Plumbing and electrical
One publisher covers your trade. Your buyer will not accept that as evidence either.
Plumbing and electrical contractors are being acquired by the same platforms buying mechanical services. The buyer wants licensed capacity, recurring service work, and a clean picture of what has been installed and what is still owed on it. The published valuation record for these trades is thin, which is a useful preview of how a buyer will treat any claim that rests on a single source.
The record
What your record already holds.
- Service agreements and recurring maintenance contracts
- Job records, permits, and inspection sign offs
- Master and journeyman licensing, by individual and by jurisdiction
- Warranty terms and outstanding obligations on past work
- Subcontractor agreements and insurance certificates
- Bonding capacity and surety history
- Supplier accounts and pricing agreements
The questions
The questions worth answering.
- “Which permits and inspections are closed out, and which are still open?”
- “Who holds the master licence the business operates under, and what happens if they leave?”
- “How much revenue is recurring service against project work?”
- “What warranty obligations remain on completed installations?”
- “Which subcontractors do we depend on, and are their insurance certificates current?”
- “What is our bonding capacity, and what does the surety rely on?”
Key-person risk
When someone leaves, the reasoning shouldn’t leave with them.
These businesses often operate under one person's master licence, and that person also prices the work and holds the general contractor relationships. A buyer treats that as a single point of failure and prices it. The record either establishes how work was scoped, permitted, and approved, or the answer leaves when that person does.
High-stakes moments
When the record has to answer.
Licence dependency
If the business operates under an individual's licence, a buyer needs to know what happens on a change of control. That question is answered by records and by state rules, not by assurance.
Open permits and inspections
Work that was completed but never closed out is a liability that surfaces during diligence. Finding it first is considerably cheaper than having it found.
General contractor concentration
Where most work comes through a few builders or general contractors, buyers examine how durable those relationships are and whether they are contractual or personal.
The published record
What the sources actually say, and what they do not.
Three independent sources now cover these trades and they do not agree. The advisory band sits above the other two, which are drawn from businesses actually reported sold and from transaction averages, and those two overlap each other closely. The advisory band shares too little with them to count as agreement. The pattern matches what we found elsewhere: figures describing what sellers are told sit above figures describing what businesses actually changed hands for.
2.5x to 4.5x owner earnings plumbing, 2.5x to 4x electrical
CT Acquisitions. Applies to owners with $200,000 to $2,000,000 of owner earnings. verified 5 June 2026.
1.66x to 3.15x owner earnings plumbing, 1.96x to 3.15x electrical and mechanical, the middle half of recorded sales
BizBuySell. Applies to businesses reported sold on BizBuySell, 2021 through 2025. data through 2025.
1.68x to 2.97x owner earnings
Peak Business Valuation. Applies to stated as transaction averages, with no size band given. no date stated.
Verelume does not average these publishers or choose between them. Where they disagree, the disagreement is the finding.
What diligence concentrates on here
- Master licence holder and what happens on a change of control
- Open permits and uninspected completed work
- Recurring service revenue against project work
- Warranty obligations on completed installations
- Subcontractor agreements and current insurance certificates
- General contractor and builder concentration
What Verelume does not do
Verelume does not make engineering judgments, determine code compliance, assess licensing status, or provide legal advice. It helps your team find and understand what your own records say, with the sources attached, and flags where documents conflict or where a claim has no documentation behind it.
Related use cases
See what your plumbing and electrical contractor's record can answer.
Start with a founder-led Diligence Readiness Assessment, Founding price $5,500, with the Verelume platform included. See all three ways to engage.