HVAC contractors may be losing more margin in the workday than they realize.

A new Field Promax report found that only 65% of an HVAC technician’s 8.8-hour day is billable. That works out to roughly six billable hours in a paid workday, with the rest lost to travel, dispatch gaps, paperwork, waiting, callbacks, and other non-billable activity.

For contractors, this is not just a scheduling problem.

It is a profitability problem.

A technician can be busy all day and still not generate enough billable revenue to cover wages, benefits, truck costs, fuel, insurance, software, overhead, and profit. That is the difference between activity and productivity.

Why Billable Time Matters

Most HVAC owners already know labor is expensive. But many do not have a clear view of where technician hours actually go.

A technician may start the day with a full schedule, but lose time in small ways: driving across town, waiting for a part, returning to a job because of missing information, calling the office for clarification, filling out paperwork, chasing approvals, or sitting between calls.

Each delay may look minor. Across a full team, those delays become a major margin leak.

The Field Promax report noted that the average technician workday is 8.8 paid hours, but only 65% of that time is billable. A prior ACHR News report on the same data said the study examined more than 10,000 data points across 300 HVAC companies.

That should get contractors’ attention.

If a company has 10 technicians, even one lost billable hour per technician per day can turn into thousands of dollars of unrealized revenue every week.

The Problem Is Not Always the Technician

Contractors should be careful not to blame technicians for every lost hour.

Many non-billable hours are caused by systems, not effort.

Poor dispatching can send technicians across inefficient routes. Weak call intake can send a tech to a job without enough information. Bad inventory management can create parts runs. Loose scheduling can leave gaps. Incomplete job notes can create callbacks. Manual paperwork can slow closeout.

That means improving billable time is a management responsibility.

A technician cannot fix routing, pricing, call booking, parts stocking, or dispatch logic alone.

Dispatch and Routing Are Margin Tools

Dispatch is no longer just about getting someone to the customer.

It is a margin-control function.

Better routing can reduce drive time. Better job matching can send the right technician to the right call. Better call intake can reduce wasted trips. Better truck stock can improve first-time completion. Better job closeout can speed invoicing and reduce office follow-up.

Contractors should review whether they are measuring technician utilization by department, technician, job type, and call source. If one technician is consistently less billable, the issue may be training. If the whole team is losing time, the issue may be process.

Callbacks Are Hidden Non-Billable Time

Callbacks are one of the most expensive forms of lost technician productivity.

The contractor pays for the second trip, but often cannot charge the customer again. That means the company loses labor capacity, fuel, scheduling space, and customer confidence.

Improving first-time fix rates should be part of any utilization strategy. That includes better diagnostics, better training, better parts access, stronger service notes, and clearer communication between dispatch, technicians, and managers.

Contractors Need to Track the Right Numbers

Revenue alone does not show whether a company is operating efficiently.

Contractors should track:

Technician utilization
Billable hours per day
Average drive time
First-time completion rate
Callback rate
Revenue per technician
Gross margin by job type
Time from job completion to invoice
Parts-related delays

The goal is not to turn technicians into robots. It is to remove the friction that keeps good technicians from doing billable work.

The Contractor Takeaway

The Field Promax report should make contractors ask a hard question:

Are we short on technicians, or are we wasting the technician hours we already have?

Hiring more people may still be necessary. But if a company is only billing 65% of technician time, adding more technicians without fixing the system may simply add more overhead.

The contractors that win will be the ones that treat time as inventory.

Every hour matters. Every dispatch decision matters. Every callback matters. Every gap in the schedule matters.

HVAC contractors are not just paying for technicians.

They are paying for time — and too much of it may be leaking out of the workday.