1 in 2 local HVAC and plumbing companies that called themselves family-owned still do after private equity buys them.
We compared 249 companies' home pages from before the sale, saved by the Internet Archive, with the same pages today. And we did the same for 347 independent companies over the same years.
The findings in five sentences
- They buy the best-run shops. Before the sale, 72% already took bookings online, against 32% of independents.
- Then they add what was missing. Of the companies without online booking, 76% added it after the sale, against 40% of independents that started the same way.
- Each group puts in one set of tools. Avoca's booking widget runs on 33 of Sila's 34 company sites, Netic's on 24 of Heartland's 25.
- About half keep saying family-owned. 53% of the companies that called themselves family-owned or locally owned still do, against 84% of comparable independents. After five years, 24% do.
- 1 in 10 names its owner. 37 of 352 home pages name the group. Leap Partners names itself on 16 of its 21, Sila on none of its 40.
1 dot = 1 company
249249 local HVAC and plumbing companies, read before and after a private equity group bought them.
92%92% take bookings online now, up from 72% before the sale.
27%27% load a booking or chat widget from an AI company. None did before.
26%26% still call themselves family-owned or locally owned, down from 34%.
13%13% name the group that owns them.
They buy the best-run shops.
Before the sale, the companies these groups bought already offered online booking, a membership plan and financing far more often than independents did in the same years.
- Online booking
- Bought companies, before the sale: 72%Independents, same years: 32%
- Membership plan
- Bought companies, before the sale: 71%Independents, same years: 29%
- Financing
- Bought companies, before the sale: 76%Independents, same years: 39%
- Coupons or specials
- Bought companies, before the sale: 81%Independents, same years: 43%
- Careers page
- Bought companies, before the sale: 77%Independents, same years: 23%
Then they add what was missing.
Of the bought companies that lacked online booking, 76% added it. Among independents that started with as much of the playbook, 40% did.
- Online booking
- Bought companies that lacked it: 76%Independents that lacked it: 40%
- Membership plan
- Bought companies that lacked it: 51%Independents that lacked it: 29%
- Financing
- Bought companies that lacked it: 63%Independents that lacked it: 30%
- Coupons or specials
- Bought companies that lacked it: 50%Independents that lacked it: 12%
- Careers page
- Bought companies that lacked it: 70%Independents that lacked it: 16%
- A posted price
- Bought companies that lacked it: 20%Independents that lacked it: 8%
Independents are weighted to the bought companies' starting point, how many of the five features their old home page had.
Each group installs the same tools at every company.
Sila put Avoca's booking widget on 33 of its 34 companies' sites. Heartland put Netic's on 24 of 25. Neither was on any of them before the sale.
- SilaAvoca, AI booking widgetSila, Avoca: 0 before, 33 now of 34
- HeartlandNetic, AI booking widgetHeartland, Netic: 0 before, 24 now of 25
- SeacoastCalgary Websites, web agencySeacoast, Calgary Websites: 0 before, 8 now of 9
- TurnPointSchedule Engine, booking softwareTurnPoint, Schedule Engine: 0 before, 9 now of 13
- Leap PartnersTrustindex, review widgetLeap Partners, Trustindex: 0 before, 13 now of 19
- RedwoodServiceTitan, booking softwareRedwood, ServiceTitan: 1 before, 12 now of 19
- LegacyBroccoli, booking softwareLegacy, Broccoli: 0 before, 6 now of 10
- ChampionsServiceTitan, booking softwareChampions, ServiceTitan: 0 before, 10 now of 18
Across all the bought companies
27% of their home pages now load a booking or chat widget from an AI company. Among independents it's under 1%.
- Booking softwareIndependents, then: 3%Independents, now: 10%Bought, before the sale: 14%Bought, now: 43%
- AI booking or chat widgetIndependents, then: 0.3%Independents, now: 0.6%Bought, before the sale: 0%Bought, now: 27%
- Call trackingIndependents, then: 6%Independents, now: 6%Bought, before the sale: 18%Bought, now: 26%
- Review widgetIndependents, then: 7%Independents, now: 13%Bought, before the sale: 20%Bought, now: 32%
- Cookie or accessibility toolIndependents, then: 2%Independents, now: 11%Bought, before the sale: 6%Bought, now: 32%
fulkersonadvisors.com
About half keep calling themselves family-owned.
53% of the bought companies that said family-owned or locally owned before the sale still do. Comparable independents kept it 84% of the time. The longer a group owns a company, the more often the claim goes.
- Bought 2 years ago or less (30): 70%
- Bought 3 to 4 years ago (30): 60%
- Bought 5 or more years ago (25): 24%
- Independents, same years (117): 89%
fulkersonadvisors.com
1 in 10 names the group that owns it.
37 of 352 bought companies' home pages name their group. Leap Partners names itself on 16 of its 21 companies' sites. Sila, Redwood, Champions and Flint name themselves on none.
- TurnPoint (46)
- Says family-owned or locally owned: 24%Names the group: 4%
- Sila (40)
- Says family-owned or locally owned: 5%Names the group: 0%
- Heartland (34)
- Says family-owned or locally owned: 32%Names the group: 6%
- Strikepoint (25)
- Says family-owned or locally owned: 12%Names the group: 12%
- Wrench (23)
- Says family-owned or locally owned: 9%Names the group: 22%
- Legacy (21)
- Says family-owned or locally owned: 33%Names the group: 10%
- Leap Partners (21)
- Says family-owned or locally owned: 38%Names the group: 76%
- Redwood (19)
- Says family-owned or locally owned: 58%Names the group: 0%
- Champions (19)
- Says family-owned or locally owned: 32%Names the group: 0%
- Flint (19)
- Says family-owned or locally owned: 37%Names the group: 0%
- P3 (16)
- Says family-owned or locally owned: 25%Names the group: 6%
- Liberty (13)
- Says family-owned or locally owned: 38%Names the group: 0%
- Seacoast (10)
- Says family-owned or locally owned: 30%Names the group: 0%
19 of the 371 old company sites now send visitors to another brand, 16 of them to a sister company's site.
Software for a group of companies.
A group runs the same booking, call handling and reporting at every company it buys. We write that software one process at a time, and the owner keeps the code. How we work with buyers and operating partners.
The data.
We read the websites on October 3 and 4, 2026, and the Internet Archive copies from 2010 to 2026.
How we did it
We started from the 371 local HVAC and plumbing companies serving homes that 26 groups backed by private equity list on their own websites, from our count of who owns HVAC and plumbing. We read their home pages today on October 3 and 4, 2026, through scrape.do's US proxies, within each site's robots.txt.
For each company we looked for when its group bought it: the group's own page, a press release, a trade magazine or the company's own announcement. 278 of the 371 have a dated record, from 2011 to 2026. Groups that announce deals only on LinkedIn, or not at all, leave the rest undated.
The Internet Archive keeps old copies of most business websites. For each dated company we took the newest copy of its home page from between three years and three months before the sale. 265 had one. The typical copy is 5 years older than today's page.
For comparison we drew 1,104 independent HVAC and plumbing companies in the same states from Overture Maps' open data, read their home pages and kept the 533 that serve homes and don't say they belong to a group or a franchise. Each one is matched to a bought company in its state and takes that company's date. 372 had a copy from then.
Jev, a model from TypeSafe that answers yes or no questions with a probability, answered the same twelve questions about every page, before and after: whether the page says the company is family-owned, names its owner, takes bookings online and so on. A claim counts only in the company's own words, not in a customer review.
Review agents checked 731 pages without seeing Jev's answers or which page came first: every page with an ownership claim, both pages of every company whose claim changed, and 80 pages at random for every question. On the ownership questions they agreed with Jev 97% to 100% of the time. Where they didn't, a second round settled it, and the reviewed answer is the one counted.
The bought companies started further ahead, so what changed is compared against independents weighted to the same start: how many of five features (online booking, a membership plan, financing, coupons, a careers page) their old home page had. Without the weights the differences are larger.
For tools we took every outside service each page loads or links to. Jev sorted the services on two or more pages by kind from their addresses, and a review agent checked the most common.
This measures what home pages say, not who runs the company. A family can still run a company it sold. The 19 companies whose old site now sends visitors to another brand are counted apart. The companies are those with an announced deal and an archived site, which leans toward the bigger, better documented deals.
Cite this study
Fulkerson Advisors (2026). HVAC After Private Equity: What Changes on 249 Company Websites After the Sale. https://www.fulkersonadvisors.com/research/hvac-after-private-equity
Use any of these numbers or charts. Credit Fulkerson Advisors and link to this page. The data is under a CC BY 4.0 license.
Questions
What changes after private equity buys an HVAC company?
The website gets the group's playbook. Of the bought companies without online booking, 76% added it, and most groups put the same booking, call tracking and review tools on every company they own. The local name stays. Half keep calling themselves family-owned or locally owned, and 1 in 10 names the group that owns them.
Do HVAC companies owned by private equity tell customers?
Rarely on the home page. 37 of 352 bought companies' home pages (11%) name their group, while 88 (25%) call the company family-owned or locally owned. Leap Partners is the exception, named on 16 of its 21 companies' sites.
What software do private equity HVAC groups use?
Each group standardizes on its own. Sila's companies load Avoca's booking widget, Heartland's load Netic's, and Redwood's load ServiceTitan's scheduler (12 of 19). Across all the bought companies, 27% now load a booking or chat widget from an AI company.
How do you know what the websites said before the sale?
The Internet Archive saves copies of most business websites. We took each company's home page from up to three years before its purchase date and read it the same way as today's.