How Much Do Hvac Technicians Make?

hvac salary Edit: This topic of HVAC Salary has been updated for 2019 here

The salary of an Hvac service technician will vary depending on many factors, such as which region you are working in, whether or not you get commission, how much experience you have, and how many hours you are willing to work. Since you are probably here because you are thinking about attending a Hvac school and making a career out of it, you are going to start at the bottom of the ladder, no matter how much you paid for hands on hvac training from your apprenticeship or degree program.

I don’t have exact salary wages for Hvac technicians that are just getting there foot in the door straight out of school but I have been in trade for a minute, and from my experience if you are working in Florida, hourly wage will be between $15-$17 an hour. This is also the typical salary range for the technician that’s in an Hvac apprenticeship training program, of course your state may vary. But wait, there’ s more, much more to it than that.

I know it’s going to be hard to pay back that $15,000 or more student loan just making $15 an hour, but I can tell you this if you are working in Florida, Arizona, or anywhere for that matter when the demand for Hvac is in, and are working  for a reputable company, then you can get some serious overtime. If your job requires you to go on-call you can make even more money. Sure you won’t get much sleep or have much of a life during the work week but when that check comes in it will all be worth it.

If you think that you are going to get burnt out working long hours, remember that air conditioning and heating is seasonal, and I don’t care how many customers your company has there are going to be slow times where you will only be getting 30 hours a week or less, especially if you are just starting out.

Higher Paid Hvac Technicians

Senior technicians can make $30 an hour or more, but what exactly separates the senior hvac technician from the novice just getting out of school? Well basically the senior technician will be able to troubleshoot and make repairs faster and more efficiently, just because they have been in the field longer and have seen the same problems occur over and over.

The more specialties the service technician has the more they will get paid (should anyway). For instance if you only know how to work on residential equipment, then you are limited to only residential. What happens if a chiller goes down and needs to be fixed? What about service calls on commercial DX systems, refrigeration calls,  etc. The more things that you are able to fix the more calls you will be able to get, the more higher paid jobs you will sell, and ultimately the more money you can make.

Higher paid Hvac technicians also should have every tool needed to complete jobs. I have previously wrote a list of common hvac tools needed for the service technician. Tools are not cheap and are usually acquired over the years, as many Hvac companies will supply a certain amount of tools for the technician, but not all of them.

Hope this clears up some of the speculation of how much hvac technicians get paid, if you are in a different state than Florida or a different country, feel free to share with us hvac technician wages for those that are thinking of making this a career.