Southern Home Services, the Maitland, Florida-based residential HVAC, plumbing, and electrical platform backed by Gryphon Investors, announced on LinkedIn on November 2 that Vanderford Air & Plumbing has joined the company. Vanderford is a second-generation, family-owned HVAC and plumbing business that has served South Houston families for nearly 50 years. Southern Home Services says it is its second Houston-market location, and that Vanderford will keep its local name and customer relationships. Terms were not disclosed.
The asset.
Vanderford Air & Plumbing is based in Dickinson, Texas, on FM 646 in Galveston County, and provides residential heating, air conditioning, and plumbing service. It serves League City, Friendswood, Dickinson, Pearland, Galveston, and South and Southwest Houston. That is the suburban corridor between Houston and the Gulf, where long cooling seasons, humidity, and older housing stock keep service and replacement demand steady.
A company that has been in the same market since 1976 brings what buyers in residential HVAC pay most for: name recognition, a deep base of repeat customers, and technicians who know the local housing. Southern Home Services is keeping the Vanderford name, though not every brand in its network survives: in August, its Presidential Heating & Air Conditioning company acquired Shipley and folded it into the Presidential brand.
The buyer.
Southern Home Services has been majority owned by Gryphon Investors since October 2021 and has grown by adding local residential brands across the Southeast and beyond. In May it expanded into Richmond with Blazer Heating, Air & Plumbing. It entered Houston in October 2025 with Nick’s Plumbing & Air Conditioning, and Vanderford is its second location there.
Filling in a market, not planting a flag.
The structural point is that this is a second deal in a city the platform already entered. The first acquisition in a new metro establishes a beachhead. The second is about density: more trucks in overlapping zip codes, shared recruiting and training, purchasing leverage on equipment, and a bigger marketing budget spread over more service calls. Vanderford’s footprint south of the city toward Galveston adds coverage of suburbs rather than duplicating the core.
Houston is one of the largest residential HVAC markets in the country, and sponsor-backed platforms have been building positions there for several years. Expect Southern Home Services to keep adding local brands until it has a full-metro presence.
What it means.
If you own a residential HVAC or plumbing company in a metro where a platform has just made its first acquisition, you are now a likely next call. Tuck-in buyers look for brands that extend their coverage without competing head-to-head with what they already own, and they will look closely at membership and maintenance agreement counts, replacement mix, technician tenure, and whether the business runs without the founder on every job. A long-standing local name matters most when the buyer plans to keep it.
Own an HVAC or plumbing company?
Schryver & Co. advises trades owners with roughly $5 million to $100 million of revenue and $1 million to $5 million or more of EBITDA, depending on the vertical. If a platform has reached out, or you want a clear read on what your business would be worth to a buyer building density in your market, reach Will at will@schryverco.com.
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