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The Emergency Dispatch Criteria Worksheet

Two call types are always an emergency no matter what your criteria say. Everything else on an HVAC, plumbing, or electrical line is a judgment your own worksheet has to make explicit.

Not every after-hours call is worth a truck roll, and not every after-hours call is safe to schedule for the morning. Between those two is where a dispatch worksheet earns its keep — it tells the person answering the phone exactly which calls dispatch your on-call tech now, which get a next-available slot, and which two call types override every other rule you write.

This is a worksheet for building that criteria set. It starts with the two categories that are always an emergency, regardless of your trade or your own thresholds, because they're life-safety calls, not service calls.

1. Gas and carbon monoxide calls override everything else

A suspected natural gas leak and a suspected carbon monoxide problem are not dispatch decisions — they're 911 calls, every time, regardless of your trade or your normal emergency criteria.

For a suspected gas leak, federal pipeline-safety guidance is specific: leave the area immediately, don't operate light switches, phones, or anything that could spark, and call 911 or the utility from a safe distance — not from inside or right outside the building.

For suspected carbon monoxide exposure, the CPSC's fact sheet lists flu-like symptoms without a fever — headache, dizziness, weakness, nausea, confusion — as the warning signs, and the guidance is to get to fresh air immediately and call 911, not to wait for a technician.

Write this as the first rule in your worksheet, above every trade-specific tier: gas smell or suspected CO exposure means the agent tells the caller to get out and call 911 first, then notifies you. It is never queued as a routine or even a same-night service call.

Verify

Confirm your current after-hours script has gas-leak and CO calls as a standalone, first rule — not folded into a general 'emergency' bucket that also includes a broken water heater.

2. Everything else needs your own emergency matrix

Below the always-911 tier, build a trade-by-trade matrix of what turns a service issue into a dispatch-now emergency. The failure mode and the context both matter: no heat is routine in October and an emergency during a hard freeze, especially with an elderly occupant or infant in the house. Active water intrusion is always dispatch-now; a slow drip usually isn't. A burning smell or visible sparking from an electrical panel is always dispatch-now; a flickering light usually isn't.

Write the matrix as: failure mode, the context that upgrades it (temperature, occupant vulnerability, active vs. contained), and the resulting tier. This is your call, made in advance, so the agent isn't weighing it at 2am.

Verify

List your last twenty after-hours calls by trade and outcome (dispatched vs. scheduled). Check whether the pattern matches a written rule, or whether it varied by whoever answered.

3. Three tiers, defined by what the agent does

Tier 1 — get out and call 911 now (gas/CO), or dispatch your on-call tech immediately (active water intrusion, no heat in a freeze with a vulnerable occupant, active electrical hazard). Tier 2 — schedule the next available same-day slot. Tier 3 — book onto the regular schedule.

The agent matches the caller's description to your written matrix. They aren't deciding how serious a burst pipe sounds — the matrix already decided.

3 more sections

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This resource references dated regulatory material. Last reviewed against its sources for the 2027-07-31 revision cycle.