HVACBossPro Blog — Dispatch & Scheduling

Splitting Repair Vans From Tune-Up Vans in HVAC Dispatch

Repair calls and tune-ups are both HVAC work, but they behave completely differently on a schedule. A tune-up is predictable: you know roughly how long it takes, it can be booked weeks out, and it can move a day without anyone getting hurt. A repair is the opposite. It shows up today, it might take twenty minutes or three hours, and the customer is uncomfortable until it is done. Mixing them on the same van every day means one kind of work keeps disrupting the other.

Why the Split Works

Hand-placing stops, as described in Setting HVAC Route Order by Hand When the Map Isn't the Whole Story, gets harder the more types of work one van carries. Splitting the work across vans simplifies every van's day.

The setup is common among small HVAC companies: one van on repair calls, one van on tune-ups. The repair van keeps open space in its day. The tune-up van works a tight geographic loop of maintenance agreement visits. If there is a third van or an owner in the field, they float between the two as needed.

The Repair Van

The repair van's day is deliberately not full in the morning. It might start with two or three booked repairs and a diagnostic, leaving room for the calls that come in by 10am. Some practical points:

• Route it Closest First from the shop most days, so it stays central early on.
• Stock it for common repairs: capacitors, contactors, igniters, flame sensors, drain line supplies, a range of filters.
• Give it to the tech who is strongest at diagnosis.
• Book follow-up repairs, where a part has been ordered, onto this van when the part arrives.

The Tune-Up Van

The tune-up van's day is planned. It works through maintenance agreement visits that have come due on the Waiting List, grouped by area. Some practical points:

• Route it Furthest First when it is working an outlying area, so the day ends near the shop.
• Book it full. Tune-ups are steady, and an idle tune-up van is wasted capacity.
• Stock it with the filters that match its day. Because each address shows the filter size, the tech can check the list in the morning and load up.
• Let the tech note repairs found during a tune-up, so the office can quote them or book them on the repair van.

Setting It Up in HVACBossPro

Employees are assigned to vans, and the dispatch board can be filtered by van. When you schedule a job, you choose the van. Repairs go on the repair van, tune-ups from the Waiting List go on the tune-up van. Each tech sees only their van's jobs on their phone, in route order, with the equipment details and access notes on every card.

Filtering the board to the tune-up van shows a calm, full day. Filtering to the repair van shows a lighter day with room. Looking at both side by side tells you instantly whether you can take another same-day call.

When to Break the Split

The split is a default, not a rule. There are times to break it:

• Heat waves and cold snaps. The tune-up van becomes a second repair van for a few days. Its tune-ups slide to the following week.
• A repair next door. If the tune-up van is two streets from a no-cool call and the repair van is across town, send the tune-up van and drag one of its tune-ups to tomorrow.
• Slow repair days. In mild weather the repair van may have little to do. Give it a few tune-ups in its area to keep it busy.

Crew GPS on the office map makes these calls easy, because you can see exactly where each van is.

Seasons and the Split

The split works best when tune-ups are done before the peak. In spring and fall, the tune-up van should be working hard, so that when summer heat or winter cold arrives most agreement customers have already been seen. That leaves the peak weeks for repairs. The planning side of this is in Booking HVAC Tune-Ups in the Shoulder Seasons Before the Phones Get Busy.

A company with only one van can still use the idea. Block mornings for planned tune-ups and keep afternoons open for repairs, or the other way around. The principle is the same: keep the predictable work from colliding with the unpredictable work. For how van filters, routing and the Waiting List support the split, see the HVACBossPro HVAC dispatch software page.