How to win the replacement job on units you installed

We hear a version of this story every week. It is not one owner. It is the archetype, and it sounds like this: "I've had my hands on a thousand units in this county and I couldn't tell you where one of them is today. The customer's unit finally dies and some other guy gets the $10,000 install I spent ten years setting up."

The work was real. The relationship was real. The record is what went missing.

So the unit runs for years, and then one afternoon it stops. Somebody sells a $10,000 install that day, and after all that time setting it up, it is not always you.

The Replacement Radar is a registry of every unit you have ever installed or serviced, built from your own old invoices. Your techs never fill out a thing. You export your invoice history, which QuickBooks, Jobber, and Housecall Pro all do free, and after one two-hour screen-share in week one the registry holds years of units.

Then it grows itself. Your invoice feed carries model and serial on most installs and many repairs, so the book fills in with zero behavior change from your crew. Jobs missing unit data get a reply-with-a-photo nudge. Worst case for a tech is one picture of the nameplate sticker, the same photo they already take, and if you want more coverage you can put a $5-per-nameplate bounty on it.

Ages come from serial numbers, read against a rules table we built by hand, brand by brand, because Carrier, Goodman, Rheem, Trane, and the rest all encode dates differently. Anything the rules cannot parse is flagged age unknown, to be confirmed on the next visit, and is never scored or pitched. A replacement pitch fired at a four-year-old unit would cost you a customer, so guessing is banned by written rule, one of the 51 written operating guardrails our machines run under.

On the first Monday of the month your aging units land ranked, each with a one-tap send-proposal button and the proposal already written. Every proposal stays a draft until you approve it. Your tap is the only send button. There is no dashboard to log into, just one email you can read in the truck, with a units-added-this-week line so you watch the book grow.

The Warranty Countdown is the add-on. At night, while the trucks are parked, a scan finds parts warranties closing in 90 and 30 days, and letters go out in weekly batches you approve, each carrying a booking link back to you. The exact 'your parts warranty ends on this date' wording goes only where your own records show you installed and registered the unit. Everyone else gets honest age-window wording: units your age typically leave parts coverage between years 5 and 10, so bring your paperwork and we check it on the visit. A letter saying your parts stop being free next month is a favor. It is the opposite of the $1,800-compressor phone call nobody wants to make.

The price is printed. The Radar is $1,497 setup and $349 a month. The Countdown adds $497 setup and $299 a month, and it is sold as an add-on only.

One changeout off the list is $3,000 gross, a $10,000 install at 30% margin. Year one on the Radar is the $1,497 setup plus 12 months at $349, which is $4,188, so $5,685 all-in. Break-even is 2 changeouts, $6,000 against $5,685. At 3 in year one it is $9,000 against $5,685.

Only proposal-triggered installs count on that tally, which is the honest way to keep score, because every install on it was headed to some other company. Add the Countdown and year one costs $497 plus 12 months at $299, which is $4,085 more.

The backfill is the work of week one, and it runs on your invoice history. If there is nothing to export, there is nothing to build the registry from, and that is the thing to fix first.

If you want a pitch on every unit in the book, this is the wrong machine. Units the rules cannot age are flagged and left alone until a tech confirms them on a visit. Warranty letters work the same way: exact dates go only where your records prove you installed and registered the unit, and everyone else gets the age-window wording.

If you want something that sends while you sleep, no. Proposals are drafts until you approve them, and a batch you do not approve never mails.

And you cannot buy the Warranty Countdown by itself. Sold alone it carries a hidden $1,497 asterisk, because it needs the registry to know whose warranty is ending. The Radar builds the book, the Countdown works it, and it is priced as the add-on it is.

You already did the work. The units are out there, and you have had your hands on every one of them. The only thing missing was the list.

The registry is backfilled in week one from invoices you already have, your first ranked board lands the first Monday of the month, and every send is your tap. You own every account and login. The price is printed above, and the math above is break-even math, not a best case.