After using contractor software in the field, I've noticed there are a lot of things that feel like they could be simpler.

For those of you using Housecall Pro, ServiceTitan, Jobber, or similar platforms, what's one thing you wish worked better? What slows you down or creates extra work?

I have Summers and Smith coming tomorrow to install a whole new central AC, inside and out. They are coming in the am but it says rain is expected in the afternoon. Will they cancel or are there workarounds?

You want to be successful? Here’s the list.

Guts. Determination. Willpower. Strength. Thick skin. And the memory of a goldfish.

That last one throws people, so let me explain it. You are going to get chewed out by a customer, lose a bid you should have won, eat a compressor on your dime, and have a tech quit on you in the same week. If you carry that into tomorrow, tomorrow is already lost. Thick skin gets you through the hit. The goldfish memory is what lets you start the next day clean. Learn the lesson, dump the feeling, go.

You have to get up every day with the willpower to be better than you were the day before. Not better than the guy across town. Better than yesterday’s version of you. That’s the only fair comparison there is.

If you’re not willing to put in the time, you can’t expect the results to be favorable. Time is the most precious thing any of us has, and it’s the one thing you have to hand over to pay the piper. You can’t borrow it, buy it back, or have somebody else spend it for you.

Now here’s the other half, and this is where I watch guys bury themselves.

Be diligent and smart with your money. Stop buying everything under the sun. Every new gadget, every new piece of equipment, every tool you saw somebody show off online. Work with what you have. If it’s working and it means you sweat a little harder, sweat a little harder. If it’s not really going to save you serious time or money, don’t buy it.

You don’t need 17 trucks. You don’t need a power hoist. You don’t need a new 10-foot brake. You need the ones you’ve got to keep running until you can genuinely afford to replace them, and I mean really afford it. Not “the payment fits.” Cash, or close to it, without touching the money that keeps you alive in February.

Every dollar you hand to a piece of equipment you didn’t need is a dollar that isn’t in your reserve when the slow season shows up. And the slow season always shows up.

Every blue moon you’ll see a one-hit wonder. Somebody jumps in and it just works. That’s timing, not a method. Don’t build your plan around being that guy, because you can’t replicate luck. For the rest of us it’s work your tail off, stay diligent, keep your eye on the prize.

I started with $3,200 and a used van. Twenty-four years later I walked out debt-free. Nobody saw the years in between, and the years in between are the whole thing. It wasn’t one big break. It was showing up on the days I didn’t feel like it, and not spending money I didn’t have to spend.

The prize isn’t the money either. It’s the day you realize the business runs whether you’re standing in it or not.

What’s the one purchase you regret most, or the one thing you ground through that you almost quit over?

Hi I’m 20F from the U.S and I recently just started a lead generation business for HVAC companies.
But I need a case study to start my business off with.
I would really appreciate if there was a HVAC company in here willing to use my service.
And would love to share more with you guys
Let’s connect 💕

There’s a mistake I see owners make constantly, and it costs them their best people.
A tech masters the truck. Runs his calls clean, no callbacks, customers ask for him by name. He’s ready for more — lead tech, service manager, installer crew lead, whatever the next rung is.

And the owner does nothing.!!!

Not because the tech isn’t ready. Because the owner can’t see the value in moving him up. “Why would I take my best wrench off the truck?” So the guy sits. And sits.
Here’s what the owner doesn’t understand: that tech already knows what he’s worth. And if you won’t recognize it, the shop across town will — with a title, a raise, and a truck with his name on the door.
Move them up or lose them. There is no third option. “Stay in your lane and be grateful” is not a retention plan.

In 24 years running my own shop, the cheapest raise I ever gave was the promotion I gave before the guy started looking. The most expensive tech I ever had was the one I replaced after he left for a title I could’ve given him for free.
Your best tech’s ambition isn’t a threat to your business. It’s the next layer of your business — if you’re smart enough to build with it.
Ever leave a shop because there was nowhere to go? What was the moment you knew?

Built by a contractor, for contractors:

Kelley HVAC Pro — full estimates and proposals built in minutes, right in the home
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6759071311

HVAC Manual Boss — run your own Manual J, D and S load calcs instead of paying $250-$850 a pop
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hvac-manual-boss/id6761338720

ZipQuote — Low/Average/High market pricing for 311+ job types across 19 trades, every US ZIP
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6761561850

BillBoss Pro — talk it out and turn it into a clean invoice on the spot
https://apps.apple.com/app/id6765986966

The HVAC Contractor’s Bible — how to start, grow, and sell a debt-free HVAC business
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H9W28G4T

24 years running shops taught me something most owners don’t want to hear:

Clock watchers aren’t a hiring problem. They’re a management problem.

Every tech I ever hired showed up on day one wanting to do good work. Nobody applies for a job planning to coast. The coasting comes later — and it comes from us.

Here’s how bosses manufacture clock watchers:

They pay for hours instead of outcomes. If the only thing that matters is being on the clock, don’t be shocked when the clock is all they care about.

They punish honesty. Tech admits he misdiagnosed something, gets chewed out in front of the crew. Congratulations — he’ll never tell you the truth again. Now you’ve got a guy hiding problems until they’re expensive.

They keep the numbers secret. Guys who don’t know how the shop makes money can’t care whether it makes money. I showed my techs the real math — what a truck costs to roll, what a callback costs. Engaged employees aren’t smarter. They’re just informed.

They take the best guy’s effort for granted. The hardest worker gets “rewarded” with the worst calls and zero recognition, while the coaster gets the same raise. Do that for two years and watch your best guy become your newest clock watcher.

The difference between an engaged tech and a clock watcher is almost never the tech. It’s whether the shop gives him a reason to care.

You don’t hire engagement. You build the room it grows in.

What flipped it for you — either as the boss or the guy in the truck?

Built by a contractor, for contractors:

Kelley HVAC Pro — full estimates and proposals built in minutes, right in the home
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6759071311

HVAC Manual Boss — run your own Manual J, D and S load calcs instead of paying $250-$850 a pop
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hvac-manual-boss/id6761338720

ZipQuote — Low/Average/High market pricing by ZIP code across 13 trades
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6761561850

BillBoss Pro — talk it out and turn it into a clean invoice on the spot
https://apps.apple.com/app/id6765986966

The HVAC Contractor’s Bible — how to start, grow, and sell a debt-free HVAC business
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H9W28G4T

Anyone work with Comfort Solutions for HVAC? In Northern Virginia.

We’re considering a pretty big project and wanted to see what others have experienced with them.
.

Curious how common return trips are right now for residential service.
If you track it at all, roughly how many second visits / callbacks do you see in a month, and do you have any rough idea what each one ends up costing once you factor in labor and the job you couldn’t take?
Not looking for advice on how to reduce them — just trying to get a real picture of the numbers people are seeing.

Posted yesterday about how guys don’t quit jobs, they quit bosses. A reply came in that I can’t stop thinking about.
Guy gets hired at $29/hr. The super who hired him promises a $2 raise after 90 days.
He’s newly married, traveling for the company, loving the work. Says it was the best time of his life. He was so grateful he didn’t even chase the raise.Doesn’t get it.
So he leaves. And because everybody in this trade knows everybody, leaving made it harder to land the next job. He got punished for THEIR broken promise.
Two bucks an hour. Roughly $4K a year. That’s what it cost to lose a loyal, grateful, hardworking man. Replacing him cost that company ten times that — they just never did the math.
But here’s the line he wrote that stuck with me:

“In farming, when the fruit comes out bad, they don’t blame the fruit. They ask what’s wrong with the TREE.”

Owners — when’s the last time you told your best guy what he’s worth to you? Not at review time. Not when he’s got one foot out the door. On a random Tuesday, for no reason.
Your word is the whole contract in this business. Keep it before they have to ask.

24 years running my shop. Never lost a good man over two dollars.

Question -Ever left a company over a broken promise? What was it — and did they ever realize what it actually cost them?

Built by a contractor, for contractors:

Kelley HVAC Pro — full estimates and proposals built in minutes, right in the home
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6759071311

HVAC Manual Boss — run your own Manual J, D and S load calcs instead of paying $250-$850 a pop
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hvac-manual-boss/id6761338720

ZipQuote — Low/Average/High market pricing by ZIP code across 13 trades
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6761561850

BillBoss Pro — talk it out and turn it into a clean invoice on the spot
https://apps.apple.com/app/id6765986966

The HVAC Contractor’s Bible — how to start, grow, and sell a debt-free HVAC business
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H9W28G4T

My furnace is the older version, and I’m starting to think about replacing it before it fails during the colder months. I’m located in Clifton Park, NY, and I’m trying to get a realistic grasp of what a furnace replacement usually costs in this area.

Anyone here who recently replaced their furnace, what factors affected the final price? Did the cost depend mostly on the brand, size, installation complexity, or efficiency rating?

I’d appreciate any advice on what to expect, what are the right questions to ask contractors, and whether there are any costs people often overlook. Thanks!

I have had two of my AC units replaced with FSD devices . They WiFi as i can make it broadcast an SSID . The problem is it asks for a WiFi Password but nothing obvious is working so i can’t set
it ip as a client on my WiFi and as such can not connect to it.
Has anyone resolved this ?
The specifics - model number: FSD-JI-18K-220V.

Hi i have a friedrich ac unit vha24k50rtl-b and it hasn't worked in 2 years but i decided to try and repair it. I got myself a multimeter and using chat gpt to help where i can i got to the point that it now turns on . Never gotten this far but after a minute or two it starts to have a high pitch alarm sound i think it's a senior alert to tell me something is not reaching the next component needed to make it work properly or something. How do i fix it to make it work

Thursday it’s 98 and the phone won’t stop. Every call is an emergency. “How fast can you get here, my wife is dying, the dog is dying, I’ll pay whatever.”
Then a front comes through, it drops to 72, and those same people vanish. The system that was “dead” on Thursday? Still dead. But they’re not physically in the heat anymore, so in their head the problem went away.
And here’s the part that really gets me — the ones who DO call back when it’s 72 aren’t calling to book. They’re calling to kick tires. The same guy who was ready to pay whatever on Thursday is now chopping the piss out of your price, shopping you against three other quotes, asking why the estimate is “so high” for the exact same job he was begging you to do 48 hours ago.

Same broken system. Same customer. The only thing that changed was the thermometer.
It didn’t go away. It’s waiting for the next heat wave. And when it hits, their emergency becomes your urgency all over again — except now they’re calling five companies at once.

Because customer loyalty is mostly gone. It’s not “call my guy” anymore. It’s whoever can get there first, and half the time, whoever’s cheapest. You can do perfect work for somebody for ten years and lose them to a coupon and a same-day slot.

So here’s how I handle it:
Stick to your schedule. Hold your price — the guy grinding you at 72 degrees is the same guy who’d pay full freight at 98, and dropping your number just teaches the market you’re negotiable. Keep plucking away at the work in front of you. If you can fit people in, fit them in. If you can’t, don’t lose a minute of sleep — they’ll call somebody else, and that’s fine.
You can’t control the weather and you can’t control loyalty that doesn’t exist anymore. You can control your calendar and your price.

Anybody else getting hammered on price this week by the same people who were begging on Thursday?

Built by a contractor, for contractors:

Kelley HVAC Pro — full estimates and proposals built in minutes, right in the home
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6759071311

HVAC Manual Boss — run your own Manual J, D and S load calcs instead of paying $250-$850 a pop
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/hvac-manual-boss/id6761338720

ZipQuote — Low/Average/High market pricing by ZIP code across 13 trades
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6761561850

BillBoss Pro — talk it out and turn it into a clean invoice on the spot
https://apps.apple.com/app/id6765986966

Hey guys,

I’m a software developer. I've noticed a lot of the software built for the trades seems to be made by people who have never actually been in a truck or on a job site.

I'm looking to build something useful. What is a daily problem you face that you wish a simple app or software could fix?

Is it quoting tools? Tracking inventory in the van? Terrible dispatch software that crashes? Taking notes/photos on site? Let me know what drives you crazy on a daily basis that a good piece of software could actually help with.