Step by step. Official links included.
This is not legal, tax, or insurance advice. Read the official pages linked here. Partner offers are optional and labeled.
Some older houses have wall furnaces or forced air, and a lot of coastal houses have weak heat or none. Say which you service. Do not promise a January emergency route as if every address had a basement furnace. In San Francisco, the housing decides the visit: Victorians and multi-unit buildings on hills, soft stories, small garages, and a lot of houses that still treat central air as optional. The weather on the truck is marine fog, a mild wet winter, dry summers, almost no freeze, and earthquakes that changed how houses are braced. Sunset, Noe Valley, and Richmond District are worth naming only when they are real stops. Oakland and Daly City are a different drive until you can reach them the same day. San Francisco Department of Building Inspection permits is the local counter to ask when the job needs a permit or a city registration. This page names that office. It does not invent a fee. Oakland and Daly City are not San Francisco permits. Hills, parking, and stairs are part of the price. Write the cities you will actually drive, and do not describe a suburban garage-door route as the default job. Access is the objection. A page that claims the whole Bay without saying which bridge you cross will not get the call from the far side.
Victorians and multi-unit buildings on hills, soft stories, small garages, and a lot of houses that still treat central air as optional marine fog, a mild wet winter, dry summers, almost no freeze, and earthquakes that changed how houses are braced No-heat diagnosis, the repair, and a replacement only after you have seen the furnace. In San Francisco, CA, list Sunset and Daly City together only if one crew really covers both.
Start the route in Sunset, Noe Valley, and Richmond District. Add Oakland and Daly City when you can reach them the same day. Access is the objection. A page that claims the whole Bay without saying which bridge you cross will not get the call from the far side.
The California guide has the filing office and the LLC fee we could verify ($70 to file). This page is the local version: what the first jobs are, which permit counter to call, and how to price a day here.
Some boxes are labeled Partner. ServiceBase has not joined those programs. The links go to each company's own homepage, not a tracking link. If a program later approves us, the address will change and we may earn a commission. You can file, insure, and bank anywhere. Official government links are not partner links. Nothing on this page is a discount code.
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The guide stays public. An account saves your state, city, and trade, and lets you mark each filing as you go. The advertising credit is reserved when you register. It can be spent after the free website is live.
Create a free account to track your progressfurnace repair names that work here are plain. Use one you can spell from a driveway in Sunset.
Search it at the California Secretary of State before you order magnets. The voicemail, the invoice, and the Google profile should use that spelling.
The mechanical or HVAC license is often held by a person who qualifies the company. A sole proprietorship works when that person is you. An LLC works when the board lets the company hold the registration with you as qualifier. Read the mechanical section before you file. An LLC does not let an unlicensed owner pull a permit or buy refrigerant. This page is not legal advice.
California Government Code section 12190 sets the fee for filing articles of organization at $70, and the fee for the statement of information at $20. The Secretary of State's LLC-1 cover sheet also says an LLC may have to pay a minimum $800 tax to the Franchise Tax Board. Read the Franchise Tax Board page before you treat $70 as the whole cost. A sole proprietorship can still be you, under your own name, without this filing. The fee is not a suggestion to form an LLC.
If your customers are in San Francisco, the registered-agent address still has to satisfy California. Read the filing office's rule. A neighbor's kitchen table is not always an acceptable address.
An employer identification number is the business tax ID. The IRS issues it online at no charge and says you never have to pay a company to get one. If you form an LLC, file with the state first. The IRS says an EIN application can stall when the state filing is not done. A sole proprietor can often start with a Social Security number and get an EIN when a bank or a hire requires it.
Apply on the IRS page if you want the number yourself. LegalZoom, the partner beside this step, can request it while they form the company. That service is optional. The IRS fee is still zero either way.
Read the mechanical or HVAC board for the license and who may pull a permit. Ask the city whether a furnace change-out needs one. Say whether boilers are in or out. Refrigerant handling is a separate credential when the job leaves the furnace.
State page: California Contractors State License Board. Read this page for your trade. A city or county can require its own registration even when the state does not.
San Francisco Department of Building Inspection permits is the local counter for work in San Francisco. We are naming that office, not linking a fee schedule we have not read. Call them or open the city's own site and ask what a new furnace repair has to register before the first job in Noe Valley.
The California guide repeats the board link and tells you what we could not verify. Read it before you pay a filing service.
General liability that understands heating equipment. Tell the insurer you open furnaces and, if it is true, that you replace them. A carbon-monoxide claim and a water leak from a coil are the losses to describe. Commercial auto for the van. Workers' compensation before a helper is in an attic or a basement. A property manager will ask for the certificate and the license number together.
Workers' compensation is a state program. Before anyone works with you, including a friend, ask an insurer and the state labor office whether you must carry it. This guide does not quote a headcount, because those rules differ and the state page is the source. The SBA page describes the common policies. It does not sell them. Buy the policy before you work in a house in San Francisco.
No-heat calls pay in smaller checks than a full system, and a replacement pays in a large one. Both belong in a business account, or the big jobs will hide whether the repairs pay the truck. Set tax money aside the day a change-out clears. Parts-house bills should not land on a personal card you sort out in April.
The bank will usually ask for your ID, the EIN or your Social Security number, and the formation papers if you filed an LLC. A checking account and a habit of setting tax money aside are enough at the start.
Treat these as typical planning estimates, not a quote. A diagnosis plus a common part, an ignitor or a flame sensor, is often discussed as a few hundred dollars. A heat exchanger, a blower motor, or a full furnace is a different visit and should not share the number. Write three prices from your own hours: the diagnostic visit, the repair you can finish with stocked parts, and the replacement you will not price until you have seen the equipment.
Attic furnaces, basement furnaces, and boilers do not take the same hour. A price copied from a one-story ranch will miss on a tight closet system. Adjust after ten real no-heat calls. Say on the page that the estimate is a starting point until someone has opened the cabinet.
marine fog, a mild wet winter, dry summers, almost no freeze, and earthquakes that changed how houses are braced Victorians and multi-unit buildings on hills, soft stories, small garages, and a lot of houses that still treat central air as optional That is why a price copied from another metro will miss. No-heat diagnosis, the repair, and a replacement only after you have seen the furnace. In San Francisco, CA, list Sunset and Daly City together only if one crew really covers both.
Write the price you want for the common job in Sunset and the price you want for a far stop in Daly City. If the second number is not worth the drive, leave Daly City off the service area.
Claim the Google Business Profile for San Francisco, CA. Set hours you answer. The service area should list Sunset, Noe Valley, and Richmond District if those are real stops, and it should leave off towns you will not drive.
Ask for a review after a clean job, and ask them to mention the neighborhood and the task. A review that says the work and Oakland helps the next search. A review that says 'great service' does not.
Open the Google Business Profile before the heating season, with the license number and a service area made of towns you can reach when the house is cold. Photos of furnaces you have actually repaired beat a stock cabinet. The website leads with no heat, splits repair from replacement, and says whether you service boilers. The form asks for the symptom, the fuel if they know it, and whether anyone in the house is at risk from the cold. ServiceBase publishes that page and keeps the requests. It does not diagnose the furnace.
When the name and the phone are real, create the free furnace repair site with San Francisco already filled in. Quote requests land in your list. The site does not replace San Francisco Department of Building Inspection permits.
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Signup asks for an email and a password. No card. This guide opens the next step with the trade and city filled in. You can change every line after.
Pick the service you can finish, search the name at the California Secretary of State, get the free EIN from the IRS, read the license page (California Contractors State License Board), call San Francisco Department of Building Inspection permits, insure the work, open a business account, and publish a page that names Sunset and the jobs you want. No-heat diagnosis, the repair, and a replacement only after you have seen the furnace.
Read the mechanical or HVAC board for the license and who may pull a permit. Ask the city whether a furnace change-out needs one. Say whether boilers are in or out. Refrigerant handling is a separate credential when the job leaves the furnace. Start at the California Contractors State License Board. Then ask San Francisco Department of Building Inspection permits what the city adds.
Treat these as typical planning estimates, not a quote. A diagnosis plus a common part, an ignitor or a flame sensor, is often discussed as a few hundred dollars. A heat exchanger, a blower motor, or a full furnace is a different visit and should not share the number. Write three prices from your own hours: the diagnostic visit, the repair you can finish with stocked parts, and the replacement you will not price until you have seen the equipment. marine fog, a mild wet winter, dry summers, almost no freeze, and earthquakes that changed how houses are braced Time the first ten jobs in Sunset and Richmond District before you copy a price from another city.
You can draft it. Put it in public under the name you will actually use, with the phone you answer. If the state requires the license before you advertise the work, wait. The free ServiceBase site does not file the company. Signup can open with furnace repair and San Francisco filled in so you are not retyping them.
California filing and license · Free furnace repair website in San Francisco, CA · All trades in San Francisco, CA
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