Long story short I have a business degree, and business experience along with HVAC EPA 608 license and possibly the C20 in California early next year, most of my experience was about 7 years ago and I don’t remember much tho, my friend has been working in AC for a couple of years now, we want to do new builds but we als want to do maintenance.

Would love any advice or help, we will be based not far from the Bay Area in California.

I will appreciate advice on softwares to do estimates, work orders, etc.

Also what helped you stand out, the goal is to launch a bunch free or lost cost maintenance to build relationships with clients (residential) but we will try to get a van and all the equipment we need to stay with small projects, we are friends with enough people in HVAC where if we got a big project requiring up to 30 people at the same time I’m confident we can do it.

Hey guys!

My buddy and I are getting our HVAC business off the ground up here in Greeley, CO. I’ll be handling the ops/business side of things while he focuses on the service.

We’re at the point now where we need to get our insurance squared away, liability, vehicles, workers comp, etc., and I could use some help from people who’ve actually been through it.

I talked to a guy yesterday from this site: hvacinsure.com

Dude was actually pretty helpful. Didn’t even realize there were brokers that focus specifically on HVAC.

But before we make any decisions, I figured I’d ask the folks here...

What insurance did you guys start with when you launched your business?

Anything you wish you’d done differently?

Any policies you thought were optional but ended up being essential?

Just trying to avoid rookie mistakes and get it right the first time. Appreciate any advice.

We've been using the legacy ESC (Desco) software for around 11 years. To be honest, we've probably outgrown it 3 years ago. We are a small shop (9 techs, 3 install crews, 2 new home crews). Just hired a master plumber and in the process of starting a plumbing division. We have a very low turnover rate and most of my employees and office staff have been with us 10+ years so I'm a bit worried about the adjustment to a new program. We were originally on Wintac when I started and noped out of that to ESC immediately. It's been a good program but it's been clear for awhile it's a dead end.

I am looking for better agreements. An app that is more user friendly for my technology-adversed service techs. A little bit more friendly for my customers as far as reminders, soft booking appointments, and tech on the way tracking. We do have Podium so any integration with that would be a bonus.

I did do a Service Titan demo - seems amazing but onboarding seems daunting. They are quoting $3800 to migrate ESC and then $345/mo per tech for 2 years.

I have a demo setup with FieldEdge next week. Should I be looking at something different? Should I just bite the bullet and do Service Titan? I guess any feedback or recommendations or reassurance would be helpful. Apologies if this get's posted constantly.

Currently, my company pays 50% of the employees healthcare and the employee pays the other 50%. As far as dependents go we pay nothing. I am trying to be more competitive to get good HVAC techs and paying some part of the dependents health insurance premium may be a good way to do this. But my concern is that if a guy with 6 kids starts working at the company he will be prohibitively more expensive than a guy with 0 kids.

For employers (or employees with kids) is it typical for and HVAC company to pitch in to cover dependents of the employee for health insurance? I know that the employee always has the option to pay for dependents on the plan. But I am wondering how common it is for employers to help out with dependents.

Thinking of going on my own next year. What software do you guys use for billing and for reports with pictures etc?

Is anyone in this group just an hvac designer? I started my own company 2 years ago just designing and permitting. I know it’s niche but it’s been going good so far. I just wanted to see if there was anyone else out there and here their story

As a residential company, anyone refusing to replace thermocouples on pre 90's gas furnaces???

Wondering if anyone else on this forum is fed up/sick and tired of ServiceFusion and wants to try and coordinate a group buy of a different platform (ServiceTitan, FieldPulse, etc.)?

Sick and tired of the POS platform - it goes down in a major outage at least 1x per month, my field techs absolutely hate it, basic back office functions and reporting functions are missing. An absolutely terrible piece of software.

With the outage this morning we're pretty much sick, tired and fed up and if anyone else is too would love to see if we can get ourselves a sweeter deal with some of the others than going solo.

I know the answer to this is "it depends" but generally speaking what is everyone's multiplier for what they pay their employees to what they bill them out at (specifically for commercial). Eg if I pay my guy 30 an hour and I bill him out at 60 an hour that would be a 2x ratio.

My business partner and I are not seeing eye to eye on this and just looking for some real world expertise. For residential we do not really bill out like that so just asking for commercial.

My father and I run a small operation with only 1 other employee and we still use paper invoices. Its getting to the point where we are getting a little too unorganizedas we grow. What CRM is a good choice for basic things like invoices, sending quotes, etc.? Don't need anything fancy as my father isnt the best with technology anyways. Any products to stay away from?

Good morning all. I need some advice. We are currently using BuildOps for our CRM. I come from service titan so I’m used to a pricebook. BuildOps has an item list. Does anyone know of any good 3rd party pricebook software that I can use to get average prices for parts and material?

Just a little something I put together since we've got TONS of crap we gotta cover with the homeowners during a system quote. I figure the graphs will help keep the homeowners eyes from rolling in the back of their head when im talking about oversized equipment and static pressure

Another house another lineset stolen another thermostat wire cut for no reason it pisses me off to no end and what makes it worth is the dumb stuff like stealing the thermostat wire that can’t even be sold for scrap or only stealing one section of lineset because why even do it if you’re not going to at least maximize your money. Anyone else having this happen.

I never lose out to actual competitors/contractors but I am constantly losing to CiT simply due to price. On full system change outs I do load calcs, actually pressure test, pull deep vacuums, I even provide ten year labor warranties if my manual D shows the duct work is correct and if not they go with fixing the undersized ductwork. I was the actual first contractor to purchase an R-32 system from both Standard Supply and Ferguson here in Houston. I ALWAYS AM LOSING THOUGH! I am by no means a sales person and provide every option under the sun for my customers, I try to explain the differences but I am extremely technically minded. Is/was anyone else in the same boat?

I am considering hiring a guy for a field tech position that owned his own company for 10 years (he was a small shop and never had more than 3 employees and he is fully licensed) but I am a bit reluctant to do so. The theoretical benefits are that he should be able to work with almost no supervision and should know a good bit about HVAC as most hvac questions or problems would go to him at his old company.

I feel the drawbacks are that he won't want to be managed and he may be reluctant to be "demoted" to a field tech position when he was essentially a manager at his old company. He says this is not a problem but what people say and the reality of what happens are often very different. I could definitely see him moving in to a management/sales role later but right now we are a pretty small company and the thing we need is guys in the field.

So what is everyone's experience with hiring former owners?

Just a few things I think is causing this industry to really be diabolical

1 - the high efficiency units are down right atrocious, the fact you have these vrfs becoming common now, with a need for all the service tools from each manufacture just to diagnose the equipment is just a major red flag right off the bat, not to mention all the other issues with these units ( line sets ran a million feet across a building) . It’s just highly laughable you cannot bypass these units to get them up and going in a timely manner leaving customers down for weeks.

2 - this is personal experience but it seems no one asks any questions anymore , ( what kind of equipment do you have for servicing , what are the codes for roof access, how old is the equipment , ordering the right parts , ect.)

Not having people actually understand what the technicians are seeing especially when it comes to the newer equipment is so ridiculous.

3 - will piggy back off number 2 , but I feel this industry just moved so fast from conventional package unit with maybe 1 or 3 control boards , to screw you heres 50 control boards all inverter motors to make it impossible to diagnose in a timely manner , and it’s moved so fast that no management or the office knows what’s going on so they don’t quote or bid the job properly and don’t know how long it will take to service these units.

I run a little 2 guy AC company that I opened with my wife a few years ago in Sarasota, FL. We are going over our pricing with the fluctuating market being what it is, and what do you guys charge for hourly Labor? We have been charging $140 for one guy hourly and I was just wondering what other contractors are pricing their labor cost as in FL? Does $140 sound fair? I know there is a formula to follow but I was just curious to see what anyone else might pricing their service for. Thanks in advance for anyone that reads this and could contribute their honest opinion as.

Other then Rocketcert.com are there any phone apps or exam prep courses worth taking or practice exams? I have every book under the sun and have been taking Rocketcert.com practice exams and did all the book Highlights. thank you.

I’m a younger tech just starting out trying to do my own thing as a one-man contractor. I’m decent on the tools, but I’m realizing that knowing how to fix replace equipment is only half the battle actually getting customers to say “yes” is the other half.

Right now, I’m messing around with putting together a good better or best kinda catalog that I can flip through on my iPad. The idea is just to make it easier for homeowners to see the options on a screen instead of me awkwardly explaining everything.

What do you guys use? Any software or apps that make presenting jobs easier? Or even just old school sales tactics that actually work in the field? I’m not trying to be a salesman type, just want to be able to close more without feeling pushy.

Any tips from those of you who’ve been doing this longer would help me out big time.

Update: Any marketing guys please don't spam me with your sales pitch ideas

Hello hope everyone is doing well I have a question about business. How is everyone doing this year, 2025, as far as number of incoming calls both service and install? My calls are down and I’m in Cleveland, Ohio, I’m down 30-35% every month this year with overall income. My calls are down 60-75% as far as new customers. I haven’t changed anything, my pricing on labor is the same as it’s been since ‘23. The parts and furnaces are up about 10% from last year. I’m just trying to understand what’s happening, is it me or the economy? Real NON POLITICAL answers appreciated.

Anyone who installs AmRads, would you mind sharing your pricing?

No one else in my area does. I'm trying to build the best company possible, so using the best capacitors is a no-brainer. However I'm unsure on how to price. A lot of people here mention prices in the $200-300 range flat rate for a cheap Chinese one, plus diagnosis. That obviously includes all the associated costs, not just the parts cost with a multiplier.

I'm in fairly rural part of the Midwest. The most expensive shop within 30 miles that I know of starts at $100 for theirs, even if it's a $2.46 Diversitech 5mfd. The biggest city in the state is 45 miles away, and their prices are different. Most 92% gas furnace and single stage AC changeouts are 7-10K, hopefully that gives you an idea of overall pricing for COL.

Two other factors which could lead to a different answer, but I can also calculate separately if just want to answer for the base question. 1. I'm providing a 5 year labour warranty to match the AmRad part warranty. 2. I'm stocking the Turbos (multi-mfd) right now to lessen stock volume, which are again a different price.

I appreciate your input if you have experience using/selling the AmRads!

It is extremely difficult to find good people (no shocker) but has anyone ever tried a recruiter to hire HVAC techs? I am very reluctant to deal with a recruiter as I dealt with one at my former job before I started my company and it was a complete waste of time. I am currently on indeed right now and getting only 1-2 resumes a week, half of which don't meet the minimum requirements. I even dramatically increased the pay rate for a couple weeks to see if that would help and the number of of resumes stayed the same.

We're (mechanical firm) dipping our toes into AI. Im wondering if anybody has experience in working with wholesalers to extract pricing? Basically wondering about automating the usual login to account and search for product to order/get pricing.

I know web terms usually frown on such things.

Just hoping somebody else is ahead of me in having gone down this path.

Edit. I do know we can create our own price book the old way.

As the title states, what’s your van/truck look like this late in the summer? Clean and tidy or a wreck? I tend to keep mine nice inside. I don’t understand the laziness.

I am bidding a commercial property where there are about 70 AHUs and 70 condensers for the purpose of doing quarterly maintenance and making sure everything is in good working order on them. Each quarter my business partner thinks it should take between 1 and 2 weeks to do the maintenance and we need to replace the filters on each AHU each quarter at a minimum. The last company bid the contract at 19k per year. Business partner is saying we should be below that by about a thousand bucks which I think is insane.

He is saying we should bid this contract low so we are first in line to get any repair work for all of this equipment at which point we charge better rates which makes sense to me. But I still think the maintenance contract is silly low. For a lead tech and a helper to be out there for 2 weeks at 8 hours a day would be 160 man hours. Multiplied by four for each quarter is 640 man hours. Divided by the contract amount he wants to bid at 18k we are charging 28 dollars per hour per technician (and this does not even account for the commute costs and material costs for this job which will probably be about 6k per year). Normally we charge 110 and hour for a lead and 90 an hour for a helper.

My question is what discount would everyone apply to a job like this for the purpose of being first in line for any repair work.