How to write an annual growth plan for a heating company

Step 1: build a baseline from last year

The baseline is last year, by month, in five rows. Everything else in the plan is built on it, so take the time to get it roughly right.

Add two further numbers for the year as a whole: your active agreement members at year end, and the headcount of technicians and install crews by month.

A practical tip: if your records are thin, ask your supplier for a statement of equipment purchased by month. Equipment purchases trail installs by a short gap, and the statement can rebuild the install row surprisingly well.

Step 2: draw the demand calendar

The demand calendar turns the baseline into a forecast of when work will arrive next year. Start by copying last year's monthly installs and service calls. Then make three adjustments.

1. Remove the one-offs. A large commercial job, a supplier outage or an unusually mild December distorts the shape. Mark them and smooth them out.
2. Split the peak into weeks. For the months when you were busiest, use dispatch dates to see which weeks were heaviest. In most heating companies, a large share of the peak arrives in the two or three weeks after the first hard cold.
3. Apply your growth decisions. If you plan to grow heat-pump installs by a third, add them to the months when heat pumps sell in your region, not spread evenly.

Worked example

A furnace company installed 180 systems last year. Looking at dispatch dates, 70 of them fell in October to December, and 30 of those 70 were in a three-week stretch in November. The calendar for next year shows a monthly line for most of the year and a weekly line for October to December, with that three-week stretch flagged. That flag drives the next four steps.

Step 3: count the agreement base

Agreement members are the most predictable part of the year. Count three things:

• Active members today, cleaned of lapsed and duplicate records.
• Renewal rate: of the members due to renew last year, how many did?
• New members: how many came from new installs, and how many from other customers?

Then project the year. If you have 600 members and a 75% renewal rate, plan on about 450 renewals. If you attach agreements to 35% of 200 planned installs, that adds 70. Any campaign to existing customers adds more. The end-of-year count tells you whether the base is growing or shrinking, and the service-agreement maths guide goes deeper.

Finally, place agreement visits on the calendar. Every visit uses technician hours, so put them in the quietest months you can.

Step 4: estimate fuel-switching work

Fuel-switching demand depends on what your customers burn now and on which programs are open. Look up your province's fuel mix in Statistics Canada Table 38-10-0286-01, then check your own customer list: how many are on oil, propane, electric baseboard or older gas equipment?

Write down three cases for conversion installs next year: low, middle and high. Note what would move you between them, especially program news. As of October 2026, for example, the federal Oil to Heat Pump Affordability program has closed to new applications, and a national heat pump rebate has been announced without an opening date. Our guide to oil-to-heat-pump demand after OHPA shows how to build the three cases.

Step 5: compare demand with capacity

Now compare the calendar with what your people can deliver. For each month, and each week of the peak, calculate available hours:

Available hours = people × working hours per week − travel − callbacks − training − holidays

Then convert demand into hours. If a furnace install takes a crew one day and a service call takes two hours including travel, multiply out.

Worked example, continued

The furnace company has three install crews, each finishing about four installs a week: 12 a week. In the three-week November stretch, demand was 30 installs, or 10 a week. That fits. But it also had six service technicians delivering about 30 billable hours each, 180 hours a week, and in those same weeks repair calls took 160 hours and 40 agreement visits took 60 more. That is 220 hours against 180. The constraint was service, not installs.

The plan's response: move agreement visits to September and early October, and keep a reserve of service hours in November. No new hire needed. Many owners find their constraint is not where they expected, and that is the most valuable result of this step.

Step 6: size the marketing budget

Only now should you set a marketing budget, because you know which months have room. Work from the bottom up:

1. Affordable cost per booked install. Take gross profit per install and decide what share marketing may use. With $2,800 of gross profit per furnace install and a one-fifth allowance, the ceiling is $560.
2. Enquiries needed. If you book 40% of replacement enquiries, each install needs 2.5 enquiries, so each enquiry may cost up to $224.
3. Months with room. Multiply the open install slots in each month by the cost per booked install. Months with no open slots get a maintenance budget only.

The marketing budget chapter describes the channel table in detail.

Step 7: set checkpoints

A plan without checkpoints is filed and forgotten. Choose four to six dates, tied to your season rather than the calendar year. A typical set:

• Early summer: hiring decision for the fall; tune-up campaign dates fixed.
• Early September: tune-up and agreement bookings against plan.
• Late November: peak review: missed calls, quote times, installs booked.
• Mid-winter: emergency response and parts supply.
• Early spring: year close; replacement watch list; next year's targets.

At each checkpoint, compare three numbers with plan: installs booked, active agreement members and marketing cost per booked install. Write down in advance how far off a number can be before you act, and what the action will be.

Common mistakes

• Planning in totals. The weeks matter more than the year.
• Starting with marketing. Marketing comes last, after capacity.
• Ignoring agreements. The base is your floor and your best source of replacements.
• Trusting a single forecast. Use low, middle and high cases where uncertainty is real.
• No owner. Each section of the plan needs one person responsible for its numbers.

When to get help

You can write a good plan yourself with this method. Outside help is worth considering when the business has several job lines or regions, when the records need serious cleaning, or when a large decision such as a new crew or a new product line rests on the plan. The written annual growth plan describes what we produce, and the pricing page explains how it is quoted.