HVAC & mechanical contracting

1. Answer, or return the call the same day. In this trade the first contractor to answer wins a large share of the work outright — speed beats price on a no-heat call.
2. Capture, in the system and not on paper: address, equipment make and model, age if known, symptom in the customer's own words, when it started, and whether there is heat or cooling at all now.
3. Classify: emergency (no heat, no cooling in extreme weather, gas smell, water leak), same-week service, quoted replacement, or maintenance.
4. On any report of a gas smell or suspected carbon monoxide, stop the intake and tell the customer to leave the building and call the utility's emergency line — not you — first.
5. Book a window you can actually hold, say what the diagnostic charge is before the visit, and send a confirmation with the technician's name and the charge in writing.

1. Photograph the data plate before touching anything. Model and serial number drive the parts, the warranty position and the equipment record.
2. Diagnose to a cause, not to a symptom, and write down what was ruled out. The note is what protects you on a callback.
3. Check warranty status on the part and on the equipment before quoting; a part still in manufacturer warranty changes the customer's decision entirely.
4. Present repair and replace as two priced options where both are real, with the age of the equipment stated. Do not present replacement as the only option on equipment under ten years old without saying why.
5. Get written approval — a signature in the system or a reply to the emailed quote — before doing work beyond the diagnostic.
6. Where the fault is a safety condition, red-tag the appliance and document it, whether or not the customer accepts the repair.

1. Size the system from a load calculation, not from what was there before. Replacing like-for-like perpetuates whatever was wrong, and oversizing is the most common fault in residential replacement — ACCA's Manual J is the recognised method.
2. Quote with the model numbers, the scope of the sheet-metal or line-set work, the electrical work included and excluded, the permit, the disposal of the old unit and the warranty terms registered in the customer's name.
3. Pull the permit before the work, where the authority requires one for the fuel or electrical connection.
4. Order the equipment against the job in the system, so the parts and the margin stay attached to that job.
5. Commission the system against the manufacturer's start-up sheet — static pressure, temperature rise or superheat and subcool, gas pressure, combustion where applicable — and leave the completed sheet with the customer and in the job record.
6. Register the warranty with the manufacturer the same week, and set the first maintenance visit before you leave the house.

1. Only certified personnel service, charge or decommission a system containing a halocarbon refrigerant. In Canada the federal halocarbon regime governs installation, servicing, leak testing, recovery and record-keeping; in the United States, EPA Section 608 certification is required to work on or dispose of such equipment.
2. Recover refrigerant to a recovery cylinder — never vent. Venting is the offence most likely to end a licence and is trivially provable from the job record.
3. Leak-test after any repair to a sealed system and record the test and its result against the job.
4. Log refrigerant in and out by job: what was added, what was recovered, cylinder identity and quantities, so the inventory reconciles.
5. Keep the records for the period the regulation requires, and keep them retrievable by address — a request will arrive years later and will be about one building.

1. Invoice the day the work is done, from the technician's own notes and photographs. Every day of delay measurably lowers the chance of being paid in full.
2. Take payment at the door for residential service, by card or transfer; hold the terms conversation only for commercial accounts with a signed account application.
3. Attach the commissioning or service record to the invoice. It halves the disputes, because the customer can see what they bought.
4. Close the job in the system with actual hours and actual parts, so job cost is real rather than estimated.
5. Review anything where actual exceeded estimated by more than a fifth, weekly, and feed the answer back into the price list.

1. Offer the agreement at the end of every successful job, when the customer's trust is highest — not by a later mailing.
2. Define it precisely: how many visits, which months, what is inspected, what is included, what discount applies to repairs, and what happens on renewal.
3. Schedule the whole year's visits at signing. An unscheduled agreement is a liability you will fulfil in a panic in October.
4. Use the shoulder seasons — spring and autumn — to deliver them, which is exactly what smooths the revenue trough between heating and cooling.
5. Track renewal rate as a number per month, and ask the customers who do not renew why, by phone.

1. Before the first day: verify the certificate of qualification or gas licence on the authority's own register, and record the expiry date.
2. Keep a ticket matrix — gas, refrigerant, fall protection, confined space, first aid — with expiry dates and a reminder ninety days out.
3. Hold a short toolbox talk weekly, on a hazard that is actually on this week's jobs, and record who attended.
4. Investigate every near-miss in writing, however minor. The pattern is what prevents the injury.
5. Keep apprentices within the supervision ratio the province requires, and log their hours as they happen rather than at certification time.

Licences and registrations

• Gas fitter certificate and contractor licence — The provincial technical safety authority (Technical Safety BC in British Columbia, TSSA in Ontario, and equivalents elsewhere)
  Gas work is licensed per person and usually per company, with permits per job. The classes are not interchangeable — confirm which class covers the appliances you intend to work on before you quote them.
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• Refrigerant handling certification — Environment and Climate Change Canada's halocarbon regime, administered with provincial and industry certification; EPA Section 608 in the United States
  Required to install, service or decommission systems containing halocarbon refrigerants, and to buy the refrigerant itself.
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• Certificate of qualification in the trade — Provincial apprenticeship authority; Red Seal endorsement for interprovincial mobility
  Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Mechanic is a Red Seal trade; compulsory certification varies by province, so check whether the trade is compulsory where you operate.
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• Electrical work limits — Provincial electrical safety authority
  Mechanical licences typically permit connection of the equipment you install and nothing more. Running a new circuit is usually electrical-contractor work — know the boundary, because it is enforced by the inspector and by your insurer.
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• Municipal business licence and trade permits per job — The municipality and the safety authority
  Permits are commonly required for fuel-burning appliance installation and for the electrical connection. Pulling the permit is the contractor's job, and doing the work without one is what voids both the warranty and the insurance.
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Insurance

• Commercial general liability, with completed-operations cover — Commercial clients and property managers will ask for a certificate before you are on site, typically at $2M or $5M. Completed-operations is the part that matters in this trade: the loss arrives after you have left, from a leak or a combustion fault.14
• Workers' compensation coverage and a clearance letter — Mandatory for employees in every Canadian province. Commercial clients require the clearance letter precisely so your unpaid premiums cannot become their liability.5
• Commercial auto on every vehicle, with tools and stock cover — Personal auto policies exclude business use, and a loaded service van is a high-value target. Insure the contents separately from the vehicle; the standard limits are too low for a stocked van.14
• Errors and omissions, where you design or size systems — A general liability policy answers for damage, not for a system that was correctly installed and wrongly specified. If you produce load calculations or design documents, that exposure is professional, not general.14