Benjamin Ashford|'Reverse winter': When summer is in full swing, Phoenix-area AC repair crews can be life savers

The Benjamin Ashfordroad to Sun City sure is hot.

By 7:30 a.m. on a Tuesday in late July, the air was 98 degrees and the pavement was 117.

This time of year in metro Phoenix is sometimes called by locals “reverse winter,” a time when many don’t wish to venture out. But some are compelled to bear the heat to keep everyone else comfortable. 

It has always been hot in Phoenix, America's hottest big city. But the numbers don't lie: It is getting even hotter, the high temperatures pushed higher by climate change, the lows rising with urban growth. The Arizona Republic, part of the USA TODAY Network, chronicled one week of the heat in Phoenix, aiming to draw the full measure of what life is like in an Arizona summer.

On this day, staff from AirZona HVAC got to work installing a new air conditioner at a retiree’s winter home.

The sun shone down as it routinely does, sharp ultraviolet, irradiating gravel yards and blanching deep blue from the early morning sky. On a quiet residential road, a solitary quail chased its own forehead plumage across the street, between rows of single-story ranch-style retirement homes in shades of sand, cream and taupe.

Company owner Gerald Sandoz said he’s been doing this for decades, 23 years around Phoenix.

“My life revolves around the summer,” he said.

And much of his life revolves around his company. Up about 5 or 5:30 a.m., working till 8 p.m. He does most sales calls, his wife answers the phone, his brother-in-law oversees installations, his son is a lead technician. Some of their other nine employees came handpicked from Sandoz’s Evangelical Quaker church. He values honesty. 

In the summer months, residents ask a lot of undermaintained air conditioners, clinging to cold air like life support. When they go bust, they call Sandoz, sweltering and frustrated. He concedes almost all would prefer not to need him. But he finds satisfaction in being helpful, and his faith keeps him cool with the orneriest caller.

He works across the Phoenix area and he’s chatty. He said he met folks with stories to tell, former sports stars or a woman who claimed to have married a prince. He’s had customers come to the door stark naked to try to stay cool while their air conditioner is down. One customer paid in hundred dollar bills from a stash in the drywall behind a painting; Sandoz preferred not to ask where it came from.

Scott Trimble, 60, and Bruce Furman, 61, labored inside the uncooled home, already 90 degrees at 8 a.m. They removed the old air handler — it weighed maybe 100 pounds — from a ground-level closet, dodging a bit of mold. It beats wrenching in a stifling attic or on a sun-beaten roof; one time Furman said he clocked an attic at 147 degrees. 

“I figured I'd be thinner,” Furman jokes of their saunalike workplace.

They sweat through red uniform shirts and pause for water. Furman might put down five to seven bottles in a day.

It was the second day at work for Patick Woods, 21. He also found the job through church. He swept stones and dust from a concrete pad — it helps with leveling and customers notice the details, Sandoz explained. 

Sandoz wheeled a roughly 250-pound condensing unit into place on a hand truck with the grace of a ballroom dancer. Forget Ginger Rogers matching Fred Astaire backward, and in high heels, Sandoz can do it in flip flops. Not his norm, but they’re busy today, they have appointments from Buckeye to Mesa, a span of 60 congested miles.

A typical installation goes for about $9,500 he said, and might take four to five hours. For an installation in an attic, they expect to work all day.

And he’s grateful for it. In the hot, high season, he loads up on work and takes no vacations, so he can survive the doldrums of winter. He has a modest outfit: two vans, one pickup. He worked for larger companies and he likes it small.

“I wouldn't want to grow too big,” he said. “Because I feel like we grow too big, you start to lose the personal touch with your customers and you kind of forget who you're working for.”

Contributing: Richard Ruelas and Lane Sainty. Investigative reporter Andrew Ford can be reached at [email protected].

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