What Is the Squadron Maintenance Plan?

If you have looked at HVAC maintenance plans from Williams Comfort Air or Mister Quik, you have seen the monthly subscription model: $18 a month, $16.99 a month, cancel anytime (after the annual commitment). Run the math. Williams at $18/month is $216/year. Mister Quik at $16.99/month is $204/year. The Squadron Maintenance Plan is $189/year — a flat one-time payment, no monthly autopay, no contract lock-in. You pay once, you get two tune-ups, and you get the member rate on every service call until renewal.

Here is what that $189 actually covers.

What You Get: Two Tune-Ups Per Year

The Squadron Plan includes one spring AC tune-up and one fall furnace tune-up scheduled at your convenience. These are not cursory filter checks — they are full system inspections that take 45 to 75 minutes each.

Spring AC Tune-Up Checklist

• Refrigerant pressure check (identifies low charge before it kills your compressor)
• Condenser coil cleaning (outdoor unit — removes cottonwood, dirt, and grass clippings that reduce efficiency)
• Electrical connections tightened and inspected (loose connections are the most common cause of capacitor and contactor failure)
• Capacitor tested and measured (a capacitor reading 10% below rated MFD is on its way out)
• Contactor inspected for pitting and arc damage
• Blower motor amperage measured
• Evaporator coil inspected for freeze, dirt, and mold
• Drain pan and condensate line flushed
• Thermostat calibration verified
• Delta T measured (the temperature difference between return and supply air — should be 14 to 22°F)

Fall Furnace Tune-Up Checklist

• Heat exchanger visual inspection (mirror and light — looking for cracks, soot deposits, and rust)
• Combustion analysis (flue gas CO measurement — the actual safety check most contractors skip)
• Burner inspection and cleaning
• Ignitor resistance measurement (hot surface ignitors fail predictably — measuring resistance predicts failure before it happens on a cold night)
• Gas pressure measured at manifold
• Flue draft verified
• Blower wheel inspected and motor amperage measured
• Filter replaced (you provide the filter; we install it)
• Electrical connections tightened
• Safety switch testing (high-limit, pressure switches, rollout switch)
• Thermostat operation confirmed

What You Save: Member Pricing and Priority Access

The tune-up visits are the visible benefit. These are the financial benefits that run all year:

• 15% off all parts and labor on any repair, any service call, any time. No exclusions, no fine print about what qualifies.
• No after-hours surcharge. Non-members pay a premium for evening and weekend emergency calls. Members pay the standard rate. If your AC dies at 9 PM on a Saturday in July, you pay the same rate you would on a Tuesday morning.
• Priority scheduling. During peak season — January cold snaps, July heat waves — we schedule members first. If there is a two-day wait for non-members, members typically get next-day or same-day service.

How $189 Beats the Competition

The math on competing plans in Boone County:

• Williams Comfort Air True Comfort: $18/month = $216/year. Monthly autopay. Requires a 12-month commitment on the standard plan.
• Mister Quik Comfort Club: $16.99/month = $204/year. Monthly autopay. Fine print varies by service type.
• Squadron Maintenance Plan: $189/year. One payment. No monthly charge on your credit card. No contract period.

Beyond the price, the monthly subscription model means you are paying whether you use it or not, and the autopay continues until you remember to cancel. The Squadron Plan renews annually — you decide to renew when we contact you, not because a charge appeared on your statement.

The Real Value: Catching the $150 Part Before It Becomes the $1,500 Repair

Here is the practical argument for any maintenance plan, not just ours.

A run capacitor on a central AC unit costs $85 to $150 to replace. When a failing capacitor is caught on a spring tune-up — reading low MFD on the meter — we swap it before it fails. When a capacitor fails on its own mid-summer, it usually takes the compressor contactor with it, and sometimes damages the compressor start windings. Now you are looking at $400 to $600 in parts and labor instead of $150, or a compressor failure that costs $1,200 to $1,800.

Same logic applies to a hot surface ignitor on a furnace. A cracked ignitor reading out-of-spec resistance on a fall tune-up is a $90 to $140 part swap. An ignitor that fails at midnight on January 14th is a $129 emergency diagnostic plus the part plus labor, plus your family spent a night in a 50-degree house.

The two tune-ups alone, priced at non-member rates ($89 to $129 each), would run $178 to $258. The Squadron Plan includes both tune-ups plus the year-round 15% discount and priority scheduling for $189. The math is not complicated.

Who Should Get It

• Any home with HVAC equipment 5 or more years old. That is when components start showing wear and predictive maintenance starts paying for itself.
• Rental properties. Tenant emergency calls are expensive and disruptive. Priority scheduling and no after-hours surcharge reduce landlord exposure significantly.
• Busy households. If you are not going to remember to schedule a tune-up on your own, the Squadron Plan creates a reminder — we contact you in spring and fall to schedule.
• Homes with older systems (10-plus years). The inspection value goes up as equipment ages. A combustion analysis on a 15-year-old furnace is not optional — it is the difference between a CO problem and a safe winter.

How to Sign Up

Call us at (765) 894-0047. We will take your information, schedule your first tune-up on the spot, and collect the $189 at the time of service. No paperwork, no portal login, no autopay setup. When your year is up, we will call you to renew.

If you are scheduling a repair or diagnostic and want to add the Squadron Plan, we apply it at the time of service — you start getting the 15% discount on that same visit.