‘Keep HVAC Local’ hats now support youth trades camps

WorkHero caters to small HVAC businesses — some with just one to three trucks — by offering fractional office management services. 

• Two years ago, the company customized some Carhartt hats with the phrase “Keep HVAC Local” as “sort of a mission statement,” co-founder Furman Haynes told Homepros.
• “But people have really responded to them,” he said. 

What’s happening: This month, WorkHero began selling the hats online for $37 and donating all profits to the GRIT Foundation, which, in partnership with contractors, organizes hands-on camps and workshops aimed at getting kids interested in the trades. 

• “We appreciate WorkHero choosing to use this campaign to support GRIT’s mission and the next generation of the skilled trades,” the nonprofit wrote in its September newsletter. 

State of play: There are roughly 140,000 HVAC companies in the U.S., but only around 2,000 have been acquired by investor-backed firms, according to WorkHero research, leaving the vast majority independent and grappling with deep-pocketed competition. 

What we’re watching: Haynes and like-minded colleagues in the industry are starting a coalition to better support those independents, he said. 

• So far, the effort is informal, but industry companies SkillCat, TruTech Tools, measureQuick, HVAC School, and Energy Circle are on board. 
• They’re exploring how independents might team up to enjoy the same advantages as PE-backed companies. An HVAC co-op in Canada could serve as a model. 

What they’re saying: “Some people assume that these private equity groups are very sophisticated in the way that they come in and run all these playbooks,” said Haynes, who previously worked on economic mobility issues in D.C. and earned an MBA at Harvard Business School. 

• “From what I’ve learned, they really can only improve the margins of these businesses in a couple of ways. And one of them is just the scale they have,” he added. “That alone creates the vast, vast majority of their margin.”