The year at a glance
| Season | Who the marketing talks to | The offer | The capacity question |
|---|---|---|---|
| Autumn (September to November) | Last year's service customers first, then search | Boiler services in the UK, furnace tune-ups in the US | How many service slots fit before the first cold snap |
| Winter (December to February) | People with no heating, searching now | Emergency repair | Priority agreement customers first, then new breakdowns |
| Spring (March to May) | Air conditioning owners, then new cooling enquiries | Cooling check-ups and installs | How many check-ups your qualified engineers can fit |
| Summer (June to August) | People with a failed unit in a heatwave | Repair, or a replacement quote | Whether quotes go out while the owner is still deciding |
| Between the peaks | Every one-off customer from the year | Service agreements and renewals | Booking next season's visits now |
The repeat-business figure in the intro comes from the BEIS Heating and Cooling Installer Study, published in 2023: 687 employers in England replied from a sample of 22,460 (a 3% response), fieldwork ran from mid-October 2021 to mid-January 2022, and firms could give more than one answer. Alongside the 83%, 93% said they relied on word of mouth and 25% on online promotion. It records how those firms said they won work, not how customers search, and it is why autumn, spring and the quiet weeks below start with the list you already hold.
Autumn: book the service diary before the first cold snap
In England, 86% of households (21.2 million) used a gas fired main heating system in 2023-24 (English Housing Survey). In the UK, 75% of domestic gas use in 2024 was for space heating, and DESNZ says usage follows external temperatures and weather (DESNZ gas consumption statistics). In Great Britain, HSE strongly advises servicing gas appliances at least annually by a Gas Safe registered engineer (HSE); HSE words it as advice. In the US, ENERGY STAR tells homeowners to have the heating system checked in the fall, and notes that contractors get busy once summer and winter arrive.
Autumn lets you book heating services before emergency demand rises. The push goes first to everyone you served last year, by email, with real slots in your area and a booking link; search ads and a service page follow for new customers once the list has had first refusal. The capacity rule is simple: stop selling service slots before the diary has no room left for breakdowns. Two numbers show whether it worked: servicing slots booked ahead, and the share of last year's service customers who came back.
Winter: priority agreement customers first, then new breakdowns
Google lists HVAC as an urgent Local Services category in the US, citing a heater that is broken in freezing temperatures; in practice, those listings bring breakdown calls that compete with agreement customers for the same engineers.
Winter tests the servicing you sold in autumn. Where your agreements promise priority, those customers' breakdowns are answered before new callers, so a cold morning starts from the agreement calls already waiting. New breakdowns from the search ads and listings take the engineer time left after that, and callers whose heating works but who want a service are offered the next service slot. Every breakdown visit to an ageing system also records whether a replacement quote should follow once the cold spell ends, so the larger job is not lost in the rush.
In Great Britain, the credential customers can check is the Gas Safe registration: HSE says engineers working on household gas appliances must be Gas Safe registered and competent in that area, and customers can check an engineer by the licence number on their ID card.
The turn of the year: take down expired and misleading offers
The IRS says the energy efficient home improvement credit, up to $3,200 a year, covers improvements made through 31 December 2025, and section 70505 of Public Law 119-21 is headed as the termination of that credit. For 2026 installs, a furnace or air conditioner page still promising it is out of date. State, utility and manufacturer rebates are separate; check each before it goes on a quote.
In England and Wales, gov.uk says a gas boiler and heat pump hybrid gets no grant under the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, so the scheme is no help to a gas boiler replacement offer. On 11 December 2024 the ASA ruled against a lead generator whose free boiler ads implied government backing and did not make clear it passed people's details to installers. A government-endorsed scheme that included boiler replacements did exist at the time; the breach was how the ads presented the advertiser. January is a good time to read every replacement page and lead partner's ad for offers like these.
Spring: cooling check-ups for the customers already on your books
ENERGY STAR advises checking the cooling system in the spring. In the US, 88% of households used air conditioning in 2020, and two-thirds relied on central AC or a central heat pump as their main AC equipment.
Spring's list is everyone with a cooling system on your books, offered a check-up before the first warm week, and the number of slots on offer is set by the engineers qualified to do the work. In Great Britain, engineers must hold their own qualifications to work on equipment containing F gas, and in the US, EPA's Section 608 rules require technicians who maintain, service, repair or dispose of equipment that could release ozone depleting refrigerants, and since 2018 most substitute refrigerants including HFCs, to be certified. The check-up page names those qualifications, and a check-up on an ageing unit is where a summer replacement quote can start.
Spring is also when a replacement page can explain the refrigerant change calmly. EPA's sector table, read on 5 October 2026, lists among other entries a 700 GWP limit from 1 January 2025 for residential and light commercial systems such as mini-splits and unitary systems, with no installation compliance date where every specified component was made or imported before that date. That page points to EPA's Technology Transitions Reconsideration Rule, so date whatever you state.
Summer: repair or replace, and two kinds of review
In 2020, space heating and air conditioning together were 52% of an average US household's annual energy use, and EIA calls those uses mostly seasonal. Summer repeats winter's order for cooling: agreement customers promised priority first, then new breakdowns.
What summer adds is the repair or replace decision, and the quote request is where the larger jobs sit. A short lead generation form asks the system type, rough age and whether it is running at all, so the right engineer rings back with the right questions. We read replacement quotes sent, quotes won and average replacement value, because a month of busy repairs can hide a weak replacement rate.
Reviews split the same way. The FTC's rule addresses, among other things, reviews that misrepresent that they are by someone who does not exist or who had no actual experience of the business, so every review comes from a real customer. A service customer reviews punctuality and tidiness; a replacement customer reviews the quote, the install and how the system runs. Ask each at the right moment, the service customer as the engineer leaves and the replacement customer after the first weeks of use, so the replacement reviews describe what a buyer is choosing.
Between the peaks: service agreements and repeat income
The quiet weeks are for work that repeats. Focus groups in the installer study described repeat custom coming through boiler maintenance, servicing and repairs. Put that beside HSE's annual servicing advice and ENERGY STAR's pre-season check-ups, and a service agreement is the product that turns a one-off call-out into next year's autumn booking: one yearly visit or two, booked automatically, with a reminder before each season.
Repeat service income is the number to build the year around, because it is the part of the year you can plan. A firm that starts autumn with half its slots already sold through agreements spends its ad budget on new customers and emergencies, not on winning back its own. The marketing is a renewal sequence by email, an agreement page written in plain terms with schema markup and answers that answer engines can read, and an offer to every one-off customer after the job. Each month we count agreements signed, renewed and lapsed, and the service income they carry into the next season. We take on heating and cooling businesses in the UK and the US, work across both countries' time zones, and quote in GBP or USD.
↳ Frequently asked
01Can I advertise a free boiler or a government grant?
Only if it is true of your offer. In December 2024 the ASA ruled against one lead generator whose free boiler ads implied a link to the government and did not make clear it passed people's details to installers. The ASA noted that a government-endorsed energy efficiency scheme including boiler replacements was available then; what it objected to was how the advertiser presented itself. Describe what you provide, and read your lead partners' ads before they run under your name.
02Can I still tell customers they will get a federal tax credit for a new furnace or AC?
For work done in 2026, not that credit. The IRS says the energy efficient home improvement credit covers improvements made through 31 December 2025, and the 2025 federal law, Public Law 119-21, includes a section terminating it. A page or quote still promising it is out of date. Rebates from states, utilities and manufacturers are a separate question; check each one before it goes on a quote.
03Do my service agreement customers come first when the phones are ringing in a cold snap?
If your agreements promise priority, yes, and the marketing has to protect that promise. Check the day's agreement call-outs against the engineers on duty before the breakdown ads go up, offer non-urgent callers the next service slot, and note on each ageing system you visit whether a replacement quote should follow once the cold spell passes. An agreement customer kept waiting while new callers are served is a renewal at risk next autumn.
04What should my air conditioning pages say about the refrigerant change?
Say what applies to the systems you fit, with a date. EPA's sector table lists a 700 GWP limit from January 2025 for residential and light commercial systems such as mini-splits and unitary systems, with an exception where every specified component was made or imported before that date, and EPA's page refers readers to its Technology Transitions Reconsideration Rule for details. Explain what it means for a customer replacing a unit, avoid predicting what comes next, and review the page whenever EPA updates its table.
05How do I fill the slow weeks between seasons?
Sell what repeats. Servicing slots booked ahead of the next peak, agreement sign-ups and renewals, and review requests to recent customers all work when the phone is quiet. In England's 2021-22 installer survey, 83% of responding firms said repeat business from existing customers was one way they typically won work. The marketing job is to turn each of those into a message that goes out on a schedule instead of when someone remembers.
06Is a cheap autumn tune-up offer worth running?
Only if you judge it on what follows. A low-priced service fills slots, but its value is the agreements signed at the visit and the replacements quoted where a system is near the end of its life. Before deciding, compare the offer's extra service bookings, the margin on them and the agreements and replacements that followed against customers who only got a reminder, or against a comparable earlier season.