The data plate on the outdoor unit
Model and serial, close enough to read. Tonnage, refrigerant, and age come off that one sticker, and every one of them moves the quote.
For HVAC companies
Quoting and job management software for HVAC businesses
Nobody diagnoses a system from a photo, and Mason does not try. It takes the symptoms, gets the model and serial off both units, prices the work you have already defined, and puts everything else in front of a technician with the numbers already in hand.
Join the waitlistWhat HVAC customers get asked
What a homeowner can tell you before anyone drives out.
None of this is a diagnosis. It is what somebody standing in their own hallway can see, count, and read off a sticker — and it is most of what a good dispatcher asks anyway — see how the quote gets built.
- 01
What is it doing, in your own words?
No cool air, no heat, running and never shutting off, short cycling, loud, or water where water should not be. The first sentence sorts most calls before anyone opens a truck.
- 02
Is air coming out of the vents at all?
Air but not cold, versus no air moving, splits the call in two. A homeowner answers it by holding a hand up to a register.
- 03
Is the outdoor unit running when the thermostat calls?
Fan spinning, humming without spinning, or dead quiet. Three different mornings for whoever you send.
- 04
When did it start, and does it still work sometimes?
Intermittent is a different visit than dead. It also tells you how long the technician needs on site before he can call it.
- 05
When was the filter last changed, and what size is it?
The size is printed on the frame. A filter nobody has touched in a year explains a surprising number of calls, and either way your tech knows what to put on the truck.
- 06
Read the model and serial off the outdoor unit and the furnace.
This is the most useful thing a customer can do all day. Tonnage, refrigerant, and roughly how old the equipment is all come off those two stickers, before anybody drives anywhere.
- 07
Where is the indoor equipment?
Attic, crawlspace, basement, closet, garage, or roof. Access is labor. An attic changeout in July and a basement changeout in the same house are not the same job or the same price.
- 08
How many thermostats are in the house?
Count them. That is how many systems or zones you are actually talking about, and customers routinely forget to mention the second one until the tech is in the driveway.
- 09
Are some rooms comfortable and others not?
That answer points at airflow and duct rather than the box outside, which changes who you send and how long you book them for.
- 10
How many stories, and roughly how big is the house?
For a replacement conversation only. Square footage off the listing is a starting point for a load calculation. It is not a substitute for one.
The photos that matter for HVAC
Two stickers and the space around the box.
Mason asks for one shot at a time, with an example, and asks again when a plate comes back too blurry to read. In this trade the labels are worth more than the wide shots, and the wide shots are worth a lot.
Photograph from where you can safely stand. No panels off, no covers pulled, no reaching into a unit.
The label on the furnace or air handler
Model and serial again, plus the coil label if it can be read without taking anything off.
The whole outdoor unit, standing back
The pad, the clearance around it, the disconnect on the wall, the line set. A unit boxed in behind a fence or under a deck is a different install day entirely.
The space around the indoor equipment
Door width, stairs, attic hatch, pull-down ladder, room to stand. If the new equipment will not fit through the opening, that is the whole conversation.
The thermostat face
Brand, model, and whether it is a builder-grade round or something with a screen. Front only. Leave it on the wall.
The filter slot with the size printed on it
Filter size, filter condition, and where the return actually is.
The line set where it enters the house
Insulation missing or crumbling, and how the set is routed. Reusing a line set and replacing one are separate lines with separate numbers.
The drain line and the pan
Standing water in a pan, or a wet spot on a ceiling under an attic unit, is a second call hiding inside the first one.
Ductwork you can already see
Whatever shows in the attic or the crawlspace. It will not settle a duct question, but it tells the technician what he is walking into.
How HVAC quotes get priced
Two price sheets in one business.
Service and installation do not price the same way, and a quote that treats them the same is wrong twice. Mason keeps them apart because your sheet already does.
| Unit | What it prices |
|---|---|
| Diagnostic fee | A set price to get a technician on site and put eyes on it. This one Mason can quote exactly, because you set it. |
| Flat-rate task | Capacitor, contactor, blower motor, condensate pump, ignitor. Your book, your task price, not time and materials. |
| Per pound | Refrigerant. Which one matters — a system running a discontinued refrigerant is a different number per pound than a current one. |
| Per system, per visit | Maintenance. Two systems in one house is two systems' worth of work on one trip. |
| Per member, per year | Plan pricing, plus the member rate that applies to everything else. |
| Installed system | Condenser, coil, and furnace or air handler priced as a package by tonnage and efficiency. Coil-only work can use a company-catalog task after diagnosis and compatibility are confirmed. |
| Per foot | Line set, drain, and duct runs when they are being replaced rather than reused. |
| Each | Pad, disconnect, whip, float switch, surge protector, thermostat, filter cabinet, plenum transitions. |
| Per crew day | Install labor, scaled by access. An attic in August is not the same day as a garage in April. |
| Pass-through | Permit fees, crane, and rigging when equipment goes on a roof. |
Site conditions move the number inside those units: where the equipment sits, how far the crew carries it, how hot the attic is that week, whether the pad is level, and how much of the old work has to be rebuilt to hang new equipment on it. Mechanical shops that also run plumbing or electrical under the same roof keep a separate book for each, and Mason keeps the questions separate too.
The honest part
What no photo settles.
HVAC has the widest gap of any trade between what a quote can say and what a technician has to find out. Mason quotes what your company has already defined and stops there.
The diagnosis
This is the big one. Nobody knows why a system is not cooling from a picture of it. That takes gauges, a meter, and a person standing there. Any repair price handed out before that is a guess with a dollar sign on it.
Sizing
A load calculation needs the house — windows, insulation, orientation, duct. Copying the tonnage off the old unit repeats whatever the last install got wrong.
The duct system
Static pressure, leakage, and undersized returns get measured, not photographed. They are also why a brand-new system can leave a house every bit as uncomfortable as the old one.
Whether the coil and line set can stay
Compatibility and cleanliness are hands-on questions, and the answer changes the price of the changeout by a lot.
Electrical, gas, and venting
Service capacity, gas line sizing, and how the equipment vents all come into play when the equipment changes. None of it reads off a phone camera.
Where the leak is
A system low on refrigerant is a symptom. Finding the leak is the job, and finding it is the part nobody can quote in advance.
Illustrative example
No cool air · two-story house · one outdoor unit
- Photos collected
- Outdoor data plate, furnace label, thermostat face, filter size, and the clearance around the pad.
- Customer answered
- Air is moving but it is not cold, the outdoor fan is running, it started Tuesday, filter last changed in the spring.
- Mason's answer
- No repair price. Your diagnostic fee, which is a set price, and a note that the technician prices the fix on site.
- What lands on your desk
- Model, serial, symptoms, filter date, and where the equipment sits — before anyone gets in the truck.
What HVAC jobs need on the calendar
What actually decides the HVAC schedule.
Coming soonBooking, dispatch, and rebuilding a day around an emergency are not built yet. When they are, they will sit with the quote instead of on a whiteboard — see where scheduling is headed.
- 01
The season is the schedule
The first hot week and the first hard freeze turn the board into triage. No-cool and no-heat jump the line and everything else slides, including people you already promised.
- 02
Maintenance is the ballast
Spring and fall tune-ups fill the shoulder months, and plan members have to be fit in before the weather turns. Miss that window and it never gets made up.
- 03
Installs and service calls do not share a board
One changeout ties up two people for a day. Five service calls with drive time between them fill the same day a completely different way. Mixing them is the real scheduling problem in this trade.
- 04
Nothing gets booked before the equipment is confirmed
A changeout date is a promise about a delivery you may not control yet.
- 05
Attics get the early slot
In summer, attic work starts at first light or it does not start well.
- 06
Inspections are a second trip
Where a permit and an inspection are required, somebody has to come back. That visit belongs on the calendar too, not in the gaps.
- 07
Cranes and lifts bring their own window
A rooftop unit means a vendor, a street, and sometimes a permit. You schedule around that window, not into it.
- 08
Somebody has to be home
Access is the quiet reason a day falls apart, and in July it is worth confirming twice.
- 09
Emergencies rebuild the day
The board gets rebuilt every morning, not planned every Monday, and every customer who got bumped needs to hear from someone.
01Will Mason try to diagnose a no-cool call?
No. It collects the symptoms, the data plates, the filter, and the access photos, then hands you the call with your diagnostic fee already shown to the customer. The repair price waits for the technician, because that is where it belongs.
02Can it quote a system replacement?
Only when your company has verified the specs and set the package price. Otherwise the customer gets a range or a message that your team will take a look. A photo of the old unit is not a load calculation, and Mason will not treat it like one.
03Can it offer my maintenance plans?
It can show a plan you have published — the initial amount, the recurring amount, how often you come out, and what is included — right next to the one-time price. The customer requests it. Your team completes the enrollment and the billing in the system you already use.
04Does it work with my flat-rate book?
Yes. Mason reads your book, you confirm the tasks and prices it found, and those are the only numbers it uses. It never invents a task price and never discounts below the floor you set.