Guides for boiler company owners

Competing with the generalist HVAC shop

The specialist versus generalist guide explains why boiler and hydronic specialists often lose jobs to full-line HVAC firms, and how to stop competing on their terms. It covers how to choose a defensible niche, how to write a quote that shows the full scope of a boiler job, and how to measure whether your positioning is working.

It's the right starting point if your close rate on boiler quotes has slipped, or if homeowners keep telling you the "other company" was cheaper. It connects to our specialist positioning service.

Pricing a boiler maintenance plan

The maintenance plan maths guide walks through the true cost of a service visit for a boiler, combi or indirect tank, step by step. It shows how travel, callbacks and consumables erode margin, how to set a plan price above cost, and how to work out how many members your team can serve before you need another technician.

Read it if your maintenance plan hasn't been repriced in a few years or if summer is your slowest season. It supports the maintenance revenue work.

Planning winter no-heat capacity

The winter capacity guide is about surviving the busiest weeks of the year without breaking promises or people. It shows how to estimate peak demand from last season's calls, compare it with real billable hours, build an on-call rotation, and decide which parts to carry so the first visit is the last.

It's most useful before your heating season starts. It links to both parts and emergency demand and technician depth.

How to get the most from the guides

1. Pull your own numbers first. Last year's jobs by type, service visits, emergency calls and technician hours.
2. Work through one guide at a time. Each takes about an hour with a spreadsheet open.
3. Write down the decision. A guide is only useful if it ends with a change you'll actually make.
4. Check the provincial context. Fuel mix, programs and regulators vary; the areas pages cover each province and territory.

If a guide raises a question you can't answer alone, the contact page explains how to reach Ali.

What these guides are not

They're business guides for owners, not technical manuals. They don't explain how to install, service or troubleshoot a boiler, and they don't interpret any provincial code or regulation. For those questions, rely on licensed trades and the safety authority in your province or territory.

Who wrote these guides

Ali Sedighi, MBA, wrote each guide from his work building websites and marketing for boiler businesses, including a combi-boiler site, a gas-boiler division and a boiler parts catalogue. The figures in the examples are illustrative and chosen so the arithmetic is easy to follow and check. They aren't benchmarks, averages or promises; the results page is where real project outcomes are reported, each linked to the live site.

A suggested reading order

If you're new to the guides, this order tends to work:

1. Read the specialist versus generalist guide first, because positioning shapes your pricing and the jobs you accept.
2. Then work through the maintenance plan maths, which sets your recurring revenue and uses the same labour-cost figure as the winter guide.
3. Finish with the winter capacity plan, ideally in late summer, so you have time to act on it.

Each guide stands alone, so start with whichever problem is costing you most right now.