HVAC / mechanical
$24,888
standard property / year
about $5,998 gross profit at 24.1%
$229.7M at 100% local stock capture
Edit the assumptions →Commercial building market
The commercial building stock in Columbia, SC
Columbia, SC holds about 9,229 serviceable commercial buildings. That is about 38 buildings for every competing plumbing and HVAC location.
Open but flat
More buildings per competing location than typical, while local plumbing and HVAC employment grew slower than the metro median.
Commercial building stock in Columbia, SC
We count about 9,229 commercial buildings over 4,000 square feet. This building stock is relevant to HVAC, plumbing, electrical, roofing, and fire protection.
Counts are by structure, not parcel, and are a coverage floor rather than a complete census. We do not attach one generic all-trade revenue total. The property calculator combines this stock with a separate method for each trade, labels project and partial scopes, and keeps every planning assumption editable.
Serviceable buildings
9,229
commercial structures over 4,000 sqft
Largest building segment
3,283
multifamily
Plumbing and HVAC context
38
buildings per NAICS 238220 location, not an all-trade rival count
| Building type | Buildings | Share of counted stock |
|---|---|---|
| Multifamily | 3,283 | 35.6% |
| Education | 1,557 | 16.9% |
| Office | 1,504 | 16.3% |
| Government | 859 | 9.3% |
| Worship | 784 | 8.5% |
| Warehouse / distribution | 661 | 7.2% |
| Healthcare | 421 | 4.6% |
| Hospitality | 158 | 1.7% |
| Industrial / manufacturing | 2 | 0.0% |
How this is countedSources, filters, and the scope of the competitor benchmark.
Buildings are counted per structure inside Columbia, SC, from FEMA/ORNL USA Structures, filtered to commercial occupancies over 4,000 square feet and excluding structures under 3.2 meters tall. Counts are a floor because coverage varies by place.
Competitor counts and employment are Census County Business Patterns for NAICS 238220, plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning contractors. They are retained as a clearly labeled mechanical-market comparison, not presented as roofing, electrical, or fire-protection competition.
Property opportunity by trade
What one property, and the local building stock, can represent
A consistent planning view across 15 trades in Columbia, SC. Annual service scopes add across the measured local inventory. One-time projects stay per property unless a defensible event rate exists.
Electrical
Total annual account revenue
$19,045
standard property / year
about $4,856 gross profit at 25.5%
$175.8M at 100% local stock capture
Edit the assumptions →Plumbing
Typical permitted plumbing upgrade, when it occurs
$13,627
standard property, when scope occurs
about $3,012 gross profit at 22.1%
Territory total withheld because project timing is not established.
Edit the assumptions →Roofing
Public-award scope reference
$19,855
standard property, when scope occurs
about $7,525 gross profit at 37.9%
Territory total withheld because project timing is not established.
Edit the assumptions →Elevator service
Per elevator, recurring service only
$10,005
standard property / year
about $3,032 gross profit at 30.3%
$8.5M at 100% local stock capture
Edit the assumptions →Commercial refrigeration
Per refrigeration unit, scheduled PM only
$1,405
standard property / year
about $532 gross profit at 37.9%
$4M at 100% local stock capture
Edit the assumptions →See the other 9 trade models
Fire protection
Sprinkler inspection floor only
$658
standard property / year
about $207 gross profit at 31.4%
$6.1M at 100% local stock capture
Edit the assumptions →Cleaning / janitorial
Per cleanable square foot
$41,500
standard property / year
about $5,105 gross profit at 12.3%
$383M at 100% local stock capture
Edit the assumptions →Landscaping / grounds
Per maintained landscape acre
$1,174
standard property / year
about $274 gross profit at 23.3%
$10.8M at 100% local stock capture
Edit the assumptions →Pest control
Routine recurring general IPM comparison
$291
standard property / year
about $153 gross profit at 52.7%
$2.7M at 100% local stock capture
Edit the assumptions →Solar service
Commercial solar installation project, when it occurs
$71,635
standard property, when scope occurs
about $27,436 gross profit at 38.3%
Territory total withheld because project timing is not established.
Edit the assumptions →Controls / building automation
Planned BAS labor only
$3,360
standard property / year
about $1,273 gross profit at 37.9%
$31M at 100% local stock capture
Edit the assumptions →General contracting
Interior-renovation contract, when this scope exists
$2,303,000
standard property, when scope occurs
about $320,117 gross profit at 13.9%
Territory total withheld because project timing is not established.
Edit the assumptions →Restoration
Restoration project award, when work occurs
$28,625
standard property, when scope occurs
about $9,675 gross profit at 33.8%
Territory total withheld because project timing is not established.
Edit the assumptions →Commercial doors / docks
Per covered door or gate, scheduled maintenance only
$1,130
standard property / year
about $428 gross profit at 37.9%
$10.4M at 100% local stock capture
Edit the assumptions →These are transparent planning scenarios, not bids or forecasts. Geography changes the inventory count and building-type mix, not the unit price. Every conditional total withheld here is null in the download, never zero.
Where Columbia, SC sits against the other 99 metros
Buildings per competing location against metro plumbing and HVAC employment growth from 2018 to 2023. Columbia, SC is outlined.
Top right: more buildings per rival, with faster local trade employment growth.
Top left: fewer buildings per rival, with faster local trade employment growth.
Bottom right: more buildings per rival, with slower local trade employment growth.
Bottom left: fewer buildings per rival, with slower local trade employment growth.
consolidatingfragmentingstableBubble size = serviceable commercial building count.
Quadrant lines are the medians of the places plotted, not fixed thresholds, so a position means "compared with everywhere else measured here" rather than passing some absolute bar. The y-axis is CBSA-level plumbing and HVAC contractor employment from Census County Business Patterns, measured directly for 2018 and 2023.
Metros with a similar amount of work
Closest to Columbia, SC by serviceable building count, which makes them the fairest comparison for a contractor weighing an expansion.
Knoxville, TN
9,159 serviceable buildings
33 buildings per rival location
Greenville, SC
9,386 serviceable buildings
29 buildings per rival location
Bakersfield, CA
9,782 serviceable buildings
47 buildings per rival location
Oklahoma City, OK
8,575 serviceable buildings
13 buildings per rival location
Omaha, NE
9,884 serviceable buildings
27 buildings per rival location
Albany, NY
8,565 serviceable buildings
34 buildings per rival location
Frequently asked questions
How many serviceable commercial buildings are in Columbia, SC?
About 9,229 in the Columbia, SC Metro Area: structures with a commercial occupancy, over 4,000 square feet, and tall enough to be real premises rather than a garage. That count is a floor rather than a census, because national structure coverage is uneven by metro.
How many competitors are there in Columbia, SC?
246 plumbing and HVAC contractor locations (US Census County Business Patterns, NAICS 238220, 2023), which works out to about 38 serviceable buildings per location. Read that as an average over a very uneven field: most locations in a typical metro have fewer than five employees and are not competing for a portfolio of commercial service contracts.
Is the mechanical trade workforce growing in Columbia, SC?
Plumbing and HVAC contractor employment in the metro grew 17.1% from 2018 to 2023, measured directly by US Census County Business Patterns for NAICS 238220. This measures trade employment, not construction demand.
Does a building in Columbia, SC bill more than the same building elsewhere?
Not measurably. We tested it: once you control for WHICH CONTRACTOR services a building, state explains almost none of the variation in revenue per building and county barely more. Climate looked like a 1.7x driver as a group mean and disappeared under a within-contractor control. So the total here differs from another metro because the COUNT of buildings differs, not because a building is worth more. No regional multiplier is applied.
Sources, and what this deliberately does not claimThe Census name for this metro, every source, and why no regional multiplier is applied.
This page covers the Columbia, SC Metro Area, Census CBSA 17900, 9,591 square kilometres of land area. Buildings are counted per structure inside that boundary polygon rather than by any address field, because the national structure dataset leaves its ZIP, state and city fields empty across whole regions: keying on them reports near-zero for real places.
Building counts: FEMA/ORNL USA Structures (CC BY 4.0). Competitor counts and employment: US Census County Business Patterns, NAICS 238220, 2023 with 2018 as the trend baseline and the same industry vintage across both. Construction growth: US Bureau of Economic Analysis state GDP by industry, NAICS 23. Population, education and income: American Community Survey 5-year. This product uses the Census Bureau Data API but is not endorsed or certified by the Census Bureau.
Building counts are useful across trades. The competitor and employment figures on this page are limited to NAICS 238220, plumbing, heating, and air-conditioning contractors, and should not be read as electrical, roofing, or fire-protection density.
Machine-readable, free to cite with attribution under CC BY 4.0: geo-building-stock.json, version 1.0.2.
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