This time of year at Beard Auto Repair (the name of the auto repair shop as published has been corrected here and in a subsequent reference in this text)in Downers Grove, the mechanics typically are preparing customers’ cars for winter or making sure a couple’s Buick is ready for the long drive to Florida.
On Wednesday, though, when temperatures were stuck in the painful single digits for hours, Beard Auto Repair was up to its dome lights in a frozen car shift handle, a power-window regulator that had cracked and collapsed an icy window, and tires that leak in the cold.
“We’re swamped,” owner Gene Beard said. “We’re doing all of that regular maintenance stuff, plus the emergency stuff. It’s January weather in December.”
From firewood shortages to frantic furnace repairmen and anxious concrete contractors, a few people have been pressed into near panic by the relatively quick, deep cold snap that struck the Chicago area in recent days. Even those who prepared for it are a little miffed that Chicago’s notorious winter weather has gotten an early start this year.
Count Parul Tewar among those who have had enough already. Wrapped in a sweatshirt, fleece sweater and green parka, Tewar, 41, of Schaumburg stood behind the counter at the empty Ben & Jerry’s in Schaumburg’s Woodfield Village Green shopping center.
The heating system was malfunctioning.
“I do not like this,” Tewar said of the outdoor temperatures. “Thirty and 40 degrees, OK, but not this. The freezer might be warmer.”
As it turns out, she was not far off the mark. The temperature in the freezer was 0 degrees. In the parking lot, the temperature stuck around 1 degree.
Workers were much busier at Five Star Heating and Air Conditioning in Palatine. Owner Ken Lichamer said his workers were being hit with a double whammy: keeping up with routine maintenance scheduled for early December and hustling to emergency calls that usually arrive in January.
“The [furnace] blower motors go because they’re working overtime,” Lichamer said. “It’s like a car that’s fine when you drive it around town, but go across country and it’ll wear out.”
Five Star has been able to keep up with the volume. But Libertyville’s Allied Air Conditioning and Heating has found itself turning away 10 to 15 customers a day, said Charlie Stein, a vice president at the company.
Allied’s technicians already are working up to 12 hours a day, sometimes in arctic conditions atop commercial buildings. Though the cold snap has been great for the bottom line, Stein said even he was hoping for a warm-up.
“Guys get burned out,” he said. “It takes it out of them mentally, and the holidays are coming up so they want to spend time with families. [The rush has been] a lot earlier than normal.”
The rush on firewood has come earlier than usual, too, a result of the early cold snap and high natural gas prices.
Geneva Firewood & Mulch sold all of its 2,000 face cords–each of which measure 4-by-8 foot and 1-log deep–about a week ago, said owner Tom Krage. That’s about three months earlier and the earliest he has sold out since taking ownership of the company in 1995.
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Selling out of firewood three months early might be considered a reason for celebration, but Krage said he is experiencing almost the exact opposite.
“You’re still selling the same amount of wood, and I’m unable to meet the demands of our customers,” Krage said. “And, there are a lot of potential customers who I can’t serve.”
Andrew Downie, 35, of St. Charles was among those potential customers. After calling two firewood retailers and finding they were sold out, he showed up at Geneva Firewood & Mulch, only to go away empty-handed. Later, he found a supplier in St. Charles.
“Last year we had a face cord that lasted most of the winter,” said Downie, who uses his fireplace to augment his natural gas furnace. “This year we’d had one and a half face cords and we went through it already.”
For concrete contractors, a deep freeze turns that staple of construction temperamental, said John Albinger, president of the Frankfort-based T.H. Davidson and Co. Inc. He oversees 89 trucks that churn ready mixed concrete.
With the drastic dip in the temperature, “95 percent of our business has come to a screeching halt,” he said. Typically, a slowdown of that magnitude occurs after Christmas.
“It has a drastic effect on the profits,” Albinger added. “We have to heat the material. There’s more maintenance. Things break quicker when it’s cold.”
And, if the job is continuing, the contractor is responsible to keep the concrete warm enough so that it sets properly.
“No matter what, the colder weather is going to cost somebody money,” Albinger said.
He is optimistic and may have sound reasons for being hopeful, but only in the short run. Temperatures are forecast to reach into the high 30s during the weekend. Normal lows for this time of year are around 37 degrees. Wednesday’s high was about 20 degrees lower but not anywhere near the all-time low for Chicago: -6 degrees on Dec.7, 1882.
But meteorological history suggests an extremely cold early December leads to an extremely cold winter.
Those prospects don’t bother Josh Gast and Mike Patraw. They have taken up temporary residence in trailers on two Christmas tree lots on Chicago’s North Side.
“I’ve got a couple of space heaters and a sleeping bag and a blanket to keep me warm at night,” said Gast, 23, of Green Bay. His job until Dec. 23 is to sell Christmas trees by day–and guard against thievery at night.
Patraw, 52, of Merrill, Wis., said Chicago’s frigid temperatures haven’t slowed sales. In fact, sales are a little speedier, he said.
“People are still coming out,” Patraw said. “The cold just makes them buy their trees faster.”
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