If you plan on pursuing a career in the State of Florida as an HVAC Technician, then you should know that most of the time you are going to be working on cooling applications should you have a job in residential. Though some winters it does get cold in Florida and there will be a burst of electric heaters and heat pumps not working properly that you will have to troubleshoot.
Southern Technical College
The Southern Technical College offers an HVAC diploma program that will take approximately 9-12 months to complete. With 5 locations for throughout the state of Florida in Orlando, Sanford, Mount Dora, Brandon and Auburndale.
Florida Career College
Offering a 36 week long hvac training program to prepare students for entry level hvac jobs upon completion. The website also states that it will prepare students to become EPA 608 certified and the R-410A Safety Training and Certification. There are several campuses throughout the state of Florida that offer this Hvac course.
Tulsa Welding School – Jacksonville
Lots of information on their website about their 7 month hvac curriculum. Located in Jacksonville, Florida, the Tulsa Welding School covers a variety of Hvac courses. Some of these are Fundamentals of Electricity, Solar, Refrigeration, Comfort Systems-Residential, Commercial, Refrigeration systems and Practices, and Advanced Troubleshooting Techniques.
Aviation Institute of Maintenance
Campus located in Orlando, Florida. Their Hvac program is designed to give students hands-on training on residential and commercial refrigeration, heat pumps, air conditioning and heating systems, as well as many other areas in the Hvac field. They also give you the opportunity to get EPA 608 certified as the Industry Competency Examination.
Everest University
Hvac training at the Tampa Campus. The program lasts about a year, but according to the website the program may differ depending on which campus you are taking the hvac course at.
There are a lot of split systems air conditioning and heating systems in Florida. From central Florida and north you can expect to work on a lot of heat pump applications. Down south on the beaches that have tall condo buildings you may run into HVAC systems that use cooling water towers as a condensing unit. Applications such as fuel burners and gas furnaces are not as common in the state of Florida but does not mean that they aren’t around. On commercial applications you may even run into some boilers to service.
In the state of Florida the average annual salary for HVAC technicians is around $40,000. Those that know how to service not only residential, but also refrigeration and commercial systems can expect to make much more than that should they have the hands on experience and knowledge.
Hvac salary for technicians in the state of Florida start at about $27,000 a year for entry-level technicians. Up to $75,000 a year for the more experienced technicians. With more than 500 heating, ventilation, cooling and refrigeration service companies in the state of Florida, there is never a shortage of a need for quality service technicians.
The demand is always there, and with the summer heat waves that go on most of the year, cooling equipment is always going down and in need of maintenance. I don’t see the supply of service for cooling units decreasing anytime soon in the state of Florida.