Our Methodology (Salary Data)

The BLS publishes wages twice yearly through its Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics program, covering roughly 1.1 million establishments and over 800 occupations. We reference SOC codes 49-9021 and 49-9098 for national, state, and metro percentiles. The tradeoff: a six to nine month lag, and residential and commercial work share the same code, so we focus on high commercial-construction metros to separate them.

Mechanical contractors, facility managers, and industrial clients post 2,400 to 3,200 jobs monthly with stated rates or pay bands. These reflect real-time demand; a Houston petrochemical posting at $48 to $56 per hour in January 2025 shows current rates, not historical averages. We confirm business licenses and company profiles, and exclude ranges wider than 40% of the midpoint unless experience levels are clearly separated.

Licensed techs submit base rate, overtime, total annual pay, experience, and certifications through our survey tool. Between July 2024 and January 2025 we logged 4,872 verified submissions, each confirmed by a state license, EPA 608 number, or employer verification. This captures total take-home including overtime and per diem, but higher earners report more often, so we weight submissions against BLS baselines to correct the bias.

Collective bargaining agreements publish exact scales and benefits. A UA Local 290 journeyman refrigeration mechanic in Portland earns $58.42 per hour plus $32.18 in benefits as of the January 2025 contract. This data is precise but represents only 12% to 15% of the workforce, so we weight it heavily in dense union markets like New York, Chicago, and Seattle, and lower in right-to-work states.

Every figure must appear in at least two independent sources before it publishes. A self-reported $75 per hour for a Memphis chiller tech gets checked against BLS Memphis data and Tennessee employer postings. Single-source points get flagged for manual review, and we reject 8% to 12% of submissions for duplicates, incomplete geography, or unverifiable licenses.

We run interquartile range analysis and review anything below Q1 minus 1.5x IQR or above Q3 plus 1.5x IQR. A building automation tech reporting $120 per hour may be quoting 1099 contract rates, not W-2. Verifiable extremes like prevailing wage or nuclear facility work stay in and get noted; misclassifications get cut. See pay expectations in our salaries by state guide.

We don't adjust raw numbers, but we show real wage value using the C2ER Cost of Living Index and the MIT Living Wage Calculator wherever the gap exceeds 15%. A California tech at $72,000 and a Texas tech at $58,000 can have equivalent real income after housing, taxes, and transportation. This matters most comparing chiller technician jobs in California against the Midwest or South.

We recalculate ranges each quarter, folding in new BLS releases and the prior three months of postings and submissions. Q1 uses the November BLS data; Q3 integrates the May release published in March. Major shifts trigger off-cycle updates, like monthly recalculation during the 2020 construction disruption and accelerated updates through the 2023 to 2024 data center surge.

Our board processes 800 to 1,200 new postings weekly and flags wage deviations as they happen. When 15 or more employers in one market post 10% above our range inside 30 days, we investigate; this caught the 2024 California data center boom six weeks before formal surveys. Falling posting volume and wages flag softening demand, which we saw in some oil and gas markets in late 2024.

Arizona, Texas, Nevada, and Florida drive continuous cooling work, so we oversample them; they employ more commercial techs than population alone would suggest. A Phoenix chiller mechanic faces different conditions and pay than a Portland boiler tech, and the data reflects that.

Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, and the Northeast drive heating work for hospitals, universities, and industrial plants that need year-round support. Union density runs higher here, which raises our weighting of collective bargaining data in these states.

Major metros account for 60% to 70% of commercial HVAC employment while holding 45% of the population. We pull extra data from the 25 largest metro areas, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, Dallas, and Charlotte, where sample sizes support statistically valid ranges.

We collect enhanced data from Gulf Coast petrochemical, Midwest manufacturing, California cold storage, and East Coast pharmaceutical corridors. These sectors demand specialized skills and pay accordingly. See current industrial refrigeration technician positions and HVAC jobs in Texas markets.