HVAC maintenance programs are a win-win: they help the client extend equipment life and maximize their investment while helping contractors retain loyal customers and steady business.
But creating a contract for your HVAC maintenance program is not so easy. There is a lot to cover, and a lot at stake. In this post, we’re going to provide you with everything you need to create the perfect HVAC service contract, including:
- Dos and don’ts of an HVAC maintenance agreement
- 7 free HVAC service contract templates
- Tips on how to sell your HVAC maintenance program
Let’s do it.
Table of contents
👉 Or just jump right to the templates (you're welcome).
What is an HVAC service contract?
An HVAC service contract is a written, signed document that outlines every detail of the services to be provided by an HVAC contractor, for the customer, as a part of a maintenance plan. It can also be called a service maintenance agreement, preventative maintenance service contract, HVAC service agreement, or HVAC installation contract.
Whatever you call it, includes everything—services, payment, costs, timeframe, and all of the legal stipulations (we’ll cover those in more detail later).
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An HVAC service contract serves to:
- Establish an independent contractor relationship between the HVAC service provider and the client.
- Protect both the contractor and the client from legal liabilities.
- Give the client peace of mind with regard to their investment.
Benefits of an HVAC service agreement
Contractors in trades like HVAC, electrical work, and plumbing provide service packages and subscription programs in addition to one-off installations and replacements because it benefits both their business and their clients.
For clients, ongoing maintenance ensures their appliances last longer, maximizing their investment and preventing more costly repairs and replacements down the line. It also ensures their safety.
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For contractors, HVAC maintenance programs allow them to:
- Demonstrate their reliability and expertise, which helps improve your reputation and client retention.
- Introduce additional services, add-ons, and upgrades, which can boost revenue. It costs much less to retain an existing client than to obtain a new one.
- Ensure jobs during slow seasons, which ensures cash flow.
All of this helps to establish steady business growth. Otherwise, you’ll have to constantly be looking for new business.
Services included in an HVAC service program
A service maintenance contract is customized to the services the HVAC business provides and the client’s circumstances, such as maintenance type, age and condition of appliances, and their budget. Some examples of services involved in a service or maintenance program include:
- Inspections and testing: checking for leaks, testing equipment
- Tune-ups: replenishing system fluids, cleaning filters and ducts, adjusting pressures and temperatures
- Purchasing and installation: for replacement parts or in some cases, new systems
- Premium service: prioritized support and services
- Emergency services: on-call or 24/7 assistance, expedited parts, etc.
Services included will vary depending on whether it’s a preventative maintenance, full labor, or full coverage contract. If you're not sure what to include in your contract, you can always consult any of these HVAC forums and blogs.
Mistakes to avoid with your HVAC service contract
The way your service contract looks and is delivered to your customer has an impact on whether they go through with signing it! Be sure to avoid these blunders to increase your chances of winning the deal:
Hassle: Having clients print it out, sign, scan, and send back the form is a hassle. Online forms with eSignatures are best, followed by editable PDFs. If you don't have access to these tools, you can have them take a picture of the signed portion with their phone and email or text it to you.
Tiny fonts: Don’t shrink your font just to try to fit everything onto fewer pages. Your contract is designed to make the services loud and clear. The tiny font will get interpreted as fine print and cause a sense of unease in your customer—or not get read at all.
Legalese: Make sure the contract is written in a way that can be easily read and understood. Your customers aren’t lawyers! Some parts will be more formal and may require more jargon than others, but the parts that you fill in should be easily understood. Earning their trust and showing your transparency is important for closing the sale.
Short contracts: Succinct and concise writing does not mean providing less information. It means providing all of the information in the fewest words possible. Your HVAC service contract spells out everything—so if it fits on one page, you aren't covering everything.
What to include in an HVAC preventative maintenance agreement
Depending on your business and client, here are some of the many things you may include in your HVAC service/maintenance agreement:
- Equipment covered: a complete list of each piece of equipment or appliance that is covered under the contract.
- Specific services: “Preventative maintenance” is not going to cut it. Spell out exactly what that includes and also what it does not include.
- Term: How long is the contract good for? When will it need to be renewed? Does it auto-renew?
- Frequency: How often will inspections and maintenance be done? Monthly? Quarterly? Yearly?
- Scheduling: Will you reach out to the client to schedule or will they reach out to you?
- Timing: Does the client require a specific time or day of the week? If the work has to be done after hours, make this clear.
- Documentation: Indicate that the customer will get a report outlining the work done, any metrics needed, and any issues found.
- Parts and labor coverage: State whether parts and labor are covered, and if so, exactly what parts and labor.
- Terms of work outside the contract: How will you handle work that falls outside the contract? Will you automatically do small repairs up to a certain cost? Will you provide an estimate for larger repairs and replacements?
- What’s not covered: List out anything that is not covered under the contract, like travel charges and permit fees.
- Payment: In addition to costs, how will the client be charged? Quarterly? Annually? Through a financing plan? Via invoice or online?
- Access to premises: How will you access the equipment? Will you need a key, building code, or reservation?
- Inspection: The client’s right to inspect and approve of the work.
- Condition of premises: Contractor agrees to keep premises clean and remove debris once the job is complete.
- Use of utilities: What the contractor can use, such as water, power, bathrooms, and at what cost.
- Insurance: Contractor agrees to obtain insurance for employees, property damage, or any third-party bodily injury.
- Relationship of parties: Establishes that the client is hiring the contractor as an independent contractor under the scope of the work.
- Termination: Client or contractor can terminate contract if a party fails to adhere to it.
- Confidentiality: Contractor maintains client information confidentiality.
- Limitation of liability clause: Puts a limit on the amount and types of compensation one party can recover from the other party in the event of damages and other negative outcomes.
- Indemnification clause: Indemnification is when one party covers their losses that the other party caused. This clause places limits and specifications on that.
- Arbitration: states that if there is a dispute between you and the client, that it will be resolved by arbitration, with specifications on venue, number of arbitrators, and in which state.
- Governing law: Indicates which state laws will govern the contract
- Entire agreement: States that this contract covers everything. Any modifications will need consent from both parties.
- Notices: Any notice required by the contract will be documented and delivered to the appropriate party.
- Force majeure: This removes liability for catastrophic, unforeseen events (such as pandemic, fire, strike, etc) that prevent either party from fulfilling obligations of the contract.
The 7 best free HVAC service contract templates
The below HVAC service maintenance agreement templates and examples can be a good starting point. As stated above, you want it to be as readable and transparent as possible, so you may want to adjust the language in certain places. At the very least, leave the templated parts as-is but fill in the blanks with plain English!
Here's the list:
- Airstair’s HVAC service contract template
- Eforms HVAC service contract template
- Revv's free HVAC maintenance contract template
- ServiceTitan’s free service agreement template
- SampleTemplates preventative maintenance service contract template
- Jotform’s online HVAC installation contract template
- Housecall Pro’s HVAC maintenance contract template
1. Arista’s free HVAC service contract template
As an actual HVAC company in New York, you can bank on Arista’s HVAC service contract example being a good one—and it is. Of all the templates in this roundup, this one uses the most plain language.
What this service agreement example includes:
- Overview
- Scope of work
- Frequency of planned inspections
- Notes pertaining to planned maintenance
- Labor
- Material
- Reporting
- Additional labor and materials
- Quoted repairs
- Restocking fee
- Emergency response time
- Travel charge
- Scheduling
- Equipment accessibility
- Space protection
- Liability and legal terms
- Work excluded from the agreement
- Indemnity
- Insurance
- Term of the agreement
- Effective start date
- Initial maintenance visit
- Cost and payment terms
2. Eforms free HVAC service agreement template
The eForms HVAC service contract template is an online interface that will prompt you for information and then generate a service contract that you can download as a PDF, DOC or ODT.
What this service contract includes:
- The parties
- The term
- The service
- Payment amount
- Payment method
- Retainer
- Inspection of services
- Return of property
- Time is of the essence
- Confidentiality
- Return of documents
- Injunction
- No release
- Taxes
- Independent contractor status
- Safety
- Alcohol and drugs
- Successors and assigns
- Default
- No waiver
- Governing law
- Severability
- Additional terms and conditions
- Entire agreement
3. Revv's free HVAC maintenance contract template
Revv, a document automation and eSignature platform, offers a nice customizable HVAC maintenance contract template.
It has all of the verbiage right there on the landing page that you can just copy and paste into a basic document to create your own plain text template, but you can also use their service contract builder to add a cover, logo, and make it look professional. You will have to pay $5 to download it though.
The structure of this online HVAC maintenance contract is:
- Parties
- Services
- Payment
- Term (date)
- Maintenance and inspection schedules
- Access to client's premises
- Client’s right to inspect
- Condition of premises
- Use of utilities
- Insurance
- Relationship of parties
- Termination
- Confidentiality
- Limitation of liability clause
- Indemnification clause
- Arbitration clause
- Assignability
- Severability
- Governing law
- Entire agreement
- Notice
- Force majeure
4. ServiceTitan’s free HVAC service agreement template
ServiceTitan is an operating software platform specifically for service-based companies—including HVAC.
Their free HVAC service agreement template is one page, so it appears short, but that’s because it serves as more of a checklist for the items to include. When you populate the information it will likely be more than one page.
This HVAC service agreement template includes:
- Company name and contact information
- Customer name and contact information
- Service agreement details
- Location of equipment
- Payment terms
- Equipment list (make, model, serial number)
- Payment information
5. SampleTemplates preventative maintenance service contract template
SampleTemplates offers 10 HVAC service contract templates for maintenance contracts, yearly maintenance contracts, preventative maintenance contracts, subcontractor contracts, and more.
This includes:
- Appliance-specific contracts
- Detailed maintenance contracts
- One-year service contract
- Prepaid service contracts
- Subcontractor service contracts
The first template on the list is not free—it requires you to create an account with template.net, but the rest of the templates are. The free templates come in PDF-only form while the paid ones also come in DOC, Pages, and Google Doc form
Their HVAC preventative maintenance contract follows this format:
- General summary of services needed
- Summary of equipment covered
- Inspection and maintenance schedules with detailed lists of services provided
- Property access
- Incidental labor and material rates
- Replacement or installation of new equipment
- Inclusion of new or replacement equipment into the agreement
- Warrantee of work
- Legal actions, financials and safety record
- Contractor personnel
- Agreement cancellation
- Billing and payment
- Bid evaluation
6. Jotform’s free online HVAC installation contract template
Jotform’s free HVAC installation contract template is a great option if you want an online method. Use the easy document creation interface to edit the template to your liking, then assign yourself and your customers to fill in the blanks in the appropriate sections.
You have to create an account to send the contract to the signees, but it’s free for up to 100 total entries per month.
Here's what's in Jotform's HVAC installation contract:
- Term
- Scope of services
- Payment
- Ownership of work
- Inspection
- Independent contractor
- Safety
- Alcohol and drugs
- Events of default
- Remedies
- Force majeure
- Successors and assigns
- No waiver
- Entire agreement
- Severability
- Governing law
7. Housecall Pro’s HVAC maintenance contract template
Housecall Pro’s HVAC maintenance contract template comes in PDF form and the tables are a little wonky, but the verbiage is there. What’s nice about this agreement is that there’s a nice summary at the top that offers three bullets summarizing what the customer will receive. This is a nice way to indicate value right away before they get into the weeds.
It also includes HVAC maintenance agreement plan and pricing examples which is super helpful.
In this HVAC maintenance agreement you will find:
- Customer’s name, address, telephone number, and email address
- Company’s name, address, telephone number, and email address
- Type of maintenance agreement
- Terms and length of the agreement
- Terms and conditions
- Summary page bulleting out what the customer receives
- Routine maintenance schedule
- Credit cards
- Membership/billing
- Limitation of liability
- Termination
How to sell your HVAC maintenance program
Here are some key things to focus on to get maximum participation in your HVAC maintenance programs:
- Emphasize the investment: Make sure your customers know that paying a small price now for preventative maintenance can prevent their having to pay big prices down the line for replacements and major repairs.
- Create educational content: Write blog posts and guides that emphasize the importance of maintenance. There are a number of ways to do this:
- Write a straight up “X Reasons Why Maintenance is important”
- Compile stat roundups on money wasted/saved, percentage of consumers who use maintenance programs, and more.
- Provide DIY maintenance tips and checklists
- Create success stories or testimonials around maintenance programs.
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- Offer savings: You can increase the appeal of your maintenance program by offering discounts like 10% off repair parts. And outline these savings clearly in the contract.
- Communicate clearly and honestly: Not only should the contract be fully transparent and aligned with everything you spoke about, but the manner of delivering and following up on the contract makes a difference. Be professional but personable, and follow up in a way that demonstrates your reliability.
Win more business with these preventative maintenance agreement templates
Scoring more business through HVAC maintenance programs all comes down to how you propose the work! Follow the dos and avoid the don'ts of HVAC maintenance contracts outlined in this post, and use the service agreement templates we've provided, and you'll be well on your way to steady business growth.