A year ago, when ASU graduate and Scottsdale native Hannah Perrine experienced issues with her air conditioning, she wasn’t sure where to turn. She had multiple professionals come out to look at it, and she was told it would take four days to fix. It came at an inconvenient time: Temps were around 115 degrees, and she had four animals at home.
Perrine was able to find a company that rented her three units while she was waiting for a fix, but she had a difficult time finding anyone offering portable units for homes.
The experience inspired her to start Cool Relief Rentals, a company providing same-day delivery of air-conditioning units, with her mother, Elizabeth Hillestad.
Perrine never expected that she would work in the HVAC industry.
“This was not on my Bingo card,” she said. “If this didn’t happen to me, and I didn’t have my experience, I wouldn’t have done this, but I’m passionate about this. There are not enough services out there to take care of this issue.”
She started to do research on her own, which further pushed her towards the HVAC industry. “I dug into the stats and found a lot of alarming heat-related facts and illnesses happening in homes. There was an emotional buy-in. I thought I could do something to help.”
Other than the company from which she rented her AC units, Perrine said she didn’t find any others offering portable units for residential customers. Most companies were focused on the commercial sector. While some air-conditioning companies offer units, she said it can be difficult to get them.
“There is a barrier to entry. It’s harder than I thought,” Perrine said.
Neither Perrine nor Hillestad have an HVAC background. Perrine has a background in communications and marketing. Hillestad had worked in marketing for 35 years.
As a co-founder of Cool Relief Rentals, Perrine has had to learn a lot about electricity, especially Btu and load capacity. Her research also has made her more aware of heat-related issues in Arizona.
“The numbers are alarming, and it’s only getting hotter and hotter for more consecutive days,” Perrine said. “There is an alarming amount of heat-related illness and in some cases even death. Some of these occurrences have happened indoors for residents that didn’t have access to a functioning AC.”
The mother-daughter business has been able to turn to other family members for help. Perrine’s future father-in-law has been assisting with deliveries, installs and pickups. He has a mechanical and engineering background, and moved from California to Arizona for the summer to help. Her stepfather has assisted with organizing the inventory, solving business-related issues and answering general unit and electrical questions.
A cousin also helps with the installs, and Perrine’s fiancé will sometimes pitch in when the other two aren’t available.
When Cool Relief Rentals was just getting started, Perrine and Hillestad practiced installs on her parents’ and friends’ homes. A cousin, who had just had a baby, was their first customer.
Perrine found out early in the process that almost everyone she knows in Arizona has a story of an air-conditioning outage during the summer months.
Cool Relief Rentals started offering portable units in May. The company serves a 30-mile radius within the Scottsdale, Cave Creek and North Phoenix area. The owners will usually answer calls until around 6 or 7 p.m.
Perrine said her goal is to keep families and pets safe and to help to reduce their stress, especially during the hottest months of the year. Customer service is an important part of what Cool Relief Rentals does.
“People don’t call with good news. They are frustrated and upset, often with their home warranty. We can recommend options,” Perrine said.
She said so far, they have gotten a lot of positive reviews. “People express how grateful they are. The heat beats them down. When we tell them we can get there in an hour or two, they are so relieved. That’s the rewarding part of doing it.”
Perrine has found that many customers explore other options before looking into portal units.
“People will go to hotels, but they are too expensive,” she said. “Depending on the situation, it is often cheaper to rent out units. Some people don’t want to leave their house. It’s hard to break that routine, and pets are a big reason. People who work from home need a cool space. A hotel is only fun the first night.”
Cool Relief Rentals offers units in different sizes and price points, including smaller, standard and premium units. Daily and weekly rental rates start at about $30 a day and $150 a week for smaller units, $50 a day and $250 a week for standard units and $70 a day or $350 a week for premium units. There are also additional charges for delivery, installation and pickup.
Perrine said most families rent out two to three units for around three to four days. She tries to suggest the best options for customers, whether it is renting through them or purchasing their own portable units. She recommends that customers put the units in the spaces where they spend the most time, which is usually their bedrooms and shared living spaces.
“Our units run on a lot of power. They can trip breakers. We go in and install the units, flip switches, make sure we’re not tripping breakers,” Perrine said.
One common challenge the company faces is that many homes have windows that don’t open.
“We use single and dual-hose portable AC units, which means they use a compressor and refrigerant to remove heat from indoor air,” Perrine explained. “It does so by pushing heat out through the hose, but that heat has to exhaust somewhere. We set them up through window kits that have a spot for the hose to attach and push air outside. If the area in the home where they are looking to install a unit doesn’t have a window that opens or a sliding door that opens, then we wouldn’t be able to install our units since it needs to slide open left or right or up or down.”
Perrine and her family have had a learning curve in finding ways to keep themselves cool when going into homes with air-conditioning issues. They often wear neck fans and clothing with heat-reducing technology, for example.
Working together has really brought her family closer together.
“It’s nice to spend time with our parents. (My fiancé and I) both came from big families. We all get to go out to dinner together after a long day,” Perrine said.
One of the most unexpected moments was when she went on an install and fell in love with a kitten a customer was trying to rehome. “Frosty” is now the Cool Relief Rentals mascot.
As the business grows, the company owners hope to give back to the community. They have held back 10 AC units, which they plan to donate to a local heat-related effort as part of the company’s “Cool Homes, Safe Lives” initiative.
For more information on Cool Relief Rentals, call 602-341-5517 or go to coolreliefrentals.com.