The Docket's Lived section occasionally constructs composite characters from documented industry conditions, public records, and reported realities — not because real people aren't available, but because sometimes the truest portrait of a structural condition is one that no single person would be comfortable claiming as entirely their own. Rudy Terrazas is one such character. He is fictional. His thermostat readings are not.

On March 18, 2026, Phoenix hit 100°F — the earliest triple-digit day in the city's recorded history.¹ By month's end, nine days had crossed that threshold. The World Weather Attribution network would later determine that temperatures like these were "virtually impossible without climate change."²

Phoenix's Heat Response Plan activates May 1. Cooling center expansions, hospital surge protocols, volunteers stationed at Camelback Mountain trailheads — all built around a season that, until recently, cooperated with the calendar.³ In late March, none of it was running.

But Rudy Terrazas was running. His three-truck HVAC operation out of a rented bay in south Tempe had been fielding emergency calls since March 14, five weeks before the traditional start of what the industry calls "peak season." He's 52, third-generation Arizonan, 28 years in the trade. I find him parked in the shade of a Palo Verde tree outside a duplex near 24th Street and Broadway, working through a gas station burrito at 11 a.m. The dashboard thermometer reads 97. His phone has twelve missed calls.

He holds it up like a piece of evidence at trial.

Twelve calls before lunch. Normal for late March?

Rudy: Normal for June. Maybe late May if it's a bad year. March is tune-up season. You call me in March, I come out, check your refrigerant, clean your coils, tell you you're good for summer. That's March. This? This is July wearing a March costume.

When did you first notice the season shifting?

Rudy: Depends what you mean. When did I feel it in my knees? 2015, maybe 2016. June started coming in May. Then May started coming in April. You adjust. Hire earlier, stock parts earlier. But this year broke something. I had a lady in Gilbert call me March 15th. System hadn't been turned on since October, already 102 outside. Capacitor was shot. Two kids under five in the house. I'm not supposed to be doing emergency work in March. My guys aren't staffed for emergency volume in March. Nobody is.⁴

You service homes across a wide income range. What's the difference between a call in Scottsdale and one in south Phoenix?

Rudy: Everything.

Scottsdale, Paradise Valley — I'm doing maintenance on a system that cost more than my truck. Two-stage compressor, variable speed, whole-house zoning. The homeowner wants to know if they're wasting money on efficiency. The system's fine. It was fine last year. It'll be fine next year. Sometimes I feel like a doctor giving a physical to an Olympic athlete.

South Phoenix, Maryvale, parts of Mesa — different planet. I'm looking at systems from 2008, 2009, sized for a climate that doesn't exist anymore. You know what design temperature is?

Tell me.

Rudy: When they install a system, they size it based on the worst day that historically happens about one percent of the time. In Maricopa County, that number's around 107, 108.⁵ The system is built to hold your house at 75 on a 108-degree day. That's the math. But Phoenix hit 110 or higher on seventy days in 2024.⁶ Seventy. Every one of those days, the system is running past what it was designed to do.

What about rental units? Phoenix requires landlords to cool to 82°F.

Rudy: Eighty-two is the law.⁷ On a 105-degree day with a decent system, sure, 82 is achievable. But I've been in apartments — I'm not naming complexes, but you can guess the zip codes — where it's 115 outside and the unit is builder-grade from 2006 running on a circuit that's already pulling too much. Eighty-two is theoretical. The AG just went after a couple of places for not even turning on their chillers.⁸ That's the obvious violation. The harder one is where the system is on, running full blast, and it physically cannot reach 82. The landlord says it's working. The tenant says it's 89 inside. They're both telling the truth.

Then there's the swamp coolers. Code says an evaporative cooler only has to cool 20 degrees below outdoor temp.⁹ So at 115, the legal indoor temperature is 95. I've been in those homes. Ninety-five degrees inside, fully compliant, and the person living there is elderly and doesn't realize they're in trouble.

Seven in ten indoor heat deaths in Maricopa County happen in homes without functioning AC.¹⁰

Rudy: I know that number. I've been in homes after. Where someone didn't make it. The system was right there. Just not working. And nobody called. Or they called and couldn't afford the repair — four, five hundred minimum, could be over a thousand.¹¹ If you're choosing between that and groceries, you choose groceries. You open the windows. In Phoenix. In July.

I don't want to say more about those calls.

Your business is growing. The industry projects 8% workforce growth through 2034, wages are up, the Southwest is the fastest-growing market.¹² That's good for you.

Rudy: [long pause]

Yeah. It's good for me. My guys are making real money. I turned down work last August because I didn't have the bodies to send. And I sit with what that means. Every call I take is someone whose house is trying to kill them. More money for me means more people in trouble.

The city's cooling centers logged 120,000 visits last year, but the ARPA funding that supports the heat relief network expires after this season.¹³ Does that register for you?

Rudy: It should register for everybody. Those centers catch the people I can't reach in time. If that net disappears, the calls I get won't be for repairs. They'll be for something else. Something I can't fix with a capacitor and a can of R-410A.

What do you tell your own kids?

Rudy: I tell them to learn a trade. [half-smile] Specifically this one. Because it is not going to get cooler.

Rudy Terrazas is a composite character. The temperatures, regulations, mortality data, industry conditions, and funding timelines referenced throughout this interview are documented and sourced below.

Footnotes

1. Phoenix recorded its earliest 100°F day on March 18, 2026, with multiple days reaching 106°F. World Weather Attribution, March 20, 2026 ↩

2. World Weather Attribution, "Record-Shattering March Temperatures in Western North America Virtually Impossible Without Climate Change," March 20, 2026 (corrigendum April 16, 2026). ↩

3. City of Phoenix, 2026 Heat Response Plan, February 26, 2026. phoenix.gov/heatsite ↩

4. Industrial Info Resources, "Early-Season Western Heat Wave Drives Power Demand Surge," March 18, 2026. ↩

5. ENERGY STAR Design Temperature Limit Reference Guide, citing ASHRAE 1% cooling design temperatures for Maricopa County (107–109°F). ↩

6. Phoenix recorded 70 days at or above 110°F in 2024. 12News Phoenix; corroborated by City of Phoenix heat data. ↩

7. Phoenix City Code Section 39-5: cooling systems must maintain 82°F (air conditioning) or 86°F (evaporative cooling). phoenix.municipal.codes ↩

8. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes issued cease-and-desist letters to Aspire West Apartments (Phoenix) and Lumina on 19th Apartments (Tucson), April 2026. ↩

9. Phoenix City Code Section 39-5 specifies evaporative coolers must cool to at least 20°F below outdoor temperature, with a floor of 86°F. ↩

10. In Maricopa County, approximately 70% of indoor heat-related deaths occurred in structures without functioning air conditioning. KJZZ, February 2026; corroborated by Maricopa County Department of Public Health data. ↩

11. Average HVAC repair costs in 2026 range from $415 to $1,200. ACHR News, February 2026. ↩

12. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects 8% HVAC workforce growth through 2034, with over 40,000 annual openings. Arizona ranks among the top five states by HVAC service volume. ↩

13. City of Phoenix Council documents, March 2025. ARPA funding for the Heat Relief Network ($4.9 million) must be spent by December 31, 2026. Federation of American Scientists, "Summer, Wrapped: The 2025 State of the Heat," October 2025. ↩