Occupation / job
Heating, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration Mechanics and Installers
Median annual pay. Half earn less than this.
Hourly at a standard 2,080-hour year. We do not yet have unpaid-time or cost data for this, so this is not an adjusted figure.
The middle half. A quarter earn below this range.
Source: BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025 · view
What this figure cannot tell you
It covers people EMPLOYED in this occupation. Anyone who trained for it and was never hired is not in the median above, and neither is anyone doing the work self-employed. No verified count of qualified people exists for this occupation, so this page shows none rather than an estimate. Why that matters · The occupations where we could source it
Who this suits
The $61,010 midpoint sits $5.28 an hour above the $50,020 typical American job. That is a 22% premium, and premiums are rationed: whatever rations this one is the thing standing between you and Heating, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration Mechanics and Installers.
409,670 people do this work. An occupation this large has a published, well-known going rate — which means less scope to be underpaid and less scope to negotiate above it.
These maintenance roles suit diagnosticians: people who enjoy finding out why something failed and are unbothered by being called when it is already broken and someone is already angry.
No verified preparation time is on file for Heating, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration Mechanics and Installers. The wage survey behind every figure on this page asks employers what they pay, not what they required, so the honest answer here is that we do not know.
Who should not do this
$48,360 to $77,060 — 1.6x, or $2,391 a month between the quarters. An unremarkable spread, which means the useful planning number for Heating, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration Mechanics and Installers is the bottom of it rather than the middle.
At $48,360, or $23.25 an hour, the bottom quarter of this work lands within $1,660 of the $50,020 all-occupation midpoint — an unusually solid floor.
Avoid it if you would find it demoralising to arrive only when something has already failed.
There is no failure rate on this page because there is nothing honest to divide by. BLS counted 409,670 people employed as Heating, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration Mechanics and Installers; it did not count the people who trained for it and are doing something else, and a rate built without that denominator would be a number we made up.
What the spread tells you
1.6x between $48,360 and $77,060 is the ordinary shape of an occupation where experience and region both matter and neither dominates. $61,010 is a fair expectation by mid-career, not on day one.
The middle half of this field earns between $48,360 and $77,060. That is $28,700 of range, with $61,010 sitting inside it as the point half the field is above and half below.
Getting to $77,060, the 75th percentile, is worth $16,050 a year more than the $61,010 midpoint and $28,700 more than the $48,360 a quarter of Heating, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration Mechanics and Installers settle for.
From $61,010 it is $12,650 down to the bottom quarter and $16,050 up to the top. The upper half of the range is the longer one, which is the ordinary shape for work where experience compounds.
On a 2,080-hour year the midpoint for Heating, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration Mechanics and Installers is $29.33 an hour. The quarters sit at $23.25 and $37.04, and the all-occupation midpoint at $24.04.
What these figures are, and what they are not
The $61,010 figure is what employers pay employees. It is before tax and before deductions, it excludes the self-employed entirely, and it says nothing about anyone who does this work on their own account.
The hourly number on this page is $61,010 divided by a 2,080-hour year and nothing more. We hold no unpaid-hours or cost data for Heating, Air Conditioning, and Refrigeration Mechanics and Installers, so it is arithmetic rather than an effective rate.
How this is calculated · Self-employment failure rates · What credentials cost and pay back · Look up something else