Buying a plumbing and HVAC company in Florida

A combined plumbing and HVAC company sells the two trades homeowners and building managers most often need in a hurry, from one phone number and one fleet. A customer who trusts you with their air conditioner calls you about the water heater, and the other way around. In Florida, air conditioning usually carries the summer with service calls, system replacements and maintenance agreements, while plumbing service (leaks, drains, water heaters, repipes) stays steadier through the year. Together, the two trades can smooth out the seasons better than either can alone.

Customers pay per job for service and repair, often finance system replacements, and may buy yearly maintenance plans that cover both trades. Some companies also do rough-in work for builders (pipes and ductwork installed before the walls are closed), which is bid work paid in stages. A typical team has HVAC technicians and plumbers (rarely the same people), installers, a dispatcher who books both, a service manager, and an owner who may hold one or both licenses.

• Real cross-selling: a meaningful share of customers who have used both trades, not two businesses that happen to share an office.
• Technicians trained to spot work for the other trade, such as an HVAC technician who notices a failing water heater in the same garage.
• Membership or maintenance plans that cover both trades and that customers renew.
• A capable lead for each trade, since few people are experts in both.
• Licensed qualifiers for both trades (the license holders the company works under), ideally not the departing owner, or a clear plan to replace them.
• Dispatch, pricing and job costing in one software system, so you can see margins by trade.
• Revenue mostly from service and replacement, not from one or two builders.
• One brand customers recognize for both trades, rather than two names they don't connect.

Each trade needs its own state license from the Construction Industry Licensing Board at the Florida DBPR: a plumbing contractor license for plumbing, and an air conditioning or mechanical contractor license for HVAC. The air conditioning and mechanical licenses don't cover drinking water or sanitary sewer piping, and the plumbing license doesn't cover air conditioning, so neither can stand in for the other. A company can have more than one qualifier, so combined shops are often qualified by two licensed people, or by one person who holds both licenses.

You don't need either license to own the company. Each license belongs to its holder and can't be transferred. A company may contract only in the trades its qualifiers are licensed for, so if the plumbing or HVAC qualifier leaves, that trade stops until a replacement is qualified. If that person was the company's only qualifier, the company has 60 days to hire another and can't contract at all in the meantime, though the board may let an officer finish jobs already under contract (section 489.119). So the qualifiers' plans are the first thing to settle in a sale. HVAC technicians who handle refrigerant also need EPA Section 608 certification.

• Which licenses the company actually holds. Look up each qualifier on the DBPR's license search at myfloridalicense.com. A shop that advertises both trades may hold one license and subcontract the other.
• Revenue and gross margin by trade. Combined shops often have one strong side carrying a weaker one.
• The seasons: how well plumbing work fills the cooler months after the summer air conditioning rush.
• Membership plan terms, what's promised in each trade, and whether the promised visits actually happen.
• Warranty obligations on system replacements and repipes.
• Pay, turnover and key people in each trade, and whether any could leave with customers.
• Truck inventory, tools and the age of the fleet on both sides.

• Who qualifies each trade, and what are their plans after a sale?
• How much of your revenue is plumbing and how much is HVAC, and how has that mix changed?
• How many customers have used both trades in the last two years?
• Do your maintenance plans cover both trades, and how many renewed last year?
• Who runs each side day to day?
• Do you subcontract any work in either trade?
• What are your busiest and slowest months, and how do you keep both crews busy?