to be the right person.

Why Emergency Communication Breaks Down for HVAC and Property Teams

Many HVAC companies and property management firms technically have an after-hours process in place. There’s often an answering service, a shared on-call phone, or a manual call list that someone is supposed to follow. The problem is that these approaches don’t scale well during high-volume events like winter storms.

Answering services may struggle to reach the correct technician, especially if schedules change or multiple service areas are involved. Calls get passed around, voicemails pile up, and critical requests can slip through the cracks. For property management firms overseeing large portfolios, the challenge becomes even bigger when emergency requests come in from tenants, building management systems, and internal staff at the same time.

This is where many teams turn to OnPage, not to replace everything they already use, but to add a reliable layer of automation and accountability to their emergency response.

How HVAC and Property Management Teams Use OnPage

At its core, OnPage is used to make sure urgent calls and critical alerts/notifications from building management systems don’t rely on guesswork or manual follow-ups. Instead of hoping the right technician sees a missed call or voicemail, OnPage ensures emergency requests are actively delivered to the correct on-call person based on schedules, roles, and escalation rules.

For HVAC companies and property managers, this often starts with a dedicated emergency number. That number can be used directly by tenants or clients, or it can be used by a third-party answering service that triages calls and escalates the urgent ones. Either way, OnPage handles what happens next, routing the call or alert to the appropriate on-call technician and escalating if there’s no response.

In many cases, alerts don’t just come from phone calls. Building management systems, including platforms like Honeywell, Siemens, or Schneider Electric, can also trigger alerts when critical thresholds are crossed. Those alerts flow directly into OnPage, ensuring that system-generated emergencies are treated with the same urgency as a frantic tenant call at 2 a.m.

Real-World Use Cases We See During Winter Storms

One of the largest property management and real estate firms we work with uses OnPage to support technicians responsible for properties across an entire city. They rely on live call routing and voicemail services powered by OnPage’s on-call alerting and management capabilities to handle critical events such as heating system failures, boiler issues, and water or plumbing emergencies. Tenants are given a dedicated emergency number to report urgent problems, while alerts from building management systems also feed directly into the platform. OnPage ensures those alerts reach the correct on-call team immediately, without relying on manual call chains.

In another case, a contracting and roofing company in Florida uses OnPage alongside their existing answering service. Their clients call the third-party service that handles intake and triage. When an issue is deemed urgent, the answering service escalates it through OnPage. Before adopting this approach, the service often struggled to get hold of the right person, leading to delays and frustration. With OnPage in place, urgent calls are routed automatically to the appropriate service owner based on on-call schedules, while the answering service continues doing what it does best.

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HVAC companies across the New England region have also increasingly turned to OnPage, especially during the recent cold spells. Many of these firms operate under strict response expectations when dealing with frozen heat pump coils, blocked exhaust vents, tripped breakers, or physical damage caused by falling ice. During periods of extreme demand, OnPage helps ensure those emergency calls are acknowledged, owned, and acted on within expected timeframes, even when call volumes spike over weekends or holidays.

Why This Matters During Extreme Weather

Winter storms don’t just increase the number of emergency calls. They amplify the consequences of missed communication. A delayed response can mean prolonged loss of heat, property damage, unhappy tenants, or even safety risks in vulnerable populations.

For HVAC owners and operations leaders at large property management firms, emergency communication is no longer just about having someone “on call.” It’s about having confidence that when a critical call or alert comes in, it will reach the right person, be acknowledged, and be escalated if necessary. That level of accountability becomes especially important during prolonged cold weather events, when teams are stretched thin and issues can’t wait until morning.

Closing Thoughts

The recent wave of winter storms has been a reminder that emergency response isn’t seasonal for HVAC companies and property managers, but winter certainly puts systems to the test. What we’ve seen at OnPage is that many teams aren’t looking to overhaul their entire workflow. They’re looking for a reliable way to make sure urgent calls don’t get lost when conditions are at their worst.

Whether it’s a single emergency number for on-call technicians, integration with existing answering services, or alerts flowing in from building management systems, the goal is the same. When heating systems fail and temperatures drop, emergency communication needs to work the first time, every time.