HVAC
HVAC Technician Utilization Calculator
Work out what share of paid technician hours is actually sold, which is where most service businesses lose money quietly.
Result
Utilisation is not a productivity score and should never be used as one. Travel, restocking, warranty returns, training and genuinely slow weeks all suppress it without anyone doing anything wrong. Its real use is pricing: a labour rate built on paid hours rather than billable hours is structurally too low, because the unbillable hours still have to be paid for.
Open the HVAC dispatch demoWhat moves the number
- Paid hours against sold hours, which is the whole calculation.
- Travel, training, shop time and waiting on parts, all paid and none billable.
- Seasonal swing, since utilisation in a shoulder month looks nothing like a peak week.
Where this one goes wrong
Setting a utilisation target without defining what counts as billable. If travel is billable in one month's figure and not in the next, the trend is meaningless.
Questions
About this calculator
What utilisation should I expect?
It depends heavily on how you count and on the mix of maintenance against service. Consistency of definition matters more than the number, because the trend is what tells you something.
Is low utilisation always bad?
Not necessarily. Some slack is how a service business absorbs emergencies, and a team at very high utilisation has no capacity for the urgent call that pays best.
How do I raise it?
Reduce the unbillable hours rather than push people harder. Better routing, parts on the van and fewer callbacks each convert paid hours into sold ones.
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How to use this calculator
- Paid hours per week. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 40.
- Billable hours per week. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 24.
- Travel hours per week. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 8.
- Admin, meetings and depot hours per week. Enter your own figure; the page starts at 5.
- Hourly wage ($). Enter your own figure; the page starts at $28.
- Labour burden (%). Enter your own figure; the page starts at 30%.
The result updates as you type, so you can try a figure, see what it does to utilisation, and change it back. Nothing you enter is sent anywhere or saved.
A worked example
These are the figures the calculator opens with. Every number in the results column below is produced by the same calculation the page runs, so you can follow it through before putting your own figures in.
What goes in
| Input | Value |
|---|---|
| Paid hours per week | 40 |
| Billable hours per week | 24 |
| Travel hours per week | 8 |
| Admin, meetings and depot hours per week | 5 |
| Hourly wage | $28 |
| Labour burden | 30% |
| Hourly rate charged to the customer | $145 |
What comes out
| Result | Value |
|---|---|
| Utilisation main result | 60.00% |
| Weekly labour revenue | $3,480 |
| True cost per billable hour | $60.67 |
| Unaccounted hours | 3 |
At 24 billable hours out of 40 paid, this technician runs at 60.00% utilisation. Their burdened cost is $36.40 an hour, but spread across only the billable hours it is really $60.67, which is the number your labour rate has to clear. One more billable hour a week is worth $6,960 a year.
How sensitive the answer is
Holding everything else steady and changing only hourly wage, this is what happens to utilisation. It is worth knowing which of your inputs the answer actually hinges on, and which barely move it.
| Hourly wage ($) | Utilisation |
|---|---|
| $14 | 60.00% |
| $21 | 60.00% |
| $28 example above | 60.00% |
| $42 | 60.00% |
| $56 | 60.00% |
Every other input is held at the example value while this one changes, which is not how a real job behaves. Treat it as a guide to which number matters most, not as five separate quotes.
What each figure means
- Paid hours per week
- A number, between 0 and 168, starting at 40.
- Billable hours per week
- A number, between 0 and 168, starting at 24.
- Travel hours per week
- A number, between 0 and 168, starting at 8.
- Admin, meetings and depot hours per week
- A number, between 0 and 168, starting at 5.
- Hourly wage ($)
- A money amount, starting at $28.
- Labour burden (%)
- A percentage, between 0 and 120, starting at 30%.
- Hourly rate charged to the customer ($)
- A money amount, starting at $145.
What the results tell you
| Result | What it is |
|---|---|
| Utilisation | The headline result. A percentage. |
| Weekly labour revenue | A money figure. |
| True cost per billable hour | A money figure. |
| Unaccounted hours | A number. |
Before you rely on this number
Sizing, capacity and load figures here are planning estimates. A real installation depends on the manufacturer's data for the specific equipment, the duct system it is going into, and a proper load calculation for the building. Use this to sanity-check a number or price a job, not to select equipment.
Keep going
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Open calculatorWhere the unbillable hours actually go
Most of the gap between paid and billable is travel and re-dispatch. The demo shows a day's routing and what reordering it does to the driving.