This Is Not a Florida Consultant Reaching Into Georgia.
Leonard Jordan spent 28 of his 34+ HVAC years working in Atlanta.
Most national coaching organizations will happily sell a Georgia contractor a program written in Minnesota, Washington State or New Jersey. It will be competent. It will also be generic, because the people who wrote it have never carried a Georgia payroll through a February freeze or watched a metro Atlanta board fall apart on a Friday afternoon.
Leonard ran in that market for 28 years. He knows the equipment mix, the winter call pattern, the traffic, the competitors, and what Georgia customers expect. For Georgia owners, that is the difference between advice and recognition.
Leonard spent 28 of his 34+ HVAC years in Atlanta. He did not study this market — he ran in it. He knows what a February no-heat week does to a board, why an Atlanta equipment mix is nothing like Florida's, and what it costs to move a truck across the metro at 4:30 on a Friday. He started his first HVAC company from scratch in 1993 and has built, scaled and sold companies since. For Georgia owners, this is not a consultant reaching into a new market. It is somebody coming home.
Georgia Is Roughly Half Gas. Florida Is Almost All Heat Pump.
This single difference quietly reshapes your price book, your truck, your training and your hiring.
What It Does to Your Price Book
A market that is half gas needs a genuinely different task list: heat exchangers, gas valves, ignition systems, flue and venting, combustion analysis. If you imported a price book built for an all-heat-pump market, half your Georgia work is priced by somebody who never did it.
What It Does to Your Truck
Truck stock for a 50/50 market is not truck stock for a 95% heat pump market. Getting this wrong shows up as second trips — unbilled drive time, a frustrated customer, and a technician who could have closed on the first visit.
What It Does to Your Hiring
A technician trained entirely on heat pumps is not automatically a furnace technician. Combustion, venting and gas safety are their own competencies. Your skills matrix and your wage ladder both have to account for it.
What It Does to Your Sales Conversation
Dual-fuel exists as a real option in Georgia and effectively does not in Central Florida. That is another rung on the good-better-best ladder — and options are the single strongest verified lever on close rate and premium mix.
Two Real Seasons — and the Heating Side Is the Bigger One
Read that as an operator. Atlanta carries roughly 4.8 times Orlando's heating load — and Atlanta's 2,531 heating degree days actually exceed its 2,051 cooling degree days. Heating is not a shoulder business in Georgia. It is half the year, and it deserves half the plan.
Two Demand Peaks, Two On-Call Rotations
Atlanta averages 35.7 nights at or below freezing. Orlando averages 1.6. That is a genuine winter emergency season you have to staff, pay for, and protect your best technician from burning out in.
A Maintenance Agreement Worth Its Price
With a real heating season, the fall visit has genuine value and a genuinely different scope. Two visits, two checklists, two conversations. In Georgia that agreement sells itself — if your technicians know how to frame it.
A Shorter, Sharper Summer
Atlanta sees 47.1 days at or above 90°F against Orlando's 109.9. Your cooling peak is more compressed, which changes capacity planning, overtime budgeting and how hard you push shoulder-season maintenance.
Your License Class Is a Revenue Ceiling
Most Georgia licensing content explains how to pass the exam. None of it explains what the class does to your addressable market.
| Class | What Georgia Says | What It Means for Your Revenue |
|---|---|---|
| Class I — Restricted | "Class 1 restricted = systems not exceeding 175,000 BTU of heating and 60,000 BTU of cooling." | 60,000 BTU of cooling is exactly 5 tons. You are capped at a five-ton system by law. Most light-commercial rooftop work is unbiddable — not for lack of skill, but because the license says no. |
| Class II — Non-Restricted | No BTU cap. | Light commercial, larger residential, multifamily and small package units all become biddable. This is the single largest addressable-market change available to a Georgia contractor. |
| Application fee | $110 for licensure by examination — Restricted or Non-Restricted. | The fee is never the barrier. The experience requirement and the planning runway are. |
| Reinstatement | $310 for a lapsed license. | Cheap insurance. Put renewal on a calendar with a name attached to it. |
| Surety bond | No bond requirement appears in the Secretary of State’s Conditioned Air guidance. | Third-party sites publish Georgia bond figures we could not confirm at the source, so we publish none. Verify with the board. |
If you hold Class I, run this before you dismiss the upgrade: what percentage of the jobs you turned down last year were over five tons? Multiply that by your average commercial ticket and your close rate.
For a lot of Georgia shops that number is larger than a year of coaching, a year of advertising and the exam fee combined — and it has been sitting there invisible because nobody ever measured it.
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.
Georgia Is Big Enough to Matter
Atlanta alone employs 7,060 HVACR technicians. Orlando — where JordanWORX is headquartered — employs 5,140. Metro Atlanta is roughly 37% larger than the market we work in every day, and it is the market Leonard spent 28 years in.
Frequently Asked Questions
Has JordanWORX actually worked in the Georgia market?
For 28 years. Leonard Jordan spent 28 of his 34+ HVAC years working in Atlanta before building JordanWORX out of Orlando. That is not market research — that is a career. He has run Georgia trucks through Georgia winters, priced Georgia jobs against Georgia competitors, and hired Georgia technicians. For Georgia owners, this is the rare case of a coach who already knows your market from the inside.
What is the difference between a Class I and Class II Conditioned Air license in Georgia?
The Georgia Secretary of State defines the restricted license plainly: "Class 1 restricted = systems not exceeding 175,000 BTU of heating and 60,000 BTU of cooling." Class II (Non-Restricted) carries no BTU cap.
Here is what matters commercially: 60,000 BTU of cooling is exactly five tons. A Class I holder is capped at a five-ton system by law — which puts most light-commercial rooftop work out of reach, not because of skill but because of the license. That is a revenue ceiling written into a license class, and almost nobody frames it that way.
How much does a Georgia Conditioned Air Contractor license cost?
The Georgia Secretary of State lists a $110 application fee for licensure by examination — Restricted or Non-Restricted — and a $310 reinstatement fee for a lapsed license. We deliberately publish no surety bond figure: no bond requirement appears anywhere in the Secretary of State's Conditioned Air guidance, despite bond amounts circulating on third-party sites. Confirm current fees on the official fee schedule.
How is running an HVAC company in Georgia different from Florida?
Two things, and both are large. First, the heating load. NOAA's 1991–2020 normals show Atlanta at 2,531 heating degree days against Orlando's 525 — roughly 4.8 times the heating demand. Atlanta averages 35.7 nights at or below freezing; Orlando averages 1.6. Atlanta actually records more heating degree days than cooling degree days.
Second, the equipment mix. From 28 years operating in that market, Leonard puts metro Atlanta at roughly 50/50 gas furnaces to heat pumps. Central Florida runs closer to 95% heat pumps. That one difference reshapes your price book, your truck stock, your training plan and your hiring profile.
Do you work with Georgia owners outside Atlanta?
Yes — Savannah, Augusta, Columbus, Macon, Athens, Gainesville and across the state, plus the whole metro: Marietta, Alpharetta, Roswell, Sandy Springs, Decatur, Lawrenceville and Douglasville. JordanWORX is headquartered in Orlando and works with Georgia owners remotely and on-site. Call (321) 534-8700.
Do you give advice on Georgia licensing or code?
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 Georgia Secretary of State directly.