HVAC leads in Chicago, from public record.
Chicago Department of Buildings published 6,358 permits in the last 90 days, and 774 of them mention work this trade sells into. A service upgrade or major remodel with no mechanical work on record, the capacity is there and the system has not been touched.
Counted with a single aggregate query against Chicago Department of Buildings’s own permit descriptions, dataset ydr8-5enu, when this page was last rebuilt. It is the pool, not the feed: scoring and per-rule exclusions cut it down from here, and what reaches a rep is the part that clears 65.
3 filings worth a call.
These rules run against the words an applicant in Chicago wrote on the form, not against the category the city filed it under. That distinction matters: Chicago Department of Buildings groups a large share of work under "Permit – Express Permit Program", which tells you nothing about the trade it feeds.
HVAC replacement
Direct mechanical permit. Competitive, but scope changes are common once work starts.
Service upgrade, electrification ready
A panel upgrade with no mechanical work is a house that can now take a heat pump and has not.
Remodel needing mechanical
New conditioned floor area almost always needs mechanical work, and the GC has usually not placed it yet.
How do I find hvac leads in Chicago?
Read Chicago Department of Buildings's permit feed daily and filter for the filings that predict your work. A service upgrade or major remodel with no mechanical work on record, the capacity is there and the system has not been touched. EarlyIntent does this automatically and scores each one.
Which Chicago permits matter for hvac?
HVAC replacement, Service upgrade, electrification ready, Remodel needing mechanical. Filings matching none of these are never shown, which is what keeps the feed worth reading.
How fresh is it?
Chicago publishes daily and EarlyIntent reads it daily. The newest record in Chicago Department of Buildings's dataset was dated 2026-09-08 at the last check, 1 days old. A feed with nothing newer than 21 days is pulled from the product rather than served.
How many hvac filings does Chicago produce?
774 in the last 90 days, roughly 60 a week, which is 12% of everything Chicago Department of Buildings filed in the window. That is the pool before scoring: the feed is the part of it that clears 65.
What does a hvac territory in Chicago cost?
A territory is one trade in one geography, and Chicago ZIPs are sold individually. Starter carries three, Pro ten and exclusive, Scale forty. Reading the feed is unmetered; only owner-contact lookups draw down credits, because those are the only part that costs money per record.
Are these leads exclusive?
On Pro and above, yes, no other paying customer receives hvac leads for the same ZIP. It is enforced by a database constraint, so two people cannot be sold the same territory.