These guides explain one idea from three angles. A heating company's marketing works as a system, not a set of separate purchases, and you can understand, price and test that system yourself. Each guide stands on its own, but they are designed to be read together.
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Finding the leak: a 90-minute stack check for heating owners
You can find most of the leaks in your growth stack yourself, in about an hour and a half, with access to your accounts and last month's job list. This guide gives you eight tests and what to do with the results.
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How the four layers of a heating growth stack connect
A growth stack is four layers joined by five wires. Each wire carries one piece of information, and when any of them is cut the layers keep working but stop learning from each other.
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Stack math: putting a dollar figure on each layer
Every layer of a heating growth stack can be priced in lost or won jobs. This guide works through the numbers with one example company, so you can swap in your own figures.
How the four layers connect
How the four layers of a heating growth stack connect is the conceptual map. It names the four layers (capture, record, demand and proof) and the five wires that carry information between them: source, outcome, completion, display and cost. Then it follows one furnace lead from a November search to a December review, showing which wire does what at each step.
Read it if you have ever been told your marketing is "working" and couldn't reconcile that with your job list. By the end you should be able to draw your own stack on a single page and mark the broken connections.
What you'll learn:
- why the wire from CRM back to the ad platforms matters more than any other single piece
- how review requests can be triggered by job status instead of memory
- the order to build the layers in, and why ads usually come third
Stack math: a dollar figure for each layer
Stack math takes an illustrative heating company and prices every leak in sold jobs and gross profit. It covers missed calls, quotes that go quiet, ad accounts counting the wrong conversions, and the effect of reviews on page conversion. It finishes with a full monthly cost check using the HVAC.Agency Growth plan and a five-line calculator you can fill in from your own numbers.
Read it if you are deciding whether to invest in your marketing systems, or trying to explain the decision to a partner or a lender. The arithmetic is laid out step by step, so you can check every figure.
What you'll learn:
- how to calculate marketing cost per sold replacement
- why quote follow-up often pays back before ads are touched
- how far a platform's reported cost per conversion can drift from reality
Finding the leak: a 90-minute self-check
Finding the leak is a practical diagnostic: eight tests you can run on your own accounts in about an hour and a half. It starts with a test call to your own number after hours and ends with a look at your service pages on a phone. Each test has a clear pass or fail and points to the layer that needs work.
Read it if you suspect something is wrong and want to know where to look first. It's also a useful annual check, ideally in late summer before the heating season begins.
What you'll learn:
- the eight tests and how to score them
- which combinations of failures point to which fix
- how to turn a scorecard into a ranked list of work
How the guides relate to our services
Each guide links to the service that addresses what it describes, from the growth stack blueprint to review generation. You don't need to hire us to use them. If you do want help, the services overview explains where to start, and the areas we serve page explains how regional programs and rules change the inputs.
How to use them with your team
The guides work well as a shared reading list for an owner and an office manager. Read the connection guide together, then have the office manager run the eight tests from the leak guide while the owner fills in the five-line calculator from the math guide. Comparing the two results in a short meeting usually produces a clear first priority, and a shared vocabulary for the layers and wires that makes later conversations with any provider faster.
A note on sources
Where the guides mention regulations or anti-spam rules, they link to the official source. Programs and rules change, so treat anything date-sensitive as current as of October 2026 and confirm it with the administrator before relying on it in your own marketing.
Frequently asked questions
Which guide should I read first?
If you want the concept, start with how the stack connects. If you want to know whether it's worth fixing, start with stack math. If you already suspect a problem, go straight to finding the leak.
Are the numbers in the guides from real clients?
No. The worked examples use an illustrative company so you can follow the arithmetic and swap in your own figures. Published client results are on the results page, each linked to a live site.
Will you add more guides?
We plan to, as questions come up from heating company owners. If there is a topic you'd like covered, call, text or email and tell us.