These guides are written for heating company owners who want to plan next year themselves. Each one takes a single part of the annual growth plan and explains it fully: the method, the formulas, a worked example with numbers you can replace, and the mistakes that most often undo the work. You do not need to hire anyone to use them.
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Planning oil-to-heat-pump demand after OHPA
With the federal Oil to Heat Pump Affordability program closed to new applicants and a new national rebate announced but not open, conversion demand for 2027 is uncertain. A three-case forecast, built from your own customer list, handles that uncertainty.
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Service-agreement maths for heating company owners
A heating company's agreement base can be described with six numbers. Once you know them, you can see whether the base is growing, what it is worth in slow months, and how many technician hours it really needs.
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How to write an annual growth plan for a heating company
You can write a useful annual growth plan for a heating company in seven steps, starting from last year's records and ending with checkpoint dates on the calendar. This guide walks through each step with worked numbers.
Writing an annual growth plan
The first guide is the backbone. It walks through the seven steps of a heating company's annual plan in order: build a baseline from last year's records, draw a demand calendar that shows the weeks of the peak, count the agreement base, estimate fuel-switching work, compare demand with capacity, size the marketing budget from the bottom up, and set checkpoint dates.
The worked example follows one furnace company through every step and finds that its real constraint was service hours, not install crews, which is a common surprise. Read how to write an annual growth plan.
Service-agreement maths
The second guide treats your agreement base as a small subscription business. It defines six numbers, members, renewal rate, attach rate, other new members, visit hours and revenue per member, and shows how they combine to answer four questions: is the base growing, what does it pay before the phone rings, how many technician hours does it need, and how many replacements will it produce?
The central lesson, shown with worked numbers, is that a few points of renewal rate usually move the base more than any sales campaign. Read service-agreement maths.
Oil-to-heat-pump demand after OHPA
The third guide deals with the most uncertain part of a 2027 plan. The federal Oil to Heat Pump Affordability program closed to new applicants in 2026, and a national heat pump rebate has been announced without an opening date. The guide shows how to build low, middle and high conversion cases from your own customer list, how to plan the waiting period, and which events should move you between cases.
It includes province notes for the regions where oil heat still matters most, checked as of October 2026. Read planning oil-to-heat-pump demand after OHPA.
What you need before you start
All three guides assume you can pull a few records together. Before you open them, gather:
- installs by month for the last one or two years, split by system type;
- service calls by month, and the dates of your busiest weeks;
- your agreement member list with renewal dates;
- crew and technician headcount by month;
- average ticket and rough gross margin for your main job types;
- marketing spend by channel.
Estimates are acceptable wherever records are missing. Mark them as estimates, so you know which numbers to firm up first. An afternoon spent on this list usually tells an owner more about the business than a month of reports.
How the guides relate to our services
Each guide matches a chapter of the written plan we produce. If you would rather have the plan written for you, the services overview explains the five chapters, and the pricing page explains how the plan is quoted. If you use the guides and get stuck, call, text or email with the question; often a short answer is enough.
A note on accuracy
The guides use illustrative numbers, clearly marked, so you can follow the arithmetic. Replace them with your own before making any decision. Where a guide cites a program or a statistic, it links to the official source and states the date we checked it. If you find something that has changed, we would like to hear about it.
We are not a heating contractor, and nothing in these guides is technical, code or equipment advice. They are about running and planning the business. For the province-specific context behind each guide, see the areas we cover.
Frequently asked questions
Can I really write a plan from these guides alone?
Yes. Each guide gives the method, the formulas and a worked example. Outside help becomes worthwhile when the business has several job lines or regions, or when a big decision rests on the numbers.
Are the program details in the guides current?
They were checked against official sources in October 2026 and say so. Programs change often, so confirm the current terms with each administrator before acting on them.
In what order should I read them?
Start with the plan-writing guide, because it shows where the other two fit. Then read the agreement guide if your summers are thin, or the conversion guide if many of your customers heat with oil.