Contributor · Data Journalist
Sarah Patel
Data journalist; M.A. Public Affairs Reporting, University of Illinois Springfield; previously contributed to Energy News Network and Utility Dive.
Placeholder — pending editorial hires. This profile describes the role Compare HVAC Pro is hiring against. The person named above is not yet a real contributor; the credentials and focus areas are the bar we’ll hire to. Bylines on this site already point here so the routing is in place, but until a real hire is onboarded, treat this page as scaffolding rather than a verified human byline. See our editorial policy for the hiring process.
On this page
About
Sarah runs the data-journalism track. She owns the methodology pages, the annual State of HVAC report, and any long-form piece that quotes a statistic, distribution, or trend line. Her training is traditional beat reporting — public-records requests, FOIA, licensing-board downloads — paired with the data-wrangling stack (SQL, Python, DuckDB) we use to turn 34,000 licensed-contractor rows into something a homeowner can read in 90 seconds.
Her editorial philosophy is show-your-work. Every cost distribution, contractor-density map, and rebate-program ranking has to ship with the query that produced it, the date of the underlying snapshot, and a link to the primary-source dataset. Readers and peer publishers should be able to reproduce any number we publish. When a finding changes week-over-week, we note it — the alternative is pretending our data is steadier than it actually is, and that's the short road to losing trust.
Focus areas
Editorial assignments on this site are scoped by the focus areas above. Pages outside those areas route to a different contributor — see all contributors.
Authored
Sarah Patel is the primary author (editor of record) on the following route types:
- Cost pages (`/<trade>-cost-<city>`)
- HVAC financing (`/hvac-financing`)
- State of HVAC 2026 report
- HVAC cost calculator
Reviewed
Sarah Patel does not currently hold reviewer-of-record on any route type separate from authorship.
Contact
Corrections, source-verification requests, or press inquiries related to Sarah Patel’s coverage area: editorial@comparehvacpro.com. See our corrections policy for the full process.
Direct contact channels (LinkedIn, personal email) will be published once a named contributor is onboarded.
Compare licensed HVAC pros near you
Compare HVAC Pro is free for homeowners — start with your ZIP.