I grew up in Lamont. My dad worked the fields and my mom cleaned houses, and by the time I was sixteen I knew I needed a trade. I started as an apprentice in 1992 for a guy named Bill Saunders who ran an HVAC shop on Oak Street. Bill retired in 2005 and I worked for the company that bought him out for two years before I went out on my own.
Why 2007.
I started Renteria HVAC the week our daughter Camila was born. The math at the time was simple: I was about to have a kid, the company I worked for had just been bought by an out-of-state holding outfit, and I didn't like the direction. I had four thousand dollars saved, a used 2002 Ford E-150 cargo van I bought off Bill's lot for thirty-two hundred, and a list of about a dozen homeowners I'd serviced over the prior two years who said they'd call me if I went on my own.
The first six months I worked out of our garage and Maritza answered the phone between her shifts at the hospital. My first new install was a 3-ton single-stage Goodman for a guy in Oildale named Frank who'd been Bill's customer since 1989. Frank paid me in two checks because he wanted to make sure the work held up before I cashed the second one. That's fair. It held up. He still calls me.
The 2002 E-150 is still in the side yard. I haven't driven it in nine years. I keep meaning to sell it.
Maritza.
Maritza answers the phone Monday through Thursday afternoons and Saturday mornings. She handles the scheduling, the invoicing, and most of the talking. She also caught me trying to put a tankless water heater in our own house in 2014 and told me to please call a plumber. That marriage advice has held up.
She worked the night shift at Mercy Hospital for fifteen years before she came home to run the office full-time in 2019. If you call between 1pm and 5pm on a weekday, you're talking to her. She'll have the calendar in front of her and she'll get you on the schedule the right day, not the day she's trying to fill.
Camila.
Our daughter Camila is eighteen and just started at Bakersfield College. She's not going into HVAC — she wants to be a vet — but every summer for the last six years she's ridden along on install days and learned how to fold a sheet of duct insulation correctly. That counts for something.
What I won't do.
I don't subcontract. If you book me, I'm the one showing up. If a job needs two hands, my cousin Beto comes with me — same guy every time. You're not getting a roster of "comfort advisors" who rotate through.
I don't sell stuff you don't need. If your nine-year-old furnace needs a $240 igniter, I'll quote you the igniter. I won't talk you into an $8,400 replacement because the commission is better. The day I start doing that is the day I should sell the business.
I don't do commercial. Strip-mall rooftop units, restaurant kitchens, walk-in coolers — that's a different trade. I'll tell you who to call. Bakersfield Mechanical at (661) 555-0922 is who I refer for commercial.
I don't do after-hours unless we have a real emergency. If your AC is out at 2am in July and it's 96° in the house with a baby, send a text and I'll come. If your AC has been out a day and you can wait until morning, please wait until morning. I'm not running a 24-hour shop and I'm not pretending to.
Why I'm still on my own.
A guy I went to school with sold his shop to Apex last year. He told me he was getting six times revenue and that I was crazy not to take the call. I haven't taken the call.
I like answering my own phone. I like that Donna in Oildale knows it's going to be me when she opens the door. I like that I can fit Frank in on Thursday because I want to, not because the dispatch system in Dallas decided he's a high-margin opportunity. That's worth more than the multiple.
If you've read this far, thank you. Call me anytime.
— Hector
Hector