Truck stock: what to carry and how to restock

The truck stock tradeoff

A service truck is a rolling warehouse. Stock it well and techs fix most jobs on the first visit, without a trip to the supply house. Stock it badly and you get one of two problems: missing parts that send techs across town mid-job, or so much inventory that cash sits in vans, techs cannot find anything and parts quietly disappear.

The answer is not a bigger van. It is a list built from what your techs actually use, with a minimum and maximum quantity for each item and a routine that keeps every truck between the two.

Who does the restocking?

In most home service companies there is no full-time warehouse person. In 2023, 79.5% of appliance repair establishments and 58.3% of plumbing and HVAC contractor establishments had fewer than five employees^[2]. That usually means the tech or the owner restocks, often at the end of a long day. A simple, repeatable routine matters more than a sophisticated system.

Every parts run has a price. Private employers paid an average of $46.89 per hour worked in total compensation in June 2026^[3], and an hour at the supply house is an hour not spent on a paying job. Good truck stock buys back those hours.

Start from your own repair history

1. 01

   Export 6 to 12 months of parts used

   Pull every part charged to a job, with quantity, job type and date. Include parts bought at the supply house during jobs.

2. 02

   Rank by frequency, not cost

   List parts by how many jobs used them. A cheap capacitor used on 200 jobs matters more than an expensive board used on three.

3. 03

   Cut the list by coverage

   Keep the items that together cover most of your repairs. The long tail of rare parts is ordered per job.

4. 04

   Add the parts that caused second visits

   Check return-trip reasons for parts that were needed but not on the truck.

5. 05

   Ask the senior techs

   They will add items that do not show in the data, such as fittings, fasteners and consumables bought in bulk.

6. 06

   Set min and max for each item

   Use the formula below, then adjust by season.

Setting min and max quantities

Example (fictional): an HVAC tech uses an average of three run capacitors of a common size each week, and the truck is restocked weekly. With a safety quantity of two, the min is five. With a normal restock of four, the max is nine. If a tech regularly finishes the week at zero, raise the safety quantity; if they always finish near max, lower it.

What a core list looks like by trade

• HVAC: capacitors, contactors, igniters and flame sensors, fuses, thermostats, condensate pumps and fittings, filters in common sizes, wire and connectors.
• Electrical: receptacles and GFCIs, switches, common breakers, wire nuts and connectors, cable in common gauges, cover plates, fixtures for quick swaps.
• Appliance repair: high-failure parts for the brands you service most, such as pumps, igniters, door switches, belts and water valves, plus fasteners.
• Garage doors: springs in common sizes, cables, rollers, hinges, drums, opener safety sensors and remotes.
• Pest control: labelled products in sealed, compliant storage, bait stations, monitoring devices and personal protective equipment.
• Handyman: fasteners, anchors, caulk, patching materials, common hardware and a small selection of lumber.

Garage door safety parts deserve a place on every truck. The federal entrapment protection standard for automatic residential garage door operators applies to all operators made on or after January 1, 1993^[4], so working safety sensors are part of most opener repairs.

A weekly restock routine

1. 01

   Parts used are recorded on each job

   Techs add parts to the job in the field service app before closing it. This feeds the restock list automatically.

2. 02

   Restock list generated weekly

   The system or a spreadsheet lists every item at or below min, per truck.

3. 03

   Pick and bag by truck

   Whoever restocks picks the parts into a labelled bag or bin for each truck.

4. 04

   Load at a set time

   Trucks are restocked at the same time each week, such as Friday afternoon or Monday at 7.

5. 05

   Spot-check one truck

   Count a handful of items on one truck each week and compare with the system.

Restocking to max once a week beats ad hoc top-ups. It keeps trucks predictable and makes supply house runs the exception, not the habit.

Controlling shrinkage

Shrinkage is stock that disappears: used on a job and not recorded, damaged, lost or taken. Most of it is unrecorded use, not theft. Tackle the process first.

• Require parts to be added to the job before it can be closed.
• Count high-value items on every truck monthly and everything quarterly.
• Keep a log of parts moved between trucks.
• Return defective parts with a tag showing the job number, for warranty credit.
• Write a policy on personal use of company stock and apply it to everyone.
• Investigate gaps with the tech first; the usual answer is a job that was not recorded.

Weight, layout and dead stock

Every pound rides along on every mile. The U.S. Department of Energy says an extra 100 pounds in a vehicle could reduce fuel economy by about 1%^[1]. Old parts for equipment you no longer service, duplicate tools and bulk materials that belong in the shop all add weight. Clear them out twice a year.

Layout matters for speed. Keep the most used items in the most reachable bins, label every bin with the item and its min and max, and use the same layout on every truck so a tech can find a part in any van. Refrigerant handling and storage must follow EPA rules, and technicians who work with refrigerant must be Section 608 certified^[5].

Seasonal and job-specific stock

A single list all year wastes space. Build seasonal add-ons: cooling parts and condensate supplies in spring and summer for HVAC, ignition and heating parts in autumn, surge and generator parts before storm season for electricians, and spring and opener parts ahead of the cold months when garage door failures rise. Load the seasonal kit a few weeks before demand turns, and pull it out when the season ends so it does not ride around unused.

For jobs with a known part, stage the part at intake rather than adding it to the truck list. When the CSR captures a model number and symptom that points to a specific failure, the office can reserve the part, bag it with the job number and hand it to the assigned tech in the morning. That keeps truck stock for the unpredictable work and job-specific parts for the planned work.

Example: a four-truck electrical shop

Example (fictional): a four-truck electrical contractor had no formal list. Techs stocked their own vans, and two made a supply house run almost every day. The owner exported six months of parts usage, built a list of the items that covered most jobs, set min and max for each and started a Friday restock. Within a month, daily supply house runs became occasional, and the techs added two items the data had missed: a common panel brand's breakers and a type of weatherproof cover.

Review every quarter

Your work changes with seasons, brands and new equipment. Every quarter, compare the list with the last three months of usage and second-visit reasons, add items that caused parts runs and drop items that have not moved. Link the review to first-time fix rate and to backordered parts tracking, because the same data drives all three.