When Donna Kreisler opened Affordable Heating and Air in 2024 in Chatsworth, Calif., she and a partner had discussions about software.
Kreisler had favored ServiceTitan through her time as an HVAC consultant, but a partner wanted a software he was more familiar with. Kreisler knew a startup would have to grow quickly, and she soon found she needed to be assertive.
“One of my first steps was to say we needed to move to ServiceTitan,” Kreisler said. “Every company I’ve ever done consulting with, I’ve moved onto ServiceTitan. Even today, I manage one other HVAC company and a home services company, and I put them on ServiceTitan.”
Some two-and-a-half years later, the company has grown from one truck to 50 employees, eight to 10 install crews running daily — pushing to 12 or 15 with her licensed subcontractor network — and a second branch that opened in Simi Valley. The company has accumulated more than 1,200 five-star reviews. Affordable even outgrew its first office so fast it now operates out of three spaces in the same area.
“I feel very, very lucky to be able to provide work for a lot of people,” she said.
That sums up Kreisler’s deeply held conviction: You do well by doing good.
“My vision is that I create something that truly aligns with my heart,” she said. “I want to take care of people. If I have the right people and they're aligned with me, then there's no stopping where we can go. I think that one of the biggest resources that I believe is helping us is ServiceTitan because I think that we use it properly.”
That means recognizing what ServiceTitan can do for a specific business. At Affordable, that means using its pricebook, dispatch board, and detailed data.
“I am always pushing ServiceTitan for what we think we need,” she said. “Reports are one example. I don't think you can manage what you can't measure.”
‘Business is business’
Kreisler did not have HVAC on her career radar as she progressed through various consulting and high-level administrative jobs. In 2016, she was speaking to a women's empowerment group when a woman approached and explained their 30-year-old HVAC business was going nowhere. She asked Kreisler if she could help.
Kreisler's thoughts on consulting in uncharted entities?
"Business is business,” Kreisler said. “Processes are processes, people are people, and I'm always up for a challenge."
Once she dove in, Kreisler said she found little structure, handwritten invoices, an outdated and old-fashioned software, and a reputation so damaged by bad reviews it had lost a Costco partnership. She quickly added ServiceTitan and tightened the focus. It took just three months to start to see “improvement in multiple areas,” she said.
She even got her C20 contractor's license — not because she planned to open her own shop, but to understand the work and help ensure installation crews respected her. Over time, that business grew to $10 million.
Private equity bought the business, and after a short stint with the new owners Kreisler realized she was the only woman among 28 locations and it wasn’t an ideal fit. She left (on good terms) and started consulting full-time in HVAC, helping operators build their shops from scratch.
She enjoyed it, but at a certain point she asked: Why not do it for myself?
That led to the founding of Affordable. Two years and change later, the running joke among her staff is that she promised them a boutique.
“I'm very grateful and blessed things happened very quickly,” she said.
Affordable, stable and consistent
Using Affordable in the name was deliberate. Kreisler had seen equipment pricing that rivals some of the biggest firms in the region, but rather than padding margins, she passed the value to customers while focusing on volume. She's clear-eyed about the math.
"I might make 7%, maybe less than some of the other guys that are selling at 40% higher than I am," she said. "But my teams, we're working all the time. We're very stable and consistent. So it's a strategic decision on where you want to be."
She said March of 2026 was one of the best months she’s seen in her career, and that the first-quarter numbers project a better 2026 than anticipated. She is intentional about having a culture that supports her team, saying one of her foundations is the axiom: “Do things the right way when no one’s looking.”
“I want the team to all have profit share in this business,” she said. “I'd love to open up more shops with them getting percentage profit share.”
Technicians are trained to "leave the home better” than when they entered. Wear booties, protect the floors, treat the customer's space with respect. She employs women technicians and installers and actively recruits more.
“That’s very exciting for me because I truly want to see more women joining the trades,” she said.
And she has her eye on a private trade school, partnered with major distributors, that would train new technicians on real equipment — inverter systems, ultra-low NOx furnaces — alongside on-the-job hours and ServiceTitan.
"Half of it theory, half of it on the job," she said, "and they'd come out ready to go."
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Changing lives, including her own
Kreisler admits she is “a very big ServiceTitan cheerleader.” She has designated Jeremiah Ballew as the in-house expert on the software. Ballew manages custom dashboards built for different management levels, automated permit tagging, and data tracking for every job.
“Everything is managed through ServiceTitan so we can measure it,” Kreisler said.
Kreisler went years as a single mother without alimony, no college degree, and more than a few struggles. None of it stopped her.
“The definition of achievement is not always money for me,” she said. “I'm 57, and my goal would really be how many people I can help and help change their lives.
“I could have given up, and I could have stopped, and I could have been beaten up by life, but I kept going. And I think that's something that I'm very proud of.”
