Service Experts, one of the largest residential HVAC service companies in the United States and a portfolio company of Brookfield Infrastructure, has continued expanding its franchise program through the first half of 2026, with new signed locations including a April 2026 agreement in Fulshear, Texas — adding to earlier franchise centers established in Tulsa, Oklahoma and Memphis, Tennessee since the program launched in May 2025.
Why this is a different consolidation story than the PE roll-up wave: Most of the headline HVAC consolidation activity in 2026 — Apex Service Partners' acquisitions, Apollo's $2 billion investment, Impact Climate Technologies and Kelvin Group's bolt-on deals — follows the same playbook: acquire independent operators and integrate them into a centrally owned platform. Service Experts' franchise pivot represents the opposite structural bet: rather than buying up independent shops, it is licensing its 30-year operating system, brand, and the Advantage Program (its proprietary equipment leasing model) to new owner-operators who build and run their own local businesses.
The financial profile behind the pitch: Service Experts reports total average gross revenue of $7,034,555 per location with a 37.7% gross profit margin — figures the company says run 325% above the broader HVAC franchise sub-sector average. Those numbers, marketed directly to prospective franchisees, position Service Experts not as an unproven concept but as a three-decade operating history being made available to new ownership for the first time.
Who is actually buying in: The early franchise owners are a notable departure from the traditional profile of someone entering HVAC ownership through years of technician experience. The Fulshear, Texas franchise owners, Norv Parsell and Emily Arnim, bring backgrounds in data leadership and premium e-commerce marketing respectively — not HVAC trade experience. Service Experts is explicitly marketing the franchise opportunity to high-ticket sales professionals from adjacent home-improvement categories like solar and roofing, and to marketing and lead-generation operators, in addition to existing HVAC and home service operators looking to scale.
What this means for the competitive landscape: A national brand with 30 years of HVAC operating infrastructure systematically licensing that system to new owner-operators across the country adds a third major consolidation vector to the industry, alongside PE-backed acquisition platforms and organic independent growth. For existing independent contractors, a newly opened Service Experts franchise in their market represents a competitor with access to national brand recognition, an established equipment leasing model, and centralized training infrastructure — but run by a local owner rather than a distant corporate office, which changes the competitive dynamic compared to a directly corporate-owned location.
The leasing model worth understanding: Service Experts' Advantage Program, which allows homeowners to lease HVAC systems rather than purchase them outright, is a structural differentiator the company is actively marketing to franchisees as a competitive advantage. As HVAC financing has become an increasingly important conversion tool industry-wide — separate 2026 research found that 62% of homeowners are more likely to move forward with a project when payment plans are offered — a franchise system built around an established leasing infrastructure from day one has a meaningful head start over independent contractors building financing relationships from scratch.
