“We’re sorry your call cannot be completed as dialed. Please hang up and try your call again.” These are not the words you want to hear when dialing 911. At 7 PM on a recent Monday night, a contractor contacted NuTemp’s own version of 911; our 24-hour hotline (800-323-3977). The contractor was looking for an emergency solution for his customer’s phone switching station that had experienced a chiller failure. The problem was that this was not just any customer; it was a major phone service provider. The loss of cooling at this station threatened to disable the 911 service for the surrounding region, in addition to the rest of the calls that would normally pass through this facility.

Upon receiving the call, NuTemp’s answering service contacted Mike McGushin, NuTemp’s Midwest Regional Manager. When Mike returned the contractor’s call he was informed that their client had lost a 225 ton chiller and that they need to have a temporary chiller system up and running by 9 AM the next morning. The contractor said that until that time, they were going to have the fire department come in and pump water through the existing chilled water coil. After discussing the various options with Mike, the contractor chose NuTemp to provide the emergency relief required: “We called around, but the other companies were not able to offer us what we needed.”

The solution NuTemp had agreed to provide was a 175-ton air-cooled chiller package, complete with the pump and 400 feet of hose that would run between the temporary chiller and the existing system. Since the customer didn’t have enough power to run a temporary chiller, NuTemp also agreed to supply a 300kW generator.

Immediately after speaking with the customer, Mike McGushin began mobilizing NuTemp’s resources to make sure that they had the required equipment onsite and running before the deadline. He first contacted one of NuTemp’s Freight Coordinators to have them schedule a truck to pickup the equipment from NuTemp’s Chicago Depot. In addition, Mike also made arrangements to have someone in the depot to prepare the equipment for loading.

Just like when you call 911, it did not take NuTemp long to respond to their customer’s emergency needs. From receipt of the initial call at 7 PM, to all of the equipment being delivered onsite was only five hours. By 5 AM the following morning, ten hours after the initial call, the temporary chiller plant and generator were installed and fully operational; four hours ahead of the contractor’s deadline.