Four weeks a year you cannot answer the phone. Eight months you are wondering where the work went.
This is the HVAC side of Trade Template Co. — the sizing and pricing tools, the paperwork that wins the job, and honest guides to the three conversations that actually decide whether the business works: replace or repair, maintenance agreements, and getting through the season. Free, no lead-selling, run by an operator.
Start where you are
What are you in the middle of right now?
Three doors. Take the one that matches your week.
Field guides
Written for HVAC, not adapted from “contractor.”
Long-form, specific, and honest about what is uncertain — particularly anything touching refrigerant rules or code, which we flag for you to verify rather than stating as fact. Each one has a working tool in it.
Guide + worksheet
Replace or RepairHow to run the call without guessing: age against realistic service life, what actually failed, the refrigerant situation, and the repair-to-replacement ratio that matters more than either price alone.Guide + model
Maintenance AgreementsThe recurring-revenue engine, taken seriously: included and excluded clauses, monthly versus prepay, why plans really churn, and the ceiling your renewal rate is quietly setting on your plan base.Guide + model
Busy-Season PlaybookThe first heat wave and the first hard freeze: triage order, truck stock, phone questions that return slots, the freeze calls that are not failures, and the airflow numbers behind “it’s not keeping up.”Price the job
Get the number right before you send it.
A system changeout and a ductwork job do not price the same way. Start with the tonnage calc for a rough sizing check, build the estimate off it, and confirm the markup before it goes out.
HVAC Tonnage & BTU Calculator
A fast sizing sanity check by square footage and climate factors for quoting. Not a load calculation — run a Manual J before you actually select equipment.
HVAC Estimate Template
Line-item estimate built around a real system-changeout job — the right shape for putting repair and replacement side by side on one page.
Markup vs. Margin Calculator
Know the difference before you quote. A 30% markup and a 30% margin are not the same number, and the gap is where a season’s profit goes.
HVAC & Mechanical Code Quick-Reference
Plain-English, searchable index of 173 IMC, UMC and fuel-gas rules — combustion air, venting, condensate, ductwork and more. Verify against your adopted code.
Most HVAC contractors undercharge for one of two reasons: they size and price off gut feel instead of running the numbers, or they forget to build overhead and their own labor burden into the rate. Fix both and the same jobs get more profitable without raising a single price.
Bill & get paid
Send an invoice that gets paid on time.
An itemized HVAC invoice, a rate that actually covers your overhead, and the recovery math to check it.
Win the work
Look like the professional bid, not the guy with a van.
A written scope, a signed contract and a proposal that reads like a real business — the paperwork that wins the job before price even comes up, and the change order that stops the argument later.
Run the business
Know your numbers, not just your prices.
Labor burden, break-even and overtime — the numbers that tell you whether the business itself is profitable, and what an on-call rota is really going to cost you.
Getting started
If you are setting the shop up.
The licensing, insurance and structure side. None of this is legal advice — requirements for mechanical licensing and refrigerant handling are state-specific and need checking where you operate.
One email a week, written for HVAC.
A new template or calculator as they ship, plus one pricing, paperwork or maintenance-plan idea you can use the same day. Not a newsletter about the industry — a short note about your paperwork.
No spam, unsubscribe anytime. We never sell your information or resell it as a lead.
Community
The Board — ask the crew, price a weird job.
A real forum for working HVAC techs. Post a pricing question, decode a rule, or swap what you learned the hard way. Free to read with no login, no lead-selling, run by the operator.
Paid packs
When the free version stops being enough.
Everything above is free and stays free. The shop carries the deeper paid packs — multi-job tracking workbooks, pro document layouts and bundles that go past what a single free template covers.
HVAC-specific packs are being added to the shop now.
Rather than list products that are not there yet, here is the honest version: the shop currently carries cross-trade estimating, job-costing and proposal packs that work fine for HVAC, and HVAC-specific packs are in progress. This section will name them when they exist.
Browse the shop →Quick answers
HVAC portal FAQ.
Are these tools actually free?
Yes. Every calculator, template, guide and code reference linked on this page is free to use, with no account required. Some deeper job-tracking packs and document bundles in the shop are paid, and those are always labeled as such. We do not sell your information and we do not resell you as a lead to anyone.
Is the tonnage calculator a substitute for a Manual J load calculation?
No, and it is worth being clear about it. It gives a fast, reasonable sizing estimate for quoting purposes so you can put a credible number in front of a customer quickly. Actual equipment selection is a Manual J load calculation with Manual S used to match real equipment performance data at design conditions — and many jurisdictions require the load calc on the permit. Square feet per ton is a sanity check, not a design method.
How current is the refrigerant guidance on this site?
We deliberately state only what is durable — that R-22 production and import in the US ended in 2020, that HFCs including R-410A are in an ongoing phase-down under the AIM Act, and that new equipment has been transitioning to lower-GWP A2L refrigerants with different handling requirements. We do not state current sector-by-sector GWP limits or compliance dates, because those have changed recently and have been subject to amendment and litigation. Where a claim needs checking, we say so and tell you to verify it against the current EPA rule and your distributor rather than trusting a web page.
Do I need Excel or Word to use the templates?
Most templates come in both Word and Excel-friendly layouts, plus a version you can fill in directly on the page and print or save as a PDF. The calculators all run in the browser on a phone — they are built to be usable from the truck, not just at a desk.
Can I use the code quick-reference to make a compliance decision?
Use it to find the rule quickly, then verify it. It is a plain-English index of mechanical and fuel-gas provisions, and codes are adopted locally — your jurisdiction may be on a different edition, may have amendments, and manufacturer instructions govern where they are more restrictive. It is built to save you the search, not to replace the adopted code book or your inspector.
Who is behind this?
One operator, not a software company or a lead aggregator. The tools exist because the paperwork side of running a trade business is genuinely tedious and most of what is available for it is either bad or expensive. More about the shop and the standards here.
Start with the one that matches your week.
The replace-or-repair worksheet if you are on a call. The queue model if you are buried. The maintenance-agreement model if you are trying to make sure next February looks different.
Open the maintenance agreement model →