The 5 Factors Every Roofing & HVAC Business Needs To Consider Before Hiring Another Crew

“Should I hire another crew to keep up?”

"Mareaka, we’re turning away work left and right—should I hire another crew to keep up? I’ve got jobs waiting, my main crew’s calendar is slammed, and we’re even starting to lose bids because we can’t fit folks in fast enough."

It’s a good problem to have: the phone won’t stop ringing, bids are stacking up, and your team is booked solid.

But jumping into hiring too fast can backfire if the foundation isn’t solid. More crews mean more overhead, more payroll, and more pressure on your systems—and if you’re not ready, it can drain your profits instead of boosting them.

So before you start onboarding another crew, here are 5 key factors to check first.

Before we dive into it, let me introduce myself if we haven’t met yet.

I’m Mareaka from Bunch Accounting, and I specialize in helping roofing and HVAC business owners like you make confident, profitable decisions.

Whether you're doing $500K or eyeing that next crew to hit $2M+, I’ve helped contractors walk through the numbers and decide if growth makes sense—or if it’ll cost them more than it’s worth.

Now let’s dig into those 5 key factors you need to consider before making the next big hire.

1. Is Your Current Crew Fully Utilized?

It’s easy to assume adding another crew is the answer to being busy.

But if your current team isn’t firing on all cylinders, adding more people can actually make things worse. Here’s the risk:

If you’re dealing with scheduling gaps, wasted drive time, or missed upsell opportunities, you’re probably leaving money on the table. Add another crew too soon and you might just double those inefficiencies—not your profits.
This is where many roofing and HVAC owners slip up: they think more heads equals more money. But unless your existing team is fully utilized and running efficiently, you could end up with bloated payroll and jobs that aren’t getting finished any faster.?

Before you think expansion, ask: are your current techs or installers working at full capacity?

Are your crews running a full schedule 5–6 days a week? For example, I had a client whose crew was only booked out 3.5 days per week. They thought they were slammed, but once we started tracking actual job time vs. gaps, we found nearly a day and a half of unused billable time each week.

Are you seeing gaps in the schedule due to inefficiencies or miscommunication? One HVAC contractor noticed that 20% of his jobs had start delays because of unclear work orders or missing parts. Tightening up internal communication added back 4–5 hours per week in productivity.

Could tighter dispatching or job planning squeeze in more revenue per day? A roofing client adjusted their routing and start times and was able to add one additional small repair job per day. That alone brought in an extra $6K per month with zero added labor.

If your current team isn’t fully maxed out, the smarter move might be optimizing your existing crew first.

Hiring a second crew when the first isn’t running efficiently can just double your problems.

2. Is Your Job Pipeline Consistent?

One busy month doesn’t mean it’ll last.

For example, if your calendar was slammed in May because of a hailstorm or a wave of AC outages, but the following month looks lean, that’s not a consistent pipeline—it’s a seasonal bump.

Hiring a crew based on that one surge could leave you scrambling to find enough work once things calm down.

Have you had 3–6 months of steady leads and booked jobs?

Are your estimates closing at a healthy rate? For example, if you're bidding 20 jobs a month but only landing 5, that's a 25% close rate. If your average job is worth $10,000, you're leaving $150,000 in potential revenue on the table each month. Before hiring another crew, make sure your close rate is strong enough to consistently fill their schedule with profitable work.

Is your backlog stable—or is it just a seasonal spike?

Adding a crew means you need more work, consistently. Whether you serve residential clients needing quick turnaround or commercial clients with larger-scale installs, both rely on reliable scheduling and labor.

Without a predictable pipeline, you could end up with idle labor and payroll you can’t cover—especially if your commercial projects get delayed or your residential leads suddenly dry up.

3. Is Your Cash Flow Stable Enough to Support Growth?

Bringing on a new crew often means fronting money for:

Extra payroll
Equipment and tools
Job materials

Let’s say you hire a 3-person crew and pay $1,500/week per person—that’s $18,000+ in payroll over the first month before you’ve collected on the new jobs they’re doing.

If your cash flow already feels tight, pause here and make sure you have a solid 30–60 day buffer built in.

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4. Do You Know the True Cost of Hiring?

When cash feels good, it’s easy to overspend. So create rules for yourself:

Recruiting: Posting on job boards, phone screens, and interviews can take 5–10 hours and $300–$500 per hire

Background checks: Expect $50–$100 per person depending on how thorough you go

Training: Whether it's ride-alongs or shadowing for the first two weeks, that’s labor you’re paying for before they produce revenue—easily $1,000–$2,000

Payroll taxes: Typically 10–15% of gross wages, so for a $1,500/week worker, that’s an extra $150–$225 weekly

Workers comp: Rates vary, but plan on 5–10% of wages depending on your state and trade class

Gear and uniforms: Outfitting a new crew with boots, safety gear, uniforms, and tools can run $1,000–$1,500 upfront

Hiring a crew isn’t a $4,500/month decision—it’s easily double or more.

That $4,500 figure might sound like just one person’s base wages over a month, but when you’re talking about bringing on a 3-person crew at $1,500/week each, that’s $18,000/month just in payroll.

And that’s before you even factor in taxes, tools, onboarding, and downtime during training. double that when you add up all the hidden costs.

If you’re not clear on your labor burden or total cost per employee, get that dialed in first.

5. Are Your Pricing and Profit Margins Built for Scale?

If your current jobs are only netting 10% profit, adding another crew might just multiply your stress without increasing your take-home.

Are you pricing jobs based on accurate labor and overhead costs? That means knowing exactly how much it costs you per hour to run a job—not just wages, but insurance, fuel, admin time, and equipment wear-and-tear. If your team costs $120/hour to operate but you’re bidding jobs based on $90/hour, you’re eating the difference.

Are you consistently hitting your profit targets per job? For example, if you plan to make a 25% profit on a $12,000 install, are you actually clearing $3,000 after labor, materials, and overhead? Or is that number closer to $800 once everything shakes out?

Do you know your break-even point? That’s the number you need to hit in monthly revenue just to cover all fixed costs (like rent, salaries, and insurance) before you make a dime in profit. If your monthly overhead is $45,000 and your average job nets $2,500, you need at least 18 jobs a month to break even—anything less, and you're losing money.

Scaling only works when your numbers can handle the weight. Otherwise, you’re growing broke.

So... When Is It the Right Time to Expand?

If you can check off the following, you’re probably close: