Every time Victoria Heintzelman hires a technician at Air & Water Mechanical Services in Mesa, she says, “it’s very clear in the conversations we have with them” what happens to anyone who steers a customer into buying something the job doesn’t need. “You will no longer work for us.”
She doesn’t soften the rule. “We do not take pushing on customers for a dime,” she says. Her instructions to anyone who goes out in a truck are short: do the job honestly and well, and look out for the customer’s best interest. As long as they do, she says, the company will take care of them.
The pay is set up to back that rule. Technicians aren’t working on commission alone, and the company describes them as paid by the hour. Heintzelman says that is the point. “They’re not looking for unnecessary work because it doesn’t affect their bottom line.”
The company has served the Phoenix metro area since 2003, from Scottsdale and Chandler to Gilbert and Mesa. Heintzelman’s father bought it around 2020, and she has been there since about 2022, helping him run what she calls the family business. His early years as owner ran straight into COVID, when many people did not want a technician inside their homes and work slowed. “We did survive it,” she says.
Back then the company was better known for plumbing, and the heating and air conditioning side has grown since. Its technicians are NATE-certified and install Trane equipment, and the plumbing work runs down to slab leaks and hydro jetting. One homeowner who had a new Trane split system put in remembered a crew that spent hours in a hot attic and on the roof without stopping for a break.
The hiring rule also shapes who walks in the door. Heintzelman says many of the people who come to work for her have held commission-only jobs or worked for an employer who pushed sales, and left for that reason. “They usually come work with us or find us because that’s not who they want to be.”
Commercial work is what the company has been known for, and Heintzelman says it serves some of the largest property management companies in the state. When those clients explain why they stay, part of the answer is that a person picks up. “It’s not AI answering everything,” she says. Homeowners, a growing share of the work, get the same access. “If you have something that you’re not happy with, you can always get even one of the owners on the phone.”
The technicians already on the trucks have built followings of their own. “A lot of our customers call in and request specific techs because of their relationship with them,” Heintzelman says.