Florida HVAC marketing from Hialeah's January A/C calls to Pensacola's heat pumps

Your license number has to appear in far more places than your website. The board counts a dealer listing you never wrote, and the lettering on your trucks.

Florida requires the license number in advertising, and our HVAC marketing guide covers that rule. What surprises owners is how wide the board reads "advertise". Its advertising definition takes in all of these:

• Business cards, proposals, contracts and jobsite signs
• "any electronic media including Internet sites"
• Phone directories, handbills, billboards and coupon books
• Trade association magazines and classifieds
• "manufacturer's 'authorized dealer' listings, and signs on vehicles."

The dealer listing is the one heating and air companies miss. An equipment brand publishes your profile in its find-a-dealer tool. That profile counts as your ad under the rule, and you probably did not write it. Ask your distributor rep to add the number, then search the tool yourself.

A few things are exempt. The rule leaves out branded giveaways such as hats, shirts, pens and balloons. It also leaves out a free phone directory listing of one to three lines in plain print, showing only the name, address and phone number. That exemption is for the printed phone book. A free Google Business Profile, Yelp page or Angi listing is online media under the same rule, so it carries the number.

Trucks get their own line in Florida's license display law. If a truck carries the company name or artwork that suggests contracting, the number must be "conspicuously and legibly displayed" with it. Nothing makes you letter a truck. But a new wrap without the number is a new violation.

Enforcement starts gently. For a first offense the board issues a notice of noncompliance. It can fine or cite when the problem is not fixed within 30 days, or on a repeat. The same law lets a local government fine an unlicensed person who claims to be licensed. It can also fine someone who claims to be insured when the work is not covered by a general liability or workers' compensation policy. "Licensed and insured" is a statement someone can check.

The homeowner searching in Hialeah and the one searching in Naples want different things. Two Census Bureau tables from the 2024 American Community Survey show why.

Miami-Dade speaks Spanish at home. The Census language table (C16001) counts 67.0% of Miami-Dade residents aged five and over speaking Spanish at home, against 13.9% nationally. That table also counts 33.5% of the county speaking Spanish and rating their English below "very well". In Broward the same table puts Spanish at 29.5% and French, Haitian or Cajun at 7.7%.

For an air conditioning company in those counties, that means four things:

• A separate Spanish campaign on "reparación de aire acondicionado" and its neighbors.
• A Spanish landing page that still shows the CAC or CMC number.
• A Spanish description on the Business Profile.
• Someone who can book the call in Spanish.

A Spanish ad that lands on an English form loses the homeowner at the form.

Seasonal homes on the Gulf coast. Many houses there sit closed for months with the air set back. The Census vacancy table (B25004), set against total units in B25001, counts 24.9% of Collier County's housing units as vacant and held "for seasonal, recreational, or occasional use". The same count puts Lee at 18.1% and Walton, on the Panhandle coast, at 23.2%. Statewide the figure is 7.0%, against 3.0% for the nation and 0.4% in Duval.

UF/IFAS Extension's guide to closing a seasonal home gives owners a short list. Have a professional check the air conditioner before leaving. Clean the condensate line. Set the thermostat no higher than 85°F, because UF/IFAS says indoor humidity climbs past 55 to 60% above that. Start about three weeks before departure.

That gives a shop in Naples, Fort Myers or Walton County two offers a Jacksonville shop has little use for:

• A closing visit, sold in the weeks before owners fly north.
• A reopening visit, booked for the week before they return. It checks the drain line, coil and filter, takes a humidity reading and looks for mildew.

Both go to people already on your customer list. That matters for the texting rules below.

A replacement ad can promise a unit you may not install, or a rebate you cannot give. These checks keep each offer one you can fill.

The efficiency floor. Florida sits in the federal Southeast region. Under the federal efficiency standard, a split condenser rated below 14.3 SEER2 under 45,000 Btu/h "cannot be installed in that region". A clearance price on one is an offer you cannot fill here. The rest of the federal standard is in our HVAC marketing guide.

FPL. FPL's program standards set its rebate at $200 per qualifying unit. It is paid only through Participating Independent Contractors, and FPL decides how many contractors take part. The new system must fully replace the existing electric cooling system, from condenser to coil. Window units and single-zone mini splits are out.

The standards ask for a SEER2 rating at least one point above the federal minimum. FPL's rebate page lists 15.2 and up, so confirm the current figure. The credit must be itemized on the invoice. FPL also says its contractor list "is not a recommendation". If you are not a participating contractor, leave the rebate out of your ads. If you are, never word it as an FPL endorsement.

Duke Energy Florida. Duke runs its own free Home Energy Check, online, by phone or in person. Its June 2025 release says the customer then has 24 months to complete an eligible upgrade, HVAC replacement among them. The fitting line is a question on the quote form: have you done Duke's free Home Energy Check yet? Never word it as a Duke endorsement, or offer to book the check for them.

We could not open Duke's current rebate page to confirm the amounts. Nor could we confirm whether a participating contractor is required. Confirm both with Duke before an ad names a number. Check the terms of Tampa Electric, JEA, OUC or your co-op separately.

PACE. PACE financing can pay for energy-efficient heating, cooling and ventilation systems and permanent generators. They qualify under Florida's PACE law.

Advertising PACE comes with limits. Florida's PACE advertising law bars a contractor from implying PACE is a government assistance program. You may not say work or financing is free or needs no repayment. You may not make any statement about whether the assessment is tax-deductible. You may advertise PACE only while registered with the program administrator. You must quote the same price financed or not, and you may not offer a gift conditioned on signing.

The contract. Two notices may belong in a residential contract. The first is a "FLORIDA HOMEOWNERS' CONSTRUCTION RECOVERY FUND" statement, which Florida's recovery fund law requires in residential contracts over $2,500.

The second applies to a home solicitation sale. That law excludes a sale that results from the buyer's request for specific goods or services. Whether a replacement sold on a repair call fits that exclusion is the question for counsel.

Where the sale does count, Florida's home sale notice law adds a "BUYER'S RIGHT TO CANCEL" notice.

The buyer can then cancel until midnight of the third business day, under Florida's right to cancel law. Saturdays count as business days, but Sundays and federal holidays do not. Your e-sign quote flow should carry both notices where they apply.

Who is on your text list decides the risk. A text to a past customer is treated very differently from a cold one.

The Florida Telephone Solicitation Act counts a text message or voicemail as a "telephonic sales call". Its definition of consumer goods includes property installed in a home and the services that go with it. So a tune-up reminder is a sales message under the act.

• Plan members and past customers. The act does not treat as unsolicited a message to someone with whom you have "a prior or existing business relationship". The same goes for one sent mainly about a contract still being performed. A maintenance plan with visits still owed is both. Keep the plan agreement and service history tied to the number in your software.
• Missed-call replies. A message "in response to an express request of the person called" is also outside the rule. Our reading: a text answering a call the homeowner just placed sits on that side. An automated campaign to the same number months later is a new question.
• Everyone else. Some sales texts go out from an automated system for "the selection and dialing" of numbers. Sent unsolicited, each needs the homeowner's prior express written consent. The consent must name the number and say it is not a condition of purchase. A checked box or a "yes" reply counts as the signature.
• STOP. Since a 2023 change to the law, a homeowner must reply STOP before suing over sales texts. They may sue only if the texts continue 15 days after that. Stop the same minute anyway.

Mistakes add up per message. Under the same act, a homeowner recovers $500 or actual damages per violation. A willful or knowing violation can cost up to three times that, and the side that wins recovers attorney fees.

Timing rules apply too. Florida's telemarketing hours law covers unsolicited sales calls. None may come before 8 a.m. or after 8 p.m. in the called person's time zone. No more than three may come on the same subject in 24 hours. We hold sales texts to the same hours as a precaution.

Watch the time zone line. The western Panhandle, including Pensacola and Panama City, is on Central Time. Tallahassee is on Eastern, because the federal time zone line follows the Apalachicola River.

The same hours law bars unsolicited sales calls to numbers on Florida's own no-sales list. Florida's Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services publishes that list. So a heating and air dialer scrubs against it too. Federal rules sit on top, and the texting and AI answering playbook covers them.