February 2026 has been brutal. We’re not talking about your normal Northern NJ cold snap. This is a commercial HVAC winter emergency across the region, with sustained single-digit temps, 20+ inches of heavy wet snow in some areas, and heating systems across Bergen County, Morris County, and the Route 80 corridor pushed way beyond what they were designed to handle. The National Weather Service has been issuing wind chill advisories all month, and it shows.

Our phones at KCG Energy Management haven’t stopped ringing. Frozen coils on Trane RTUs in Paramus. Carrier units buried under snow in Morristown. Heat exchangers cracking in Wayne. We’ve seen more commercial HVAC emergency calls in the last two weeks than we typically get in an entire winter.

Here’s what you need to do about it.

Get the Snow Off Your Rooftop Units

This is the single biggest thing you can do right now for your commercial HVAC equipment. Heavy snow blocks intake vents, suffocates combustion air, and adds hundreds of pounds of weight to units that were never built for it. We pulled up to a 6-unit Carrier rooftop setup in Hackensack last week where every single unit was buried. The building had dropped to 48°F inside.

Send your maintenance crew up (safely) and clear at least 3 feet of space around every RTU. Get the snow off exhaust flues and intake vents. If ice has locked up access panels, don’t force them. That’s when you call us.

Walk Your Building. Don’t Trust the Thermostat.

The thermostat in your office might read 70°F. But the top floor corner suite by the loading dock? Could be 55°F and dropping.

During cold like this, perimeter zones and upper floors lose heat fast. Uneven temps are usually the first sign that a zone has failed or a system is struggling to keep up. Check every floor, every zone. If anything has dropped more than 5°F below setpoint, you’ve got a problem that’s going to get worse, not better. Frozen pipes can follow within hours.

Frozen Condensate Lines Are the #1 Call Right Now

This is what we’re seeing most on commercial HVAC service calls right now. Condensate drain lines that worked fine all winter suddenly freeze solid when temps stay in the single digits for days. Water backs up into the unit, trips the safety shutdown, and now you’ve got no heat in that zone.

Check your exterior drain pipes for frost or visible ice. Heat tape can help if you catch it early. But if the unit has already locked out, you need a tech on site.

Listen to Your Equipment

Your system will tell you when it’s hurting.

• Short cycling (turning on and off every few minutes) usually means a frozen component or safety lockout
• Banging or grinding from a rooftop unit can mean ice got into the fan blades or bearings are going
• A burning smell could be an overheating motor, or worse, a cracked heat exchanger
• And if a unit that should be running is completely silent, it’s probably locked out on a fault code

Check Your Fuel Situation

If you’re on oil or propane, check your levels today. Not tomorrow. Delivery delays during demand surges like this are real. We had a client in Morris County last week who ran their oil tank dry because their usual delivery got pushed back three days. The U.S. Department of Energy recommends commercial facilities keep backup fuel plans for extended cold stretches exactly like this one.

On natural gas? Keep an eye on your burners. PSE&G and other utilities are seeing massive demand right now, and low gas pressure can cause pilot lights to go out and burners to misfire.

When Your Commercial HVAC Needs Emergency Service

Some things your maintenance team can handle. Some things they can’t. Call for emergency HVAC service if you’re dealing with:

• Total heat loss in any zone or the whole building
• Gas smell or a CO detector going off
• Water leaking from ceilings or pooling around equipment
• Any zone below 55°F (that’s pipe freeze territory)
• A unit making sounds it’s never made before, or visible damage from snow and ice
• A system that won’t come back online after a reset

One thing I’ll say plainly: don’t keep resetting a system that keeps locking out. Those safety controls are there for a reason. Overriding them in conditions like these can lead to CO exposure or fire. That’s not being overly cautious. That’s common sense.

Adjustments to Ride This Out

Ease Up on Night Setbacks

If your building automation system drops temps 10°F overnight, cut that to 3-5°F until this cold breaks. Yes, your energy bill goes up maybe 10-15% for a couple weeks. But that’s nothing compared to what you’ll spend on burst pipes and water damage. We’ve seen $40,000+ in repairs from a single overnight pipe freeze at a Paramus office building.

Open Interior Doors

Simple but effective. Tell your tenants to keep doors open so heated air actually moves through the building. Especially along exterior walls and near windows.

Check More Than Once a Day

Normal winter? A morning walkthrough is fine. This weather? Check temps and equipment at least three times: early morning after overnight recovery, midday, and before you leave. Catching a problem at 2 PM is a whole lot cheaper than discovering it at 6 AM the next morning.

After This Breaks, Get an Inspection

Even if everything seems fine right now, this kind of sustained extreme cold causes damage you can’t see. Heat exchangers develop micro-cracks from thermal stress. Bearings wear down from running at max load for weeks on end. Condensate lines that froze and thawed may have cracked fittings or loose joints. ASHRAE recommends post-event inspections after commercial HVAC systems go through sustained stress cycles like this.

Schedule a full commercial HVAC inspection once temps normalize. Finding a hairline crack in a heat exchanger during a scheduled visit is a lot better than dealing with a CO incident or full system failure next time it drops below zero. And if you’ve been in Northern NJ long enough, you know there’s always a next time.

KCG Energy Management has been keeping commercial buildings warm across Bergen County, Essex County, Morris County, and the Route 80 corridor for over 20 years. If your system is struggling right now, or you want to get ahead of the next round, give us a call. We’re here.