Who Buys HVAC
Companies in 2026

See also How to Sell an HVAC Business, Best M&A Advisors for HVAC Companies and, if you also run plumbing, who buys plumbing companies.

Who is buying HVAC companies in 2026

As of November 2, 2026, the most frequent buyers of HVAC companies are private equity-backed home services platforms. A platform is the first company a private equity firm, or sponsor, buys in a sector and builds around. An add-on is a company that platform buys afterward to fill in its map.

Strategic buyers are close behind: Capstone Partners’ July 2026 update counts 45 of the 92 HVAC services deals in 2026 to date, against 38 private equity add-ons and 9 new platforms. That count includes commercial HVAC; Capstone’s October residential services report counts 43 residential HVAC, plumbing and electrical deals over the same stretch, 27 of them by private equity-backed buyers. IBISWorld puts US heating and air conditioning contractor revenue at $159.4 billion in 2026, spread across about 120,000 businesses.

None of the 25 announcements in Salt Creek’s deal log below disclosed a price.

What the deal log tells an owner

By the numbers:

• 25 HVAC acquisition announcements from January 2025 through October 2026: 14 in 2025 and 11 in 2026.
• 17 different buyers made them. Five made two or more: Sila Services with 4, or 7 counting the deals in the notes; Southern Home Services with 3; and Leap Partners, ResiXperts and Chill Brothers with 2 each.
• Five of the 25 were Midwestern companies: two in Ohio (Dayton and northeast Ohio) and one each in the Chicago area, Kansas City and Homer, Michigan.
• 24 of the 25 buyers named a private equity or family office backer. The busiest month was May 2026, with four announcements.

Buyers want whole-home companies. Most buyers in the log run heating and cooling alongside plumbing, electrical or both; Presidential described its Shipley purchase as “expanding plumbing and whole-home services.” An HVAC company with a plumbing or electrical line can be worth more to them.

Platforms count their deals out loud. Southern Home Services advertises “36+ Acquisitions.” A buyer that has done this dozens of times has a model and no urgency about your company. You will do it once.

Are the biggest HVAC platforms still buying?

Yes. Apex Service Partners, Champions Group, Service Logic and Redwood Services all took new owners or new capital in 2025 and 2026, and Redwood and Champions announced acquisitions afterward.

Redwood said the Altas investment would “accelerate tuck-in acquisitions,” and a year later bought the five-company Sierra Platform. Champions bought Powell Electric, a Southern California electrical contractor, in August 2026, about six months after Blackstone signed. The catch is timing: a platform in the middle of its own sale may slow its add-ons, and equity rolled into a freshly recapitalized one usually waits years for the next sale.

What kinds of buyers acquire HVAC companies?

Four kinds of buyers acquire HVAC companies: add-ons to private equity-backed platforms (the most common), private equity firms forming new platforms, strategic buyers such as Comfort Systems USA, and family offices, ESOPs and individuals.

Add-ons to an existing private equity-backed platform

The platform already runs shared services. P1 Service Group lists Call Center, Marketing, Recruiting, Technology, Acquisitions, Training and Finance. Sharing them is part of why an add-on buyer can pay, and why it may not need your office staff.

• What it pays for: service and replacement revenue near its markets, a membership base, and technicians it can keep.
• Typical structure: cash at closing, an escrow (money held back against claims after closing), and often rollover equity, part of the price reinvested in the platform. ResiXperts offers sellers the “opportunity to roll over a portion of deal proceeds into ResiXperts equity.”
• Closing certainty: generally high. Southern Home Services advertises a “90%+ Letter of Intent Closing Rate.”

A private equity firm forming a new platform

A sponsor buying its first HVAC company has nothing to fold you into, so it pays for your managers, systems and market position, and it usually wants the founders to keep a stake. When Citation Capital took a majority stake in Gallo Mechanical, a New Orleans commercial HVAC and plumbing contractor, in June 2025, “Gallo’s management team will retain a significant interest.” Closing certainty is lower than with an add-on, because the financing is new and diligence runs deeper. Ask how firm the debt is before you sign exclusivity, the period after a letter of intent (LOI) when you agree not to talk to other buyers.

Strategic buyers, including Comfort Systems USA

Comfort Systems USA, a public company, mostly buys larger mechanical and electrical contractors. Its SEC filings show it bought Century Contractors, a North Carolina mechanical contractor, on January 1, 2025 for $84.2 million: $73.1 million in cash, $5.5 million in seller notes, and an earnout. Closer to home, the strategic buyer is a regional competitor that knows your customers and technicians, so bring one in under a confidentiality agreement, alongside other buyers. See Strategic Buyer vs. Private Equity Buyer.

Family offices, ESOPs and individual buyers

Family offices invest one family’s money with no fund deadline. Founders Home Service Group, “a portfolio company of Kompass Kapital, a single-family office,” bought Empire Heating & Air Conditioning in Decatur, Georgia, in April 2026, and JE Capital Partners describes “long-term, patient capital.” An employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) buys the company for its employees: SPC Mechanical of Wendell, North Carolina, with more than 350 employees, became 100% employee-owned in October 2025, and Addison Smith Mechanical of Carrollton, Georgia, completed a 100% ESOP transaction in March 2026. At the small end, search funds and individual buyers use bank debt and a seller note; their deals are rarely announced. See ESOP vs. Private Equity vs. Strategic Buyer and Selling to a Search Fund or Independent Sponsor.

What HVAC buyers say they want

HVAC buyers say they want recurring maintenance revenue, steady technicians and healthy margins. ResiXperts publishes the most specific list; most others lead with a size range.

What buyers check. Kroll says buyers “will deep dive into the target’s labor model, technician productivity, customer churn and retention, recurring revenue breakdown and integration.” If you cannot pull membership counts, renewal rates and revenue per technician from your software today, fix that first.

How do HVAC buyers structure an offer?

HVAC buyers split the price among cash at closing, rollover equity, earnouts and seller notes. What matters is what arrives at closing, not the headline price. For multiples, see our HVAC and plumbing valuation multiples guide.

• Rollover equity. Most private equity offers ask you to reinvest part of the price; Crosstown says the seller keeps 25% to 49%. The stake pays only when the platform sells. Ask what class of equity you hold and who is paid ahead of you. See Rollover Equity Explained.
• Earnouts. Kroll says “earnouts and performance-based consideration are often built into the purchase agreement terms” in residential HVAC. SRS Acquiom found earnouts in 30% of 2025 lower middle market deals in its data.
• Seller notes. Comfort Systems USA’s seller notes were about 6.5% of the Century Contractors price and about 7.7% of the preliminary $65.0 million it paid for Right Way Plumbing & Mechanical (our arithmetic), each alongside an earnout.

All three move money from closing day into the future. See Earnouts, Escrows, and Holdbacks.

What lowers an offer for an HVAC company?

Five things move HVAC offers most.

• Memberships. Buyers count active members, renewal rates and how much replacement work comes from them.
• Technicians. They are scarce: the BLS counts 440,900 HVAC technician jobs in 2025, projects 11% growth to 2035 and about 40,600 openings a year, at a median pay of $61,010. High turnover shows up in the price.
• New construction. ResiXperts wants under 20% of revenue from it. Report builder work separately, with its own margin.
• Refrigerant rules. A May 2026 EPA rule lets residential and light commercial air conditioners and heat pumps using refrigerants above the 700 GWP limit, if made or imported before January 1, 2025, be installed until supply runs out, dropping the January 1, 2026 installation deadline (EPA; Holland & Knight). Count the older-refrigerant equipment in your warehouse.
• Ended tax credits. The IRS says the 25C credit is not allowed for property placed in service after December 31, 2025; 45L ends for homes acquired after June 30, 2026, and 179D for construction beginning after that date. If heat pump sales leaned on them, buyers will ask about 2026.

What happens to your technicians, trucks and name

Technicians almost always stay, because they are what the buyer is paying for, and trucks are normally included in the price. Home services platforms mostly keep local brands: Apex says it runs 75. Some fold the seller into a sister brand, as Presidential is doing with Shipley. An add-on buyer will usually move dispatch, booking and accounting onto its own. Only the purchase agreement, your employment agreement and any retention bonuses bind the buyer, so raise what matters before exclusivity, while you still have other offers.

If a platform is already calling you

If a platform calls about buying your company, treat the call as the start of a sale process you run. Capstone’s Brad Goldstein wrote in the firm’s October 2026 report: “The traditional roll-up lanes are getting crowded as PE platforms are now competing for the same HVAC, pest, and landscaping add-ons.”

• Ask who owns them, which deals they have closed in your state, and whether they see you as an add-on or a market entry.
• Share no financials before a confidentiality agreement.
• Do not name a number first. Ask for a range and the structure in writing: cash at closing, rollover, escrow and any earnout.
• Ask for references: two owners who sold to them, one at least two years ago.

A call is not an offer, and the bid you get alone is the floor. See our letter of intent guide and How to Evaluate an Unsolicited Offer.

How long an HVAC sale takes

Plan on about a year. Lower middle market deals across all industries averaged 11 to 12 months from engagement to close in the IBBA and M&A Source Q2 2026 Market Pulse survey, and the largest increase was in the $2 million to $5 million band, from 9 to 11.5 months. Buyers want a full cooling and heating season of numbers, and a closing just before your summer peak means the buyer funds the build in receivables, so the working capital peg, the level the price assumes, should reflect it.

How Salt Creek helps owners compare HVAC buyers

Salt Creek Advisory, a family-owned, Chicago-based investment bank, works with founder-owned HVAC companies of about $2 million to $75 million in revenue. We represent only sellers, and brothers Jack Pitts and Connor Pitts lead every engagement themselves. We would bring these platforms, and buyers not in our tables, into one confidential process, then compare offers on cash at closing, rollover terms and what happens to your technicians.

Jack worked in private equity business development at Blue Wolf Capital and Kingfish Capital. Gary Dennis, a part-time senior advisor to the firm, co-founded and led Mammoth Holdings, which grew through more than 30 acquisitions, the same buy-and-build model these HVAC platforms use. For standard M&A engagements we charge no retainer and are paid a success fee at closing; some engagements start with a small deposit, credited against that fee. That is not the norm: the 2023-24 US Firmex M&A Fee Guide found that three-quarters of advisors charge some sort of engagement fee. Pick someone else if your company is far larger than our range or you want a bank with a large team.

What this guide cannot tell you

The deal log lists only announced deals we could tie to a primary source; many small acquisitions are never announced. Some ownership may be dated: Northwinds’ owner comes from a 2023 release, and Champions’ closing is reported, not announced. Reuters reported in March 2026 that GI Partners, still the majority owner of American Residential Services, was exploring a sale, so that backer may change. Reported prices for the Apex, Redwood, Sierra and Sila deals are estimates, and some conflict, so we leave them out; the Champions figure is Capstone’s, not the companies’. Buyer criteria are not a promise of an offer.

Sources

• Each acquisition in the deal log is linked to its announcement in the table above.
• Capstone Partners, “HVAC Services M&A Update – July 2026”, Jul 27, 2026.
• Capstone Partners, “Private Equity Activity and Valuation Strength Persist in Residential Services M&A”, Residential Services Sector Update, October 2026.
• IBISWorld, “Heating & Air-Conditioning Contractors in the US”, January 2026.
• Kroll, “M&A in the Residential HVAC Services Industry”, November 4, 2025.
• U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Heating, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration Mechanics and Installers,” Occupational Outlook Handbook, accessed November 2026.
• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “Technology Transitions Final Rule Fact Sheet”, May 2026.
• Holland & Knight, “EPA Finalizes Changes to Technology Transitions Provisions”, May 26, 2026.
• Internal Revenue Service, “FAQs for modification of sections 25C, 25D, 25E, 30C, 30D, 45L, 45W, and 179D under Public Law 119-21”, accessed November 2026.
• Comfort Systems USA, “Acquisitions” note, SEC filing, 2026.
• Apollo, “Apex Service Partners and Alpine Investors Announce Strategic Minority Investment”, May 28, 2026.
• Alpine Investors, “Apex Service Partners closes Apollo minority investment”, October 30, 2026.
• Blackstone, “Blackstone Announces Agreement to Acquire Champions Group”, February 17, 2026.
• Bain Capital, “Bain Capital Completes Acquisition of Service Logic”, December 16, 2025.
• Redwood Services via Business Wire, “Redwood Services Announces Strategic Investment from Altas Partners”, May 8, 2025.
• Bloomberg Law, “Blue Owl, Oak Hill Lead $1.3 Billion of Private Debt for Wrench”, September 12, 2025.
• Southern Home Services, “Acquisition Program”, accessed November 2026.
• Gryphon Investors, “Gryphon Investors Completes Majority Investment in Southern HVAC”, October 2021.
• Private Equity International, “Gryphon-backed Southern Home Services Acquires Blazer Heating, Air & Plumbing”, May 20, 2026.
• Goldman Sachs Asset Management, “Sila Services Announces Equity Investment from Goldman Sachs Alternatives’ Private Equity Business”, November 12, 2024.
• Concentric Equity Partners, “Leap Partners”, accessed November 2026.
• TruArc Partners, “TruArc Partners Announces Formation of Northwinds Services Group”, May 4, 2023.
• GI Partners, “GI Partners Joins Charlesbank Capital Partners to Accelerate Growth at American Residential Services”, September 15, 2020.
• Reuters (via SRN News), “Exclusive-American Residential Services explores $3.5 billion-plus sale, sources say”, March 23, 2026.
• Grant Thornton Stax, “Grant Thornton Stax Advises Blackstone on its Strategic Investment in Champions Group”, March 19, 2026.
• Champions Group, “Champions Group Expands Southern California Footprint with Acquisition of Powell Electric”, August 7, 2026.
• ResiXperts, home page and acquisition criteria, accessed November 2026.
• Forum Asset Management, “Chill Brothers”, accessed November 2026.
• Flint Group, “Brands”, accessed November 2026.
• Ally Services via PR Newswire, “Ally Services Completes Three Add-On Acquisitions in 2025”, 2026.
• DBusiness, “HVAC Group of Huron Capital in Detroit Purchases Ohio Company”, January 2025.
• Citation Capital via PR Newswire, “Citation Capital Acquires Majority Stake in Gallo Mechanical”, June 23, 2025.
• SPC Mechanical, “SPC Mechanical Becomes 100% Employee-Owned”, October 1, 2025.
• Prairie Capital Advisors, “Prairie Represents Addison Smith Mechanical Contractor in Its Transition to an ESOP Company”, March 10, 2026.
• JE Capital Partners, home page and criteria, accessed November 2026.
• Crosstown Capital Partners, investment criteria (PDF), accessed November 2026.
• Seaside Equity Partners, “Investment Criteria”, accessed November 2026.
• P1 Service Group, “The P1 Difference”, accessed November 2026.
• Service Logic, “Acquisition Program”, accessed November 2026.
• SRS Acquiom, “2026 M&A Earnout and Milestone Trends”, 2026.
• IBBA and M&A Source via PR Newswire, “The Market Pulse Survey Q2 2026 Reports the Latest Trends in Business Sales up to $50M”, August 25, 2026.