As the news of the impending freeze came last week, Kris DeVries started worrying about her 30-year-old furnace.

It managed to keep up with the cold weather until Monday, when the temperature in her Orland Park home dropped as her aging furnace finally gave out.

“It felt inevitable. In the back of my mind, I knew my days were numbered,” DeVries said.

A technician with Four Seasons Heating, Air Conditioning, Plumbing and Electric came out and assessed her aging furnace Monday. He said he could come back and replace it the next day.

DeVries slept that night with two blankets, an electric blanket and two space heaters. She woke up Tuesday morning to a 50-degree house.

“It was a painful price to pay, but it needed to be done,” DeVries said.

DeVries was not alone. As temperatures continue to hover around zero in the Chicago area, residents have been struggling to keep their homes warm and their cars operating.

Ben Jungman, the vice president of business development for Four Seasons, said his company has responded to about 2,500 service calls over the last three days, mainly from people who have lost their heat.

“It’s been extremely busy,” Jungman said.

Four Seasons, with five locations in the area, has been fixing and replacing furnaces, changing out the batteries in generators and dealing with frozen or burst pipes.

The heat going out spells disaster in these frigid conditions, Jungman said. When a home loses heat, temperatures inside can drop to the 40s, which can then cause pipes to freeze and burst.

Since Saturday, Jungman estimates Four Seasons has replaced about 100 furnaces a day. A new furnace from Four Seasons ranges in price from $4,000 to $20,000. On Monday alone, the plumbing department responded to about 300 calls for frozen pipes.

Jeremy Melnick, the vice president of hardware sales for JC Licht Ace in the Chicago area, said its space heater inventory was wiped clean over the last day.

“When we were first hit with the snow, people were coming in for snow blowers and shovels. Then the cold came and people needed ice melt. But then yesterday, people realized, holy cow, it’s really cold,” Melnick said. “We were sitting on a nice chunk of inventory of space heaters and those were pretty much gone in 24 hours.” 

Most of the customers shopping for space heaters said the heat wasn’t working in their apartment building; others were needing them to defrost frozen pipes, Melnick said. Some customers were also coming in for furnace filters. 

“You deal with the mild weather for long enough,” Melnick said, “and then you get the first real cold spell and you remember you live in Chicago.”

On the road

Conditions on roadways in and around Chicago have been treacherous the last few days.

Maria Castaneda, spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Transportation, said the first issue was when the light and fluffy snow fell and was picked up by the wind, causing low visibility on the roads.

But then when the temperatures dropped, the wet pavement froze, creating slick spots and black ice. Overpasses and bridges have been especially dangerous, Castaneda said.

From Friday morning to noon on Tuesday, the Illinois State Police responded to about 567 calls for help on expressways in the Chicago area. Those calls were due to cars sliding out, spinning out or breaking down, an ISP spokesperson said.

Pat Nabong/Sun-Times

Nick Jarmusz, the director of public affairs for AAA, said the auto club experienced a significant spike in calls from Illinois motorists over the last few days compared with the same time last year. The auto club has around 1 million customers in Illinois.

The biggest spike was Monday when AAA got 510% more calls than last year on Jan. 15.

“That’s a huge jump in the amount of calls we get,” Jarmusz said.

Most of the calls, about 60%, were battery related, which Jarmusz said was the part of a car most affected when it gets super-cold.

Electric cars are especially impacted by cold weather, Jarmusz added. Temperatures below 20 degrees can reduce an electric car’s battery range by nearly half, a AAA study found.

AAA’s service calls have also included drivers who slid off the road, likely when running over a patch of black ice.

Cars slip off the road in part because the tires aren’t inflated properly, Jarmusz said. Cold temperatures reduce tire pressure and improperly inflated tires lose traction.

Jarmusz also recommended that drivers keep their fuel tanks at least half full to prevent fuel lines from freezing.

Out on the icy roads, he said it’s not safe to use cruise control because when a car hits the ice, the cruise control misreads it and tries to accelerate. A car with four-wheel drive, he added, will still slip and slide when breaking on ice like any other car.