Our co-founder, Aridel Morales, started doing HVAC in Cuba in 2005. He worked the big systems — chillers and air handlers in the resort hotels along Varadero’s coast, the kind of equipment most home techs in the U.S. never touch. He fell in love with the trade because HVAC wasn’t just plumbing or just electrical or just refrigeration: it was all three at once, plus building science, plus airflow physics. You couldn’t fake your way through it.

In 2011, Aridel and his family immigrated to Tampa Bay. He kept doing HVAC, but this time on smaller residential systems and in a market where, frankly, a lot of the contractors he saw cut corners. Customers were being told they needed full system replacements when their unit just needed a $79 capacitor. They were being charged $89 just for a tech to show up. Aridel knew there was a better way.

Meanwhile, his son Richard Morales was working as a massage therapist in Tampa. (Yes, really.) Richard had been in the wellness world for years and had built up his own client base. But when Aridel started talking about opening an HVAC company built on doing things right, Richard saw the parallel: both fields were about diagnosing what was actually wrong, treating it correctly, and not selling people things they didn’t need.

In 2017, Richard earned his Florida Class B Air Conditioning Contractor license (CAC1819196), and he and Aridel co-founded the company together. They named it The AC Therapist, a tongue-in-cheek nod to Richard’s previous career, but also a serious statement about how they’d treat customers. Therapy, not transactions.

The third partner was Aridel’s other son, Alejandro “Alex” Morales, coming from a marketing and operations background. The early years were Aridel doing the trade work, Richard handling the HVAC license + technical training, and Alex building the customer-facing systems.

A few years in, customers started asking us to handle their plumbing too. Hard water heater anode replacements, polybutylene repipes (Tampa has a lot of that 1978–1995 plastic), drain clogs, slab leaks.

In 2021, Alex earned his Florida Certified Plumbing Contractor license (CFC1431159), so we could be a single-license, single-contract company handling plumbing in-house rather than subcontracting to outside firms. That decision is why every plumbing job we do today is run by an actual licensed FL plumbing contractor (Alex), not a sub.

For about four years we kept doing plumbing under “The AC Therapist” name. But once plumbing was a real fraction of our work, we became Home Therapist Cooling, Heating, and Plumbing in January 2025. Same family, same standards, broader scope.

Today, we’re a 14-person team operating out of our shop at 1408 W Linebaugh Ave in North Tampa. We serve Hillsborough, Pinellas, and Pasco counties — Tampa, St. Petersburg, Clearwater, Brandon, Riverview, Wesley Chapel, Land O Lakes, Palm Harbor, and 50+ smaller communities in between.

Five Tampa Bay-based technicians. EPA Section 608 certified. Fully background-checked.

We get asked “are you really licensed?” probably twice a week. Yes. Here’s the verifiable proof:

• BBB Accredited Business — Better Business Bureau of West Florida, paid vetted tier. Most recently re-affirmed November 1, 2026. Verify at bbb.org →
• Greater Tampa Chamber of Commerce member
• Wikidata entity: Q139583203 — independent third-party verification of business identity, licenses, and service area.
• 1,378 verified five-star reviews across Google (854) + Thumbtack (389) + Facebook (82) + 53 from other platforms. Live aggregate: 4.7★. See all reviews →
• 1,699 documented service visits in our blog with photos, parts, and tech notes per job. Browse the blog →

A selection of recent verified five-star reviews from across Google, Thumbtack, and Facebook.