When the heat goes out, the whole town calls at once
Vandial answers every one of them at the same time, asks whether there's an infant or an elderly resident in the house, and books the diagnostic into your calendar. No queue, no busy signal, no voicemail box filling up while you're on a roof.
From $99 a month · Robocalls are never billed
Incoming callMarcus Tran“My AC's running but the house is 88 degrees.”
Booked — Wed 1–3, priority flag, text sent
- 5-10x
- the normal call volume in the 48 hours after a cold snap
- Nobody waits
- for heat. A cold house rings the next company, not yours tomorrow
- One flat price
- however hard the phone rings, so a heatwave never produces a bill
This is what your callers hear
The same receptionist a HVAC company gets, answering as the trades we already run. Yours is in the middle — press play.
One HVAC call, and what it left behind
Answered on the second ring. Every field below was captured during the call — nobody typed it in afterwards.
“My AC's running but the house is 88 degrees.”
Classified0:12
- new job
- no cooling
- diagnostic
Escalated0:26
- vulnerable occupant
- priority dispatch
Captured0:46
- 4yr Carrier, second floor, gate code
Booked1:08
- Google Calendar
- Wed 1–3
- Marcus
Booked — Wed 1–3, priority flag, text sent
Read the whole HVAC call, line by line
- 0:02Marcus Tran: My AC's running but the house is 88 degrees.
- 0:05Vandial: Let's get someone to it. Is it blowing warm air, or nothing at all?
- 0:10Marcus Tran: Warm. It's running constantly and never gets there.
- 0:12Classified — new job · no cooling · diagnostic
- 0:19Vandial: Is there anyone in the house who struggles in the heat — an infant, or someone elderly?
- 0:24Marcus Tran: My mother's staying with us, she's 84.
- 0:26Escalated — vulnerable occupant · priority dispatch
- 0:38Vandial: How old is the unit, and is it the upstairs system or the whole house?
- 0:46Captured — 4yr Carrier, second floor, gate code
- 0:58Vandial: The diagnostic is $89. I've got you Wednesday between 1 and 3 — and I've flagged it as priority.
- 1:08Booked — Google Calendar · Wed 1–3 · Marcus
Answered, understood, booked
One number, picked up on the second ring — at 2am, on a Sunday, while you're already working. By the time the caller hangs up, it is in your calendar.
It answers
Every call at once, not one at a time. In a heatwave that is the whole difference — there is no queue to be third in.
- 0:00Incoming call
- 0:02Answered by Vandial2 rings
- 0:05“Hello, Marlow Plumbing.”
It understands
It triages by who is in the house, not just by what the unit is doing. An 84-year-old with no cooling is not the same call as a warm bedroom.
- Job
- Water heater — leaking
- Where
- 14 Marlow Street
- Access
- Side gate, dog in yard
- Urgency
- Today if possible
- Still on
It books
A diagnostic slot in your calendar with the fee stated, the make and age captured, and the gate code already written down.
Text to Dave · 13:01
You’re booked for today, 1–2pm. Reply R to move it.
It asks what you would ask
These are the questions the agent runs for HVAC contractors, and the operational reason each one exists. Change them, add your own, or take them out — they are configuration, not code.
Is it heat or cool, and is it blowing nothing or blowing wrong?
Splits a dead blower from a refrigerant or ignition problem before anyone loads a van.
Is there an infant, an elderly resident or anyone with a medical need in the house?
No heat in a freeze with a vulnerable occupant is not a scheduling matter. It jumps the queue and reaches you.
How old is the system, and what make?
Age drives the repair-or-replace conversation, which is a different visit and a different technician.
Whole house, or one floor?
Separates a zone or damper fault from the plant, and decides how long the slot needs to be.
Has the thermostat or the breaker been checked?
A tripped breaker is a two-minute phone fix. Booking a truck for it costs you the slot and the customer's confidence.
Where is the outdoor unit, and how do we get to it?
Locked side gates and coded compounds are the single most common reason a booked HVAC call becomes a wasted trip.
More than a HVAC answering service
An answering service takes a message and charges you for it. Vandial knows your prices, your patch and your diary — so it books the job, or puts a real emergency straight through to you.
It picks up out of hours, and while your line is busy
The calls that matter arrive on the hottest afternoon and the coldest morning of the year, when every technician you have is already on a roof and the office phone rings out. Vandial answers all of them simultaneously — there is no hold queue to abandon.
It knows your prices, your patch and your hours
Tell it your diagnostic fee, the brands you're certified on, your service area and your after-hours rate. It answers the maintenance-plan and filter questions that eat an office manager's morning, and it books the ones that are actually jobs.
What it knows
Diagnostic fee
$89, off the repair
Service area
20 miles
After hours
$160
Certified on
Carrier, Trane, Lennox, Rheem
What matters reaches you. The rest waits
You decide what escalates: a CO concern, no heat below freezing, a vulnerable occupant. Everything else is written up and waiting when you come down off the roof, tagged and in order.
Your rule: if they say gas, flood or no heat — ring Sam, then me.
Every call written up, tagged and searchable
Every call summarised, transcribed and recorded. When a homeowner says they were told the part was covered, the call is there — and so is what was actually said.
Dave Whitfield · Sunday, 4m 12s
Water heater, leaking
Leaking from the base. Booked for Tuesday 1–2pm. Side gate open, dog in the yard. Asked whether the service call fee applies — told $99, waived on repair.
The first cold snap and the first heatwave
VERTICALS.md puts HVAC at the top of the seasonality table for a reason: calls can go up five to ten times in forty-eight hours. It is the same week your competitors' phones stop being answered, which is exactly when a customer decides who their HVAC company is for the next decade. Vandial has no concurrency limit that a heatwave can reach — every caller gets the same two-ring pickup, and you get them back sorted by who has no heat and who has a thermostat they have not checked.
When it happens · The first freeze, the first heatwave
A normal month, then a surge month
- Billed per minute
- Your baselineTriples with the calls
- The bill peaks in the same week your phone does.
- Billed per call, like a human service
- Per call, every callEvery extra call, billed
- Including the robocalls and the wrong numbers.
- Vandial
- From $99 a monthThe same
- Call flows are unlimited on every paid rung, and there is no per-minute billing. The rungs differ only in how many unique customers you answer for — and a surge is mostly more calls from the same people.
Robocalls and sales calls are identified and zero-rated on every plan. They never count toward your included customers and never create a customer record.
What it will never do
You are handing your phone to something that talks to your customers when you are not there. These are the lines it does not cross in HVAC, and the words it uses instead.
Gas and carbon monoxide stop the call
A gas smell, a CO alarm, or a caller describing headaches and nausea with the furnace running — the agent stops qualifying and tells them to leave and ring the utility. It does not book, price or diagnose. It alerts you at the same time.
What it actually says
“Please get everyone out of the house and ring the gas emergency line now — don't wait for us. I'm alerting the on-call tech as well.”
No heat plus a vulnerable occupant reaches you
In a freeze, an infant or an elderly resident without heat is a welfare call, not a calendar entry. It is flagged, escalated and put in front of you rather than offered the next available Thursday.
What it actually says
“I'm not going to book you for Thursday with your mother in the house — let me get the on-call tech on the phone now.”
It won't quote a replacement over the phone
It states your diagnostic fee. It will not price a condenser, a furnace or a whole-system change from a description — those depend on load, ductwork and access, and a number invented on the phone is a number your salesperson has to argue with on the doorstep.
What it actually says
“The diagnostic's $89 and it comes off the repair. A replacement really depends on the ductwork — that's a conversation for when someone's looked at it.”
The job lands where you already work
Google, Outlook, Apple, Exchange, CalDAV — whichever calendar you already keep. Then your payments, your CRM, and whatever you automate with.
…and a lot more besides
- Warm transfersWarm transfersAnnounced — who is calling and why, before you take the line.
- Spam never billedSpam never billedRobocalls are spotted, zero-rated, and never become a customer.
- A number per sourceA number per sourceVan, yard sign, Google listing — see which line brings the work.
- Team & on-callTeam & on-callTries you, then a second number, then whoever is on call.
- Run it by textRun it by textReply to a text to move a job, block a morning, clear a day.
- Clear a day, everyone toldClear a day, everyone toldCall off a wet Tuesday; every customer is told and re-offered.
- Never invents an answerNever invents an answerNo price or slot it was not given. It takes a message instead.
- Any trade, no codeAny trade, no codeGoal, questions and guardrails are settings, not a rebuild.
What HVAC contractors say before they say yes
Three objections, in the words they are usually put in. Where the objection is right, it says so.
“In a heatwave we get 200 calls. Nothing handles that.”
A phone line cannot, which is the actual problem — the hundredth caller hears an busy signal and rings someone else. Calls here are answered in parallel rather than queued, so there is no hundredth caller. And there is no per-minute billing, so the week your phone goes mad is not the week you get an unexpected bill. Your plan is the most it can cost you.
“It'll dispatch trucks to tripped breakers.”
Only if you tell it not to ask. It checks the thermostat and the breaker before booking anything, because a truck roll for a switch that was off costs you the slot and the customer's confidence. Those get resolved on the phone and logged, not dispatched.
“We'd never let software near a carbon monoxide call.”
Neither would we. A CO alarm, a gas smell, or a caller describing headaches with the furnace running ends the qualification immediately — it tells them to leave and ring the utility, and alerts you. It will not book it, price it, or work out whether it might be something else.
HVAC questions, answered
What HVAC contractors ask before handing over their phone number — and what a HVAC answering service can and cannot do for you.
Can it handle a heatwave, when we get 200 calls in a day?
Yes, and this is the case it was built for. Calls are answered in parallel rather than queued, so the hundredth caller gets the same two-ring pickup as the first. They come back to you triaged — no heat with a vulnerable occupant at the top, unchecked thermostats at the bottom.
Will it try to diagnose the fault?
It captures symptoms; it does not diagnose. It will ask whether the unit is blowing warm or blowing nothing, how old it is and whether the breaker has been checked, because those change which technician goes and how long the slot is. What it will not do is tell a homeowner what is wrong with their system.
What happens on a carbon monoxide or gas call?
It stops the qualification immediately, tells the caller to leave the property and ring the utility, and alerts you. It will not book, price or reassure. The same rule applies to a caller describing headaches or nausea with the furnace running.
Does it know the difference between a repair and a replacement lead?
It captures the two things that decide it — the system's age and what it is doing — and routes accordingly. A fifteen-year-old unit that has stopped is a different appointment, with a different person and a longer slot, than a four-year-old one that is short-cycling.
Can it sell or book maintenance agreements?
It can answer questions about the plan you have told it about, and book the visits that come with one. It will not invent terms, coverage or pricing you did not give it — if a caller asks something outside what it knows, it takes a message rather than making a commitment on your behalf.
What about the calls that are just filter questions?
Answered, logged and never put on your desk. That is most of the volume on a normal week, and it is the volume that stops an office manager from getting to the calls that are worth money.
What does it cost?
Three paid rungs — Starter, Professional and Business — differing only in how many unique customers you answer for in a month. Call flows, technicians, transfer destinations and full call history are unlimited on every rung, which matters more in this trade than most: a heatwave must not produce a bill. Robocalls are identified and never billed.
Already decided you want AI to answer it?
Then the question is which one, and that is a different page: what a generic AI receptionist gets wrong on a HVAC call, and what is configurable about this one.
Not your trade?
The agent's questions, urgency rules, escalations and vocabulary are all configuration. Nothing about a trade is hard-coded, which is why there are 31 of these and not one.