Bryan Orr’s technician-first education platform, built inside a family HVAC contracting business, is recognized among the trades’ most trusted voices, alongside giants of home-service business media
TAMPA, Fla. – August 11, 2026, HG HomeClub, a national media platform dedicated to curating the most valuable stories, rankings and resources for the home improvement, home services and outdoor living industries, today announced that HVAC School, the technical training podcast hosted by Bryan Orr, has been named the No. 10 most influential podcast serving home improvement, home services and outdoor living professionals. The recognition places HVAC School alongside some of the best-known business podcasts in the trades, and marks it as the highest-ranked purely technical education show on HG HomeClub’s list.
A curated media platform built on “informed transparency” chooses the podcasts that actually move the trades forward
HG HomeClub was created to address a gap its founders identified in home improvement media: too much noise, not enough signal. According to the organization’s own description of its mission, HG HomeClub was “created from identifying a need in the home improvement media space to champion media back to its original purpose of ‘informed transparency.'” The platform pursues that mission by curating the top stories, headlines and “can’t miss” information across the home improvement, home services and outdoor living industries, spanning articles, videos, podcasts, webinars, events and product recommendations from working professionals, in one easily consumable destination for homeowners and contractors alike.
That mission extends to original editorial rankings, including HG HomeClub’s list of the 25 most influential podcasts serving contractors and home-service business owners. Rather than ranking shows purely by download counts, figures that are inconsistently reported and rarely independently verified across the podcast industry, HG HomeClub’s editorial team evaluated each show on practical value to contractors, industry influence and recognition, the credibility of hosts and guests, depth and originality, consistency and longevity, and reach across audio, video, social media and industry events. The result is a list that recognizes shows built around rapid business growth and multi-location acquisitions right alongside shows built around a single, disciplined mission: making technicians measurably better at their craft.
Why a technical training show earned a spot among the industry’s biggest business podcasts
Most of the podcasts on HG HomeClub’s top 25 are built for owners, operators and executives, shows about scaling companies, recruiting technicians, running marketing campaigns and preparing a business for sale. HVAC School is different. It exists to make the individual technician better at diagnosing, repairing and understanding the systems they work on every day, and HG HomeClub’s editorial assessment credits that focus as exactly what makes the show essential: exceptional technical depth, strong credibility among working HVAC professionals, a large educational archive and practical, field-ready diagnostics content that few other shows in the category attempt, let alone sustain at scale.
HVAC School’s core achievement, in the view of the trade press that has covered it for years, has been shifting technical knowledge away from manufacturer gatekeeping and putting practical, field-tested diagnostics directly into technicians’ hands. For decades, a technician’s primary source of ongoing technical education was often whatever a manufacturer’s sales representative chose to share. HVAC School built an alternative: free, independent, technician-generated training available on demand, in the truck, on the roof or in the mechanical room.
Twice-weekly training that fits in a technician’s truck: the show’s format and reach
HVAC School, officially branded “HVAC School – For Techs, By Techs” began as a podcast in 2015 and has grown into a comprehensive, multi-platform educational ecosystem. In an interview with Amplifi Media chief executive Steve Goldstein, Bryan Orr described exactly why the format resonated so quickly with its intended audience.
“I made a podcast for a career resource center in Central Florida,” Orr said, describing the show’s origin. “I loved it and realized I’ve got to make a business out of this. It made the most sense to take the content I was already producing for my business and put it into a podcast. I created the HVAC School Podcast, and the response was immediate. It was fierce, and people loved it. Technicians have a lot of window time, they really responded to it,” he told Amplifi Media. “Over time, I started a website, created a mobile app, created a YouTube channel, social media platforms, groups, all that kind of stuff. And that has now become a whole community.”
That “window time” insight, the recognition that HVAC and refrigeration technicians spend enormous stretches of the workday driving between calls, sitting on rooftops or waiting on parts, became the engine of the show’s growth. Orr told Podcast Movement that the show quickly became “by far the largest” educational podcast built specifically for the HVAC/R trade, describing his audience relationship in blunt commercial terms: “My sponsors recognize me as one of the best outlets to connect with contractors and technicians.” He added that while the associated YouTube channel draws a larger raw audience, “we find the podcast moves the needle. It’s the most relationship piece of what we do. The podcast listeners are much more connected participants in the community.”
The show now publishes several times weekly and has accumulated an archive that, according to podcast industry trackers including Podchaser, runs into the hundreds of episodes, alongside a long-running back catalog on the official HVAC School Apple Podcasts page. Content spans deep technical dives into subjects such as variable refrigerant flow, commercial refrigeration rack commissioning, evacuation science and vacuum troubleshooting; shorter “tech tip” segments on fundamentals like the core diagnostic differentials of pressure, temperature, voltage and humidity; and scannable written tech tips on electrical diagrams, code calculations and diagnostic math on the HVAC School website. A companion mobile app gives field technicians built-in calculators for superheat, subcooling and duct sizing they once had to work out by hand or from a laminated pocket card.
An audience measured in the hundreds of thousands, and a business model built on trust rather than mass reach
HVAC School’s YouTube channel has become one of the trade’s largest video destinations, with a subscriber base that industry trackers have placed in the high hundreds of thousands and tens of millions of lifetime views. That scale is unusual for a niche trade education channel, and Orr has been candid about why sponsors pay a premium to reach that specific audience rather than a mass-market one. “The way you get big sponsors in a niche is you’re just the best option,” he told Amplifi Media. “It’s nothing like the mass market paying CPM. They’re used to spending money in really inefficient ways. It’s very expensive to reach the right people. They’re paying to reach technicians and contractors because they are valuable users.”
That sponsor relationship has attracted some of the biggest names in HVAC manufacturing and tools, including Carrier and NAVAC, who value direct access to working technicians rather than a general consumer audience. But Orr has drawn a clear editorial line about what that sponsorship buys. “It’s all about relationships,” he said. “We develop long-term relationships with these people. We provide them with feedback, and they give us products in the early stages. There are many cases where I’ll tell brands that I won’t speak about certain things, or I won’t promote certain things that I don’t believe in, to ensure that we’re always honoring the audience and the trust they place in us.”
That trust has translated into measurable industry influence beyond advertising. Trade publications have repeatedly pointed to HVAC School as part of a broader shift that has upended the old top-down information model in which manufacturers’ sales representatives were technicians’ primary, sometimes only, resource for ongoing technical education. Instead, technicians increasingly turn first to independent, peer-generated training built by people who are still, in Orr’s case, actively running service calls.
Built inside a working HVAC company: how Kalos Services shaped the show’s credibility
HVAC School’s authority in the trade is inseparable from the fact that it was built inside an active, working HVAC contracting business rather than launched as a stand-alone media venture. Bryan Orr co-founded Kalos Services, a full-service HVAC, electrical, plumbing and pool-heating contractor based in Clermont, Florida, in 2006 at the age of 23, alongside his father and uncle. Kalos Services has since grown into one of Central Florida’s most established residential and commercial service providers, offering HVAC, electrical, plumbing, refrigeration, pool heating and general contracting across the region, and the company describes itself as family owned and operated for more than two decades.
Orr’s path into the trade started young. According to his HVAC School biography, he began as an electrical apprentice at 15, was working as an HVAC technician by 18, and co-founded Kalos Services five years later. “My world was always hands-on,” Orr has said of that period, on his personal website. “From animals with Mom and aircraft with Grandpa to electrical theory with Dad… Curiosity wasn’t just a trait; it was my launchpad.” That grounding in the physical, diagnostic reality of the trade is precisely what industry observers point to when explaining why working technicians trust the content HVAC School produces.
Orr remains an active operator at Kalos Services even as HVAC School has grown into a national platform, a dual role he has described as central to keeping the training credible. “HVAC School wasn’t just a podcast; it became a global classroom,” he has said, describing his own motivation as one of the clearest throughlines of his career: “I found my passion in sharing knowledge, sparking discussions, and using audio to elevate the skilled trades.” He has also written about the discipline of running both a service company and a media platform simultaneously in his book, “Unconformed: An Unbound and Unbridled Path to Unstuck Growth,” which he has called “my manifesto against stagnation… a guide to carving your own path and embracing ‘unstuckable’ growth.”
An industry that keeps recognizing the work: awards, honors and the trades’ own vote of confidence
HVAC School’s influence has been formally recognized well beyond HG HomeClub’s new ranking. In 2025, Orr received the Rob Falke Servant Leadership Award at the National Comfort Institute Summit, an honor named for the late NCI president and given to contractors distinguished by mentorship and humility rather than sales numbers. Presenting the award, NCI’s Dominick Guarino told the audience: “I’ve known our winner for just a few years, but I can’t think of many in our industry that deserve this award more. He runs his company with the heart and spirit of a true servant leader, and inspires excellence in his many employees every day. But his servant leadership doesn’t start there. More than 13 years ago, Bryan started a free online training program for HVAC technicians, adding a podcast channel, and eventually an annual conference focused on HVAC and Home Performance.”
That same recognition speech also disclosed a newer chapter in Orr’s work: “Just this year, he and his wife started a non-profit foundation focused on educating grade school students about the trades with hands-on camps,” Guarino said, a reference to the GRIT Foundation, which Orr co-founded to provide financial assistance, educational resources and community support for people and families in the skilled trades, along with programs designed to introduce young people to trade careers.
The trade’s own award ecosystem has continued to spotlight the community HVAC School helped build. The HVAC Tactical Awards, presented in connection with the industry’s flagship AHR Expo trade show, annually recognize a Podcast of the Year and a Mentor of the Year, categories that did not meaningfully exist as formal, trade-wide recognitions before creators like Orr demonstrated that technical education content could command an audience large enough, and loyal enough, to warrant its own awards program. Orr has become a fixture at the AHR Expo itself, by his own account in the Amplifi Media interview, “the world’s biggest HVAC trade show,” where he has served for several consecutive years as “their go-to moderator for leadership panels and teaching,” while also helping the show set up a dedicated podcast pavilion at the event.
Guests who define the frontier of HVAC/R expertise appear on the show regularly
Part of what distinguishes HVAC School from a one-person lecture series is its roster of recurring expert guests, each recognized as an authority in a specific technical niche. Jim Bergmann, president of measureQuick, has appeared to discuss data-driven system commissioning and diagnostic tool integration, reflecting his role pioneering measurement-based HVAC diagnostics. Trevor Matthews, founder of Refrigeration Mentor, has joined to discuss advanced commercial refrigeration and compressor diagnostics, drawing on training programs built to close the refrigeration industry’s skills gap. Ty Branaman, the HVAC educator behind Love2HVAC and a past HVAC Tactical Awards honoree, has contributed his perspective on teaching methodology and mentoring newer technicians. Brett Wetzel, host of the Advanced Refrigeration Podcast and a specialist in supermarket and heavy commercial refrigeration systems, has brought his expertise in large-scale rack systems to the show’s audience as well.
That guest list reflects a broader pattern: rather than chasing celebrity crossover appeal, HVAC School has built its credibility by consistently featuring the specific practitioners who are, in narrow technical lanes, the most knowledgeable people in the trade. The show has also crossed over into mainstream home-improvement media on occasion, Orr has interviewed Richard Trethewey of the long-running PBS program “This Old House” in a live session at the HVACR Training Symposium, a rare moment of direct connection between the technical trade-education world and one of the most recognized home-improvement brands in American broadcast television.
The symposium that turned a podcast into an annual gathering place for the trade
Perhaps the clearest evidence of HVAC School’s reach beyond the podcast feed itself is the HVACR Training Symposium, an annual event that has grown from a modest classroom gathering into a multi-stage, in-person and virtual conference. The event pairs classroom-style technical theory sessions with hands-on labs, giving technicians a chance to physically work through diagnostics they might otherwise only hear described on a podcast episode. The 6th Annual HVACR Training Symposium, held February 6 – 7, 2025, at the Ocoee Lakeshore Center in Ocoee, Florida, ran three simultaneous stages of programming, with sessions ranging from AC/DC and PWM communication methods to heat pump utility program savings to a session led by Orr himself titled “10 Things I’ve Learned in the Last 10 Years.” As of mid-2026, HVAC School has announced that tickets are on sale for its 8th annual symposium, reflecting the event’s continued year-over-year growth.
The symposium has also become a venue where the show tackles subjects with real regulatory stakes. In late 2023, as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finalized its rule restricting hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants under the AIM Act, Orr and fellow HVAC School contributors hosted a livestream, and later a symposium session, specifically explaining the refrigerant phase-down rule to technicians who would otherwise have had to interpret dense federal rulemaking language on their own, walking through installation deadlines, sell-through periods and leak-repair requirements in plain, practical terms.
A methodology built to reward substance over scale, and why that matters for HVAC School’s ranking
HG HomeClub’s editorial team has been explicit that its rankings are not simply a measurement of subscriber counts or download totals, in part because reliable, comparable audience figures are rarely made public across the podcast industry. Instead, the organization weighs practical value to contractors, professional influence, host and guest credibility, depth and originality of content, and consistency over time. Under that lens, a show like HVAC School, narrower in subject matter than many of the business-growth podcasts ranked above it, but deeper and more technically rigorous within its lane, earns its position on the caliber and reliability of what it delivers to the professionals who depend on it, not on chasing the broadest possible audience. It is, in that assessment, one of the finest technical podcasts in any contractor category: not attempting to be a leadership or company-growth show like several of the podcasts ranked above it, but instead keeping the individual technician, the person actually turning wrenches and reading gauges on a rooftop, current on the physics, electrical theory and diagnostic methods that determine whether a repair sticks or a callback follows.
What the ranking means for the trade going forward
For an industry facing a well-documented shortage of skilled technicians, the recognition of a show like HVAC School carries meaning beyond a single ranking placement. It signals that the trades’ own information ecosystem – built by working contractors, for working contractors – has matured into something HG HomeClub and other observers now treat as comparable in influence to established, well-funded business media brands.
“HVAC School wasn’t just a podcast; it became a global classroom,” Orr has said of that evolution, a description that captures both the scale the platform has reached and the founding intent that never changed even as the audience grew from a local Central Florida training resource into a destination followed by technicians across the country and beyond.
The complete ranking: HG HomeClub’s 25 most influential podcasts serving home improvement, home services and outdoor living
The full list of shows recognized by HG HomeClub, in ranked order:
- The Home Service Expert – hosted by Tommy Mello
- Owned and Operated – hosted by John Wilson and Jack Carr
- PowerChat – hosted by Greg Cummings
- Contractor Evolution – hosted by Danny Kerr
- Toolbox for the Trades – hosted by Jackie Aubel and Amanda Salvatore
- To The Point: Home Services Podcast – hosted by Chris Yano and Chad Peterman
- Waste No Day – hosted by Brian Burton and Nate Minnich
- Service Business Mastery – hosted by Tersh Blissett and Josh Crouch
- The Wealthy Contractor – hosted by Brian Kaskavalciyan
- HVAC School – hosted by Bryan Orr
- Roofing Success – hosted by Jim Ahlin
- The Strong Roofer – hosted by Adam Bensman
- Remodelers on the Rise – hosted by Kyle Hunt
- Can’t Stop the Growth – hosted by Chad Peterman
- PowerTips Unscripted – hosted by Victoria Downing and Mark Harari
- Contractor Growth Network – hosted by Logan Shinholser
- Hammer & Grind – hosted by Brad Huebner
- Roofing Road Trips – hosted by Heidi J. Ellsworth
- The Green Industry Podcast – hosted by Paul Jemison
- Contractor Fight TV – hosted by Tom Reber
- Pest Control Legends – hosted by Dan Leibrandt
- Profits for Sanity Podcast – hosted by Dominic Caminata
- The Construction Leading Edge – hosted by Todd Dawalt
- The Build Show Podcast – hosted by Matt Risinger
- Modern Craftsman – hosted by Tyler Grace, Nick Schiffer and Johnny Hourihan
About HG HomeClub
HG HomeClub is a national media platform serving the home improvement, home services and outdoor living industries. Created to champion media back to its original purpose of informed transparency, HG HomeClub curates the top stories, headlines, rankings, videos, podcasts, webinars, events and professional recommendations across the industry and presents them in one consolidated, easily consumable destination – helping both homeowners and professionals make better-informed decisions. More information is available at Sources: hghomeclub.com.
About HVAC School
HVAC School, “For Techs, By Techs,” is a free educational platform for HVAC/R (heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration) technicians, founded by Bryan Orr in 2015. The platform includes a twice-weekly podcast, a large video and tech-tip library, a mobile app with field diagnostic calculators, and the annual HVACR Training Symposium. HVAC School is produced in connection with Kalos Services, a full-service HVAC, electrical, plumbing and pool-heating contractor based in Clermont, Florida, which Orr co-founded in 2006. More information is available at Sources: hvacrschool.com.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Who is HG HomeClub?
HG HomeClub is a national media platform focused on the home improvement, home services and outdoor living industries. It was built to curate the most valuable stories, rankings, videos, podcasts and events across those industries in one place, with a stated mission of restoring “informed transparency” to home improvement media, helping both homeowners and professionals make better decisions. More detail on its mission is available on the Sources: HG HomeClub About page.
2. Why did HVAC School rank No. 10 rather than higher or lower on the list?
HG HomeClub’s editorial team evaluates podcasts on practical value to contractors, industry influence, host and guest credibility, depth and originality of content, consistency and longevity, and reach across platforms, not simply subscriber or download counts, which are rarely reported consistently across the podcast industry. HVAC School earned its position because of its exceptional technical depth and credibility among working professionals, even though its focus is narrower than the broader business-leadership and growth-oriented podcasts ranked above it.
3. Who hosts HVAC School, and what is his background?
HVAC School is hosted and founded by Bryan Orr, who began working as an electrical apprentice at 15 and became an HVAC technician at 18, according to his HVAC School biography. He co-founded Kalos Services, a Clermont, Florida-based HVAC, electrical and plumbing contractor, in 2006 at age 23, alongside his father and uncle, and remains its co-owner and president today.
4. What kind of content does HVAC School produce?
The platform produces a twice-weekly podcast covering deep technical subjects such as variable refrigerant flow systems, commercial refrigeration commissioning and vacuum/evacuation troubleshooting; shorter tech-tip segments on diagnostic fundamentals; written articles on electrical diagrams and code calculations; a mobile app with field calculators for superheat and subcooling; and the annual HVACR Training Symposium, which combines classroom sessions with hands-on labs.
5. How large is HVAC School’s audience?
HVAC School has built one of the largest dedicated audiences in HVAC/R trade education, with a YouTube channel that industry trackers have placed in the high hundreds of thousands of subscribers and tens of millions of lifetime views, alongside a podcast archive spanning hundreds of episodes documented on platforms such as Podchaser and Apple Podcasts. Bryan Orr has described the show as, by his account, the largest podcast built specifically for the HVAC/R trade.
6. What is the HVACR Training Symposium?
The HVACR Training Symposium is HVAC School’s annual in-person and virtual conference, combining classroom-style technical sessions with hands-on labs for HVAC/R technicians. The event has grown year over year; its 6th edition took place February 6 – 7, 2025, in Ocoee, Florida, across three simultaneous session stages, and an 8th annual edition has since been announced.
7. Has Bryan Orr or HVAC School received other industry recognition?
Yes. In 2025, Bryan Orr received the Rob Falke Servant Leadership Award from the National Comfort Institute, an honor recognizing contractors distinguished by mentorship and humility. He has also become a regular moderator of leadership panels and training sessions at the AHR Expo, the HVACR industry’s largest annual trade show.
8. What role does Kalos Services play in HVAC School’s credibility?
HVAC School grew directly out of the training content Bryan Orr was already producing inside Kalos Services, the working HVAC contracting business he co-founded in 2006. Because Orr remains an active operator at Kalos rather than a full-time media figure removed from field work, the show’s content is widely regarded by technicians as grounded in real, current field practice rather than theory alone.
9. Where can people listen to or watch HVAC School?
HVAC School is available on its own website at hvacrschool.com, on Apple Podcasts, and on its dedicated YouTube channel, alongside a companion mobile app for field diagnostic calculators.
