By MONA NAIR
6 News Reporter
KNOXVILLE (WATE) – A heat wave is hitting East Tennessee this week. The weekend is expected to be one for the record books.
Air conditioners are working overtime and so are air conditioning repair crews. Workers say the hotter it is, the more likely your unit will crash.
With crews so busy, you may be stuck having to sweat it out for a while.
Henry and Tillie Norris spent much of Thursday in their gazebo under a fan. Even their old dog Nellie was clearly feeling the heat.
"I was sitting in the living room and it struck me I didn't have the air conditioning running. I kept getting warmer and warmer. And I thought, I don't believe that thing's working," Henry explained.
The broken air conditioning was terrible news for the retired couple in their 80s. The pair spends most of the day at home. Luckily, they were able to get a repair worker to stop by Thursday evening.
"I got home at about 9 p.m. last night, and I went straight to bed," said Allen Helton, from A-1 Finchum Heating and Cooling.
The hotter it gets, the longer Helton's day will get.
A lot of local heating and cooling businesses plan to have extra workers on call this weekend.
"Tomorrow they said it's going up to above a hundred. There's going to be a lot of people out there looking for AC work," Henry said.
Unfortunately for Henry and Tillie, their air conditioning unit needs to have a major part replaced. Because of how busy the repair crew will be, that won't happen for at least another day.
To give Henry and Tillie some relief, Helton was working on a stop-gap fix.
"It'll at least run and get him by until we can replace it," Helton explained.
Henry and Tillie are hoping they make it through the heat wave without being too uncomfortable.
"I guess I'll be able to sleep tonight, maybe. If I can't I'll have to go to another house. Maybe someone out there will invite us to their house, and we'll have a good, cool, house to sleep in," Henry said, laughing.
Helton says that during a heat wave many people may think their air conditioning isn't working properly. He says it's important to remember that when you have 100 degree weather outside, even some of the best units may not cool you below 75 degrees.
"I got home at about 9 p.m. last night, and I went straight to bed," Allen Helton, from A-1 Finchum Heating and Cooling, said.
Henry and Tillie Norris spent much of Thursday in their gazebo, under the fan.
