You cannot walk every building in the county this fall. The best commercial HVAC leads come from picking the right twenty and scoring them before anyone makes a call.
A commercial HVAC contractor has two estimators, a service schedule that does not stop for budget season, and about eight weeks before capital plans go to ownership in November. The useful question is which twenty buildings are worth a walkthrough right now.
Twenty is the number because it is what one estimator can visit, write up, and follow up on between now and Thanksgiving while still running the rest of the business. Commercial HVAC leads built this way cost you an afternoon of research instead of a per-lead fee. It is also enough that a few will turn into budget lines, and a few of those will turn into replacements in the spring.
In short
- One estimator can walk twenty buildings before capital plans go to ownership, so pick the twenty where units are due.
- Score each building 0 to 3 on unit age, building type, ownership, and visible signs. Eight or above makes the list.
- There are about eight weeks between now and the November submission, which is enough for twenty walkthroughs and not many more.
Four signals that mechanical work is coming
| Signal | What you are looking for | Where to check it |
|---|---|---|
| Unit age | Original equipment still on the roof. A building finished in 2008 with no mechanical permits since has original units. | Your service history, the construction date, county permit records |
| Building type | Uses that run mechanical hard and cannot tolerate a July failure: medical office, grocery-anchored retail, data-heavy office, food processing | The tenant sign, the parking lot, the county use code |
| Ownership | Owner-occupied and institutional budget for replacement on a schedule. Absentee-owned managed property patches until it breaks. | State business filings, the management company on the sign |
| Visible signs | Rust streaks below the curb, condensate stains down the wall, a temporary unit on the ground, two brands on one roof | A drive-by, and your techs who pass it every day |
None of these are proof. All of them are reasons to make a call. Two brands on one roof is the most useful of the four, because it means one unit already failed and got swapped in a hurry, and the rest are the same age as the one that went.
If you want a defensible number to put next to unit age rather than your own rule of thumb, ASHRAE publishes a queryable HVAC service life database covering the major equipment categories. Quoting a published range to a facility manager lands differently than quoting a hunch.
Score them before you call
Do not argue with your estimator about which buildings feel right. Give each one a number. Score 0 to 3 on each of the four signals, for a maximum of twelve.
8 to 12
On the twenty. Get a name and call this month.
5 to 7
Bench. Backfill from here when one of the twenty falls off.
0 to 4
Next fall. Re-score it then.
The point of the card is not precision. It is to stop you from spending October on the building close to the shop and skipping the one across town with fourteen-year-old units and a plant manager who would take your call tomorrow.
Eight weeks, twenty buildings
Abstrakt sets appointments with the facility managers, property managers, and plant managers planning commercial HVAC work. Your estimators walk roofs. We do the calling that fills the calendar.
How to build the list of commercial HVAC leads this week
01
Pull your service history first
Every building you have touched in five years where you know the unit ages. Score those. Half your twenty comes from here, and you already have a name.
02
Add the buildings you drive past
Your techs pass the same properties every day. Ask them for the ten that look tired. Score those.
03
Fill the rest from public records
Construction dates and mechanical permits are public in nearly every county. An hour on the assessor’s site gives you buildings fifteen to twenty-two years old with no replacement permits.
04
Attach a name to each one
Who holds the budget depends on the building type, and yesterday’s post breaks that down. A scored building with no name is a drive-by, not a target.
05
Set the walkthrough, not the sale
The offer is a 45-minute walk of the roof and the mechanical room, a one-page summary of what you saw, and a rough range for the units that are due. That is all you are asking for in October.
The offer, in one line
“Forty-five minutes on your roof and in your mechanical room, and I will send you a one-page summary with a range on anything that is due.”
No proposal, no pressure, and it lands while they are still writing the plan.
The honest part
Some of the twenty will be wrong. The units were replaced last year and the permit never showed up, or the facility manager already has a mechanical contractor who walked the roof in August. Cross them off and pull the next one up from the bench. The list is a tool, not a promise.
Scoring also will not tell you about the building where the chiller is fine but the controls are twenty years old and nobody has looked at them. Those turn up on the walkthrough, which is the argument for walking twenty buildings rather than researching forty.
The best commercial HVAC leads look like this: a building where the units are original, nobody has given the facility manager a real number yet, and the plan is still open. Your number can be the one in the spreadsheet.
Before November
Capital plans go to ownership in November. Abstrakt books the walkthroughs while the plan is still being written, so your estimators spend the fall on roofs instead of building lists. The walkthrough, the number, and the job are yours.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I know a commercial building’s rooftop units need replacing?
Start with age. The construction date plus county mechanical permits tell you whether the original units are still on the roof, since a building with no replacement permits since it was built almost certainly has original equipment. Then look for rust at the unit curb, condensate stains down the wall, a temporary unit on the ground, or two different brands on one roof. Mixed brands mean one unit already failed and the rest are the same age.
How do commercial HVAC contractors find leads without buying them?
Work from buildings instead of contact lists. Score every commercial property you can see from your service history, your techs’ daily routes, and county permit records on four signals: unit age, building type, ownership, and visible signs. Take the top twenty, attach a named budget owner to each, and offer a walkthrough in September or October while capital plans are still being written. Purchased commercial HVAC leads are contacts everyone else is calling. A scored building list is yours alone.
Which commercial buildings budget for HVAC replacement instead of patching?
Owner-occupied and institutional buildings tend to replace equipment on a schedule and hold the money to do it. Medical office, grocery-anchored retail, data-heavy office, and food processing run mechanical hard and cannot tolerate a failure in July. Absentee-owned, third-party managed properties more often patch until something breaks, so only the strongest of those belong on a twenty-building list.
How many buildings should an HVAC estimator walk in the fall?
About twenty. That is what one estimator can visit, write up, and follow up on between September and Thanksgiving while still running service work. Fewer than that and you are not in enough capital plans to matter. More than that and the write-ups stop going out within two days of the walk, which is the part that puts your number in the budget.
What should be in a commercial HVAC walkthrough summary?
One page. What you looked at, the age and condition of each unit, which ones are due inside the next two years, and a rough range for those. No proposal and no scope of work. The document has to be short enough that a facility manager can paste the number straight into a capital plan without editing it.
When is the deadline for getting into next year’s HVAC budget?
November, for buildings on a calendar fiscal year. Facility and property managers build the capital plan in September and October and submit it to ownership in November, so a walkthrough in October still lands in time and one in December does not. Schools, hospitals, and municipal buildings often run a July to June fiscal year, which moves the same deadline to spring.
Keep going
- HVAC lead generation
- Comparing the best HVAC lead generation companies
- Who actually owns the roofing budget in a commercial building
- The job you bid in March was decided in September
- Outsourced SDR services
- Cold calling services
About this article
Jeff Winters is Chief Executive Officer at Abstrakt Marketing Group. Reviewed by Neil Erker, Chief Marketing Officer. Abstrakt sets appointments for commercial contractors across HVAC, roofing, paving, electrical, and the rest of the trades, and the patterns here come from that calling.
Jeff Winters is the CEO of Abstrakt Marketing Group, a U.S.-based B2B lead generation and appointment-setting company that books qualified sales meetings for clients across the commercial trades, IT and managed services, manufacturing, and B2B services. He has spent his career building and running outbound sales programs at scale, and he breaks down what actually works in sales and lead generation on Abstrakt's podcast, The Grow Show.
