[OPS | DATA]
Housecall Pro: Repair Is Now 33% of HVAC Revenue — Up 12 Points in 4 Years
A new Housecall Pro report covered on ACHR's NEWSmakers podcast this week shows repair revenue share climbed from 21.2% in Q4 2021 to 33.4% in Q4 2025 — and average revenue per repair jumped 47% over the same period, while repairs per business per year rose 64.7% since 2022. The dataset covers roughly 11% of U.S. HVAC job volume (~2M jobs). Customers are repairing before replacing because equipment got too expensive.
⚡ Why it matters: Your replacement-heavy comp plan is a 2019 artifact. Rebalance dispatch priority, tech training, and spiffs toward diagnostic-and-repair skill — that's where a third of your revenue now lives, and it's still growing.
[LABOR | IMMIGRATION]
28% of Construction Firms Just Reported ICE-Linked Workforce Disruptions
A joint AGC / NCCER survey circulating this week found 28% of construction firms experienced workforce disruptions tied to ICE activity in the past six months — 10% lost workers directly to enforcement, another 20% lost sub-tier labor. NAHB data shows immigrants make up 34% of construction workers nationally and over 60% in drywall, roofing, and plastering. ABC projects the industry needs 349,000 net new workers in 2026 just to tread water.
⚡ Why it matters: Even if your W-2 crew is clean, your framers, drywallers, and roofers on new-construction jobs aren't — schedule slippage on those trades now lands on your rough-in dates. Pad HVAC rough and plumbing top-out windows on new builds by 2–3 weeks for the rest of 2026.
🔗 Construction Owners: Construction Workforce Crisis Deepens in 2026 Amid Labor Shortages and ICE Raids (~4 min read)
[HVAC | WEATHER]
Hottest March on Record Meets a 110,000-Tech Shortage — Summer 2026 Math Is Ugly
March 2026 was the hottest March in recorded U.S. history, running more than 9°F above the long-term average — the first month ever to clear that threshold. At the same time, BLS and industry data show HVAC is short roughly 110,000 technicians. Early-season cooling calls have already started in Southern markets per ACHR reporting this week.
⚡ Why it matters: Your peak-season dispatch board is going to be the constraint, not leads. Lock in overtime rates with your techs now, get a summer-hire helper on payroll in the next two weeks, and pre-sell maintenance agreements at a discount this month — paid-ahead work protects your margin when emergency calls start crowding out scheduled jobs in July.
🔗 Marketing Code: Hottest March Ever + 110,000 Missing HVAC Techs = Summer 2026 Crisis (~3 min read)
[HVAC | COMMERCIAL]
Legence Q4 Hits a Record $737.6M — Data Centers Now 51% of Revenue
Legence (NASDAQ: LGN), one of the largest U.S. mechanical/building-systems contractors, reported Q4 2025 revenue of $737.6M, up 34.6% year over year, with adjusted EBITDA up 53% to $87M. Data centers and tech clients made up 51.2% of Q4 revenue and 42.7% of full-year. Total backlog hit $3.7B, a 49% jump, with a 1.9x Q4 book-to-bill. Results were flagged again in ACHR's April 20 news briefs as a bellwether for the commercial mechanical market.
⚡ Why it matters: If you run any commercial mechanical or electrical work, there is exactly one segment growing at 35%+ right now — mission-critical and data center. Finish a pre-qual package and start relationship-building with one GC or tenant in that pipeline this quarter, even if your shop is residential-heavy; the labor spillover alone is going to reshape your local wage market.
[REFRIGERANT | REVENUE]
Hudson Tech Q4 Up 28% — Reclaimed R-410A Just Became a Real Revenue Line
Hudson Technologies' Q4 2025 revenue, flagged in ACHR's April 20 briefs, came in at $44.4M — up 28.3% year over year — with the growth tied to reclaim and resale of legacy refrigerants as the A2L transition thins new R-410A supply. EPA's proposed rollback of the 2026 install-date deadline (covered in this brief April 21) extends the window R-410A inventory stays installable, which props up reclaimed cylinder pricing.
⚡ Why it matters: If your shop has recovered R-410A sitting in jugs or tanks, it's worth real money today — not salvage pricing. Call a licensed reclaimer before you dump it; one medium-volume service shop's back-room inventory can clear four figures at current spot, and those numbers are holding through the transition.
🔗 ACHR News: FYI — News Briefs in HVAC April 20, 2026 (~3 min read)
[PLUMBING | OUTLOOK]
PHCC's 2026 Environmental Scan: Modest Growth, Hard Labor Ceiling — Repair Wins
PHCC's 2026 Environmental Scan, now circulating through state chapters this week, forecasts modest top-line growth for plumbing and HVAC in 2026 but flags persistent labor shortages as the real ceiling on output. The report names service and repair as the brightest sub-segment — consistent with Housecall Pro's 33% repair-share data — and calls out multi-trade shops with recurring revenue as the prime M&A targets. Consolidation continues, led by PE add-ons.
⚡ Why it matters: Growth this year is not a revenue question — it's a capacity question. If you want to grow, the cheapest way is more tickets per truck, not more trucks. Invest the next quarter's marketing dollars into membership/maintenance plans and route density, and delay the new-hire requisition until Q3 unless it's a licensed plumber.
🔗 PHCC: Environmental Scan — 2026 Outlook for the P-H-C Industry (~3 min read)
📊 Stat of the Day
33.4% — the share of Q4 2025 HVAC contractor revenue that came from repair jobs, per Housecall Pro's 2-million-job dataset. That's up from 21.2% in Q4 2021. In four years, repair has moved from a sideline to a third of your P&L.
🛠️ One Thing To Do
Before you leave the office Friday, pull your last 90 days of invoices and calculate your own repair-vs-replacement revenue split. If you're not within spitting distance of 30% repair, you're either leaving diagnostic money on the table or your techs are being measured on the wrong KPI. Fix the comp plan before Memorial Day weekend.