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HVAC Service Contract: What to Include and How to Manage Them

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Grace Struth
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Originally published in May 2019. Last updated on December 13, 2024.

HVAC service contracts can bring your business consistent revenue, improve the health of your customers’ systems, and even protect your company in case of potential issues.

Follow this guide to HVAC service contracts. You’ll get HVAC service contract forms, learn what to include in a maintenance plan, and find out how to manage your regular HVAC maintenance work.

What is an HVAC service contract?

An HVAC service contract (also called an HVAC maintenance agreement, or an HVAC maintenance plan) is a contract between your business and a customer that outlines the terms of the service you provide.

The agreement describes your ongoing HVAC maintenance services, including the scope of work, frequency of maintenance visits, duration, payment terms, and other details that need to be defined before you start a job.

Your HVAC maintenance plan will likely cover regularly scheduled maintenance. However, it could also include new HVAC system installation at multiple properties, or even a retainer for emergency service.

5 HVAC contract templates

Need an HVAC service agreement contract template to get started? Download one of the templates below and start creating customer contracts right away:

  • Arista: Arista is an HVAC company in New York. They offer a simple free template and a list of red flags to watch out for when you’re writing HVAC maintenance contracts.
  • eForms: This is more of an online form that you can fill out with information about your business and your customer. eForms then generates a contract that you can download.
  • Jotform: Jotform has a free HVAC contract template that lets you edit all the important details. While you’ll need to create an account, you can send 100 contracts each month for free.
  • Revv: Revv is an e-signature platform with a customizable contract template that you can customize to include your business branding. There’s a small fee for downloading the finished contract.
  • Sample Templates: Sample Templates has a number of different HVAC service contract forms for every purpose, from preventative maintenance to emergency service to new HVAC system installation. There’s a mix of both free and paid templates for you to choose from.

Benefits of an HVAC maintenance plan

For HVAC companies, HVAC service contracts can:

  • Give you a consistent and predictable source of revenue, even during the slow season
  • Ensure that HVAC systems run at optimal efficiency and keep customers satisfied
  • Help technicians catch small issues before they grow into bigger problems
  • Reduce emergency calls to your crews, helping you schedule resources better
  • Turn recurring interactions with customers into opportunities to upsell new systems, upgrades, and additional services

For HVAC customers, service contracts can result in:

  • Clear expectations around routine maintenance services
  • Cheaper utility bills due to improved HVAC system efficiency
  • Comfortable indoor temperatures all year round
  • Heating and cooling systems that last longer and require fewer costly repairs
  • Quick responses to emergency HVAC failures (especially in extreme weather)
  • Improved indoor air quality due to cleaner HVAC ducts, air filters, and coils

A large contract can be a big dollar value contract or it could be a big client for a long period of time.

The difference between both of those is very important. We like building a smaller-scale job but for a long-term relationship so those marketing dollars go a lot longer.

Headshot of Dan Guest of Guest Plumbing and Heating
Dan Guest Guest Plumbing & HVAC

What to include in an HVAC maintenance agreement

Despite the benefits, it takes work to put together written agreements that make sense for your customers and protect your business.

Your HVAC maintenance contract should set expectations with your customers, like the type of work you’re doing, how often they’ll see you, and your scheduling and payment processes.

Here are all the details you need to include in every HVAC maintenance agreement:

1. Business information

Include your HVAC business information on the contract so your client knows how to get in touch with you. Your contact details should include:

  • Your HVAC company name
  • Name and position of the contact person
  • Email address
  • Telephone number
  • Street address (if you have an office)

While it’s not necessary, you can also include additional contact details like your HVAC website URL. That way, if you ever sell the company, the client can find a way to contact the business.

2. Customer information

Include any information you may need to get in touch with your customer. This could include their:

  • First and last name
  • Email address
  • Phone number
  • Mailing address

If you’re writing a commercial HVAC service contract, you’ll also want to include:

  • HVAC company name
  • Business address
  • Contact person name, email, and phone number

3. Property address

Provide the complete address for the service location, including:

  • Street number
  • Street name
  • City/town
  • State
  • Zip or postal code

Putting together an HVAC service contract or proposal template can help you avoid the time-consuming process of creating one from scratch every time.

Just leave blank lines that you can fill out with your customer’s contact information and property address.

Contact information on an HVAC service contract

4. Maintenance schedule

Clearly state how many scheduled maintenance visits your customer can expect. For instance, your visits could be twice a year, or annually with check-ups scheduled every three months.

Include the date of the first visit if that’s been scheduled already, as well as a date for the end of the contract. This sets expectations for both your business and the customer.

Describe when the work will be completed and how it will be scheduled. If there are any service blackout dates (e.g., weekends, major holidays), note those in the contract.

Remember to schedule maintenance visits in Jobber, one of the industry’s favorite HVAC apps. You can manage your contracts, quoting, scheduling, invoicing, and payments all in one place.

Pro Tip: Set a reminder for yourself a few months before the contract ends. That way you’ll remember to renew the contract with the customer without any interruption in service.

That’s why Jobber is so great, being able to time track and material track with POS.

You’re not waiting until the end to find out that you’ve lost [money]… Don’t wait until you get too big. It’s so hard to implement [software] after the fact.

Headshot of Dan Guest of Guest Plumbing and Heating
Dan Guest Guest Plumbing & HVAC

5. Scope of services

List every furnace, AC unit, and other HVAC system that needs servicing, and describe the work you plan to perform during your scheduled maintenance visits. That way you can pick and choose which services to include in each contract.

Your complete list of HVAC services could include:

  • HVAC equipment testing and inspections
  • Tune-up and cleaning tasks
  • Thermostat, temperature, humidity, and pressure checks
  • Coolant, lubrication, and battery checks
  • Furnace maintenance
  • AC maintenance
  • HVAC system installation and parts replacement
  • Checking and rewiring electrical components
  • Priority service and support
  • Emergency service (on call, 24/7)
  • Parts and labor for all of the above

If you sell multiple tiers of HVAC maintenance packages, include a line that lets you specify which package your customer has selected.

Maintenance package tiers on an HVAC service contract

It’s also a good idea to address how you’ll deal with any work that doesn’t fit within the terms of the contract. For example, maybe you’ll change out furnace filters at no added cost.

This helps your client see the value of the contract—without feeling like their HVAC service provider is charging fees for every little thing.

And if your client wants a service you don’t offer? It’s better to say no and avoid the stress of providing a service you can’t specialize in.

Learning to say no is critical, especially for any smaller company.

The first no feels like you’ve made a huge mistake. But it’s always the best decision.

Headshot of Dan Guest of Guest Plumbing and Heating
Dan Guest Guest Plumbing & HVAC

6. Terms and conditions

Clarify any additional details about your service plan and guarantees, as well as your HVAC company’s insurance policy, payments, and termination policy.

Be sure to answer the following questions:

  • What date does the contract start and end? When and how is it renewed? How much notice is required to terminate the HVAC contract? Are there fines for terminating early?
  • How will you gain access to the property and to the client’s HVAC equipment?
  • Will the client be able to inspect the work when it’s finished? What kind of documentation will you provide when the job is complete?
  • Do you have an obligation to keep the property tidy and remove any trash or debris when you’re done working?
  • What type of business insurance coverage do you have (workers’ compensation, liability insurance, etc.)?
  • Is anything not covered by the contract (e.g., permitting fees, vehicle mileage, parts for certain types of HVAC repair jobs)?

7. Invoice schedule and payment terms

The payment terms of your HVAC maintenance contract should tell customers important information like:

READ MORE: How to price HVAC jobs

A lot of people get overzealous, especially when you’re negotiating a contract.

Say you’re doing something for over a hundred thousand dollars and someone asks you to knock five points off. That’s a couple thousand dollars. That’s a lot.

Headshot of Dan Guest of Guest Plumbing and Heating
Dan Guest Guest Plumbing & HVAC

8. Legal requirements

Depending on what state your service area is located in, you may have to include certain legal information in your HVAC contract. Double-check with your lawyer to see which items should be included:

  • Definition of your working relationship as an independent HVAC contractor and service provider (not an employee of the client)
  • Indemnification, limitation of liability, and force majeure in case of any losses or damage
  • Arbitration in case of any disputes between your business and your client
  • Declaration of which state laws govern the HVAC contract
  • A non-disclosure agreement to ensure client confidentiality

9. Signature line

Leave a space at the end for both you and your customer to sign the contract, along with the date the contract was signed.

Speed up the process of getting signatures securely and legally by connecting Jobber with DocuSign. DocuSign automatically drafts an HVAC maintenance agreement when a quote is sent or approved, or when a job is created in your Jobber account.

DocuSign Jobber integration draft settings

When the template is ready, your HVAC contract will show up with blank fields. You can then drag and drop details from your Jobber account into your agreement—like your customer’s property address and the quoted price of each maintenance visit.

Example of an HVAC service contract getting filled with DocuSign and Jobber integration

Your drafted agreement is linked within Jobber so you can easily edit and send the final agreement to your client through DocuSign.

Using software to manage HVAC contracts

You’ve learned how to create an HVAC service agreement. Now you’ll learn how to sell them to customers, schedule regular maintenance visits, and get paid for your work—all using HVAC business software.

1. Offer HVAC service contracts as add-ons to your estimates

There isn’t one HVAC maintenance plan that fits every customer. To meet the needs of multiple customers, create a few tiers of maintenance packages that offer different levels of services.

In Jobber, you can add optional line items to your HVAC estimate that let your customers choose between good, better, and best HVAC maintenance packages.

When a customer opens your interactive estimate, they can check off which routine HVAC maintenance plan they want:

HVAC quote with good better best HVAC service contract options

After your customer selects a package, copy the included services onto your HVAC service agreement.

2. Set recurring visits easily

Once your customer has signed the HVAC service agreement, add their maintenance visits to an online calendar right away.

In Jobber, you can create a recurring job and choose how often your maintenance visits happen.

Arrow pointing to a button that lets you create a recurring job in Jobber
Two recurring visits in Jobber
Creating a recurring job in Jobber will add multiple visits to your calendar based on the schedule you set. Learn more

3. Assign the best crews for the job

Select one or multiple team members in Jobber to assign them to the maintenance job.

As soon as you assign an employee, they’ll get a notification that there’s a new visit in their schedule. They’ll be able to see it in their calendar in Jobber, too.

Need to reassign the job to a different team member? Not a problem—just uncheck the assigned employee and check off the new person who will be completing the work instead.

Schedule view in Jobber showing daily appointments and team members who are booked for work in the schedule

You can get away with, on small jobs, not having the best processes and procedures. On bigger scale jobs, you have to define them.

You don’t need trust if you have a process. So then you can trust the process.

Headshot of Dan Guest of Guest Plumbing and Heating
Dan Guest Guest Plumbing & HVAC

4. Help your crews access equipment details and checklists on-site

Improve your HVAC dispatching by equipping your techs with the right information before they head to the job. Your crews can quickly access service agreements and customer details in the Jobber mobile app.

You can even attach a digital HVAC inspection checklist so techs can check off tasks on their phones or tablets as they inspect the customer’s HVAC system.

Installation checklists ensure quality control and can be shared with your clients as proof that all the work has been done.

HVAC job form in Jobber

You can also use Jobber to store details about the customer’s HVAC equipment, including any special notes and images that an HVAC technician needs to review before heading to the property.

When a tech needs to access details about a service call, they can simply click on the visit in their Jobber calendar and see the original HVAC work order, notes, images, and other attachments.

Site inspection form in the Jobber mobile app

5. Get paid on time

It’s hard to keep up with invoicing when you’re managing multiple customers with recurring visits. Be sure you get paid on time by invoicing fast, following up often, and making payment easy for customers.

Here’s how to do that:

  • Charge customers automatically. Get permission from customers to securely save their cards on file, and Jobber will automatically charge them when the time is right. You can decide on your invoicing schedule the moment you create a recurring maintenance job in Jobber.
Recurring visit invoice settings in Jobber
  • Check your invoice statuses daily. A few times throughout your week, take a glance at your business dashboard to see how many drafted, outstanding, and past-due invoices you have.
View of jobs that require invoicing in Jobber
  • Follow up on overdue invoices. Instead of calling and emailing customers to chase down outstanding invoices, use Jobber to send your follow-ups automatically over email or text.
  • Collect payment on the spot. Avoid chasing payments altogether by letting customers pay you by credit card at the property as soon as the job is done. The Jobber Card Reader lets you quickly and securely accept credit card payment in person with one tap.
Jobber Card Reader accepting a credit card payment

When you use Jobber’s HVAC software to speed up your maintenance contract scheduling, dispatching, and payments, you’ll have more time to sell and service HVAC systems.

HVAC tips for successful contracts

  • Keep the process simple. Use a tool like Docusign so customers can easily read and sign the contract. When you integrate Docusign with Jobber, the contract is stored in the same place you manage your work.
  • Write a contract that’s easy to read. Use plain language that’s simple to understand—and make sure it’s big enough to read clearly. Avoid using technical jargon wherever possible, but still check with a lawyer to make sure the contract is legal.
  • Make the contract as long as it needs to be. Don’t worry about making the contract short. Use exactly as much space as you need to protect and inform both your business and your customer.

Are HVAC service contracts worth it?

While HVAC maintenance contracts can take time and effort to get right, the protection they give your business is essential. They also help you build long-term relationships and give your clients peace of mind.

Not quite ready to send your first service contract yet? Learn how to get more HVAC leads and run your HVAC business more effectively.

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