Comfort Systems USA just posted a quarter that would have looked like most of a year not long ago. The Houston-based mechanical and electrical contractor cleared more than $3 billion in revenue for the second quarter of 2026, and its backlog climbed to roughly $14 billion. Both are records.
What’s filling the mechanical contractor’s pipeline
The answer is where the money’s going. Data centers, chip fabs, and other advanced-manufacturing plants run on mechanical and electrical work: chilled-water systems, power distribution, controls, and the prefabricated skids and racks that let crews install it all faster. Comfort Systems built its business around that mix, and it’s the reason the backlog keeps setting records even while parts of the traditional commercial market have gone quiet. The same demand shows up in grid-equipment plants like the new Hitachi Energy transformer factory now under construction to feed data-center power loads.
Where the risk sits
A $14 billion backlog is a cushion, and it’s also a bet. Most of it rides on the data-center and factory build-out holding through 2027 and beyond, and on the firm finding enough skilled labor to burn the backlog down on schedule. Prefabrication helps on the labor side, since factory-built assemblies need fewer field hours, but the concentration risk is real. If hyperscaler spending cools, a book this heavy in one sector would feel it.
For now, the numbers say the boom is still running. Comfort Systems raised its outlook alongside the quarter, which is the clearest signal a contractor can send that it likes what it sees in the pipeline. The question isn’t demand. It’s whether there are enough pipefitters and electricians to keep pace.