Birmingham pairs the wettest air of any market we serve — 56.62 inches a year — with more freezing nights than Atlanta. It records more heating degree days than cooling degree days. Anyone planning it as a warm-weather cooling market has the year wrong.
Birmingham employs 2,370 HVACR technicians of Alabama's 8,260. We are not going to inflate that — it is a smaller market than Orlando or Atlanta. What smaller markets usually mean is fewer competitors running real systems, and that cuts in favor of the owner who decides to build them.
| NOAA 1991–2020 Normal | This Market | Orlando, FL | What It Changes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Annual precipitation | 56.62 in | 51.45 in | The wettest market we work in — wetter than Houston or Atlanta. Latent load is the design problem. |
| Nights at or below 32°F | 47.0 | 1.6 | More freezing nights than Atlanta. A genuine winter emergency season to staff and pay for. |
| Heating degree days (base 65°F) | 2,533.4 | 524.9 | About 4.8× Orlando. Birmingham records more heating than cooling degree days. |
| Cooling degree days (base 65°F) | 2,177.0 | 3,451.6 | A shorter cooling season than Florida. Your revenue is genuinely split across two seasons. |
| Days at or above 90°F | 65.0 | 109.9 | A milder summer peak — which makes the heating side matter proportionally more. |
Source: NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Climate Normals 1991–2020 (annual/seasonal), retrieved from the NCEI data service. Degree days are base 65°F. ncei.noaa.gov
Very few markets in the country pair 56.62 inches of rain with 47 freezing nights. That combination means you need genuine competence on the humidity side and a real heating operation — and it makes a two-visit maintenance agreement, with two genuinely different scopes, one of the strongest products you can sell in this market.
JordanWORX is headquartered in Orlando, Florida. We work with Birmingham and central Alabama owners remotely and on-site. We are not going to invent a local office or a local phone number to look like something we are not.
Birmingham shares Florida’s Hot-Humid Southeast, so the latent-load playbook and the labor-market realities transfer well. The winter does not — and we build for that with your numbers rather than a template.
For context: the largest names in HVAC coaching run out of Washington State, Minnesota and New Jersey and sell nationally. Remote-delivered coaching is the norm in this industry, not the exception.
Every licensing figure on this page came from the state board’s own website or its official application document. Every employment number came from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Every climate figure came from NOAA. Where a number could not be confirmed at the primary source, we left it out rather than repeat it.
Licensing rules change. Confirm current requirements directly with the board before making a business decision. JordanWORX provides business guidance — not legal, licensing, or regulatory advice.
BLS OEWS reported 2,370 HVACR mechanics and installers employed in the Birmingham metro area as of May 2025, out of 8,260 statewide. It is Alabama's largest HVAC market — and we will say plainly that it is smaller than Orlando (5,140) or Atlanta (7,060). Smaller markets often mean fewer competitors running real systems, which is an advantage for the owner who builds them.
By one measure that matters, yes. NOAA's 1991–2020 normals show Birmingham averaging 47.0 nights at or below freezing per year against Atlanta's 35.7. Birmingham also records slightly more heating degree days (2,533 versus 2,531). Anyone who assumes Alabama is simply a warm-weather cooling market is planning the year wrong.
Humidity. At 56.62 inches of annual precipitation, Birmingham is the wettest market we work in — wetter than Houston (51.84), Orlando (51.45) and Atlanta (50.43). That makes correct sizing, dehumidification and indoor air quality genuine revenue lines. One caution specific to Alabama: the state's rules extend certification requirements to duct cleaning and filter replacement, so confirm your certification covers an IAQ add-on before you launch it.
No. Unlike Georgia (Class I stops at five tons of cooling) and Texas (Class B stops at 25 tons), Alabama's HACR categories are not split by BTU or tonnage. Growing into larger work is an operational and capital decision here, not a licensing project. Full Alabama licensing breakdown →
No — and be careful with anyone who does. We are business builders, not attorneys or license consultants. What we do is help you understand what a license class means economically: what work it lets you bid, what it locks you out of, and what upgrading would be worth in revenue. For the application itself, go to the Alabama HACR Board directly.
Fifteen minutes with Leonard. Tell him where you are stuck. He will tell you straight what is really holding the business back.
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