They aren't necessarily scams but they are happy getting the $2-300 service call and busy enough to price high. The tech is making $30 an hour and is happy to give you an inflated price so he can leave.

Not an honest trade left.



When over 90% are shady, across every industry, it's just game over.

America has NO MORALS anymore.

People are shit.

Remember when folks were actually GOOD HUMAN BEINGS?

Those days are gone.

Yep. 25lbs containers of R410a sell for $300.

Seeing this happening to A LOT of industries.

When I started my property management company we found a guy doing AC that had also just started. Very fair prices, knew how to troubleshoot like a boss.  Never upsold.  A few years back he sold the company.  The first thing the idiots who bought it do: change the price structure.  Before they would charge $150 if they went out and it was a dead cap for the first cap and then the others would be $30.  This new company came out and replaced three caps at a house and charged $1125.  I looked at the invoice, called them and asked them if they replaced a motor also.  Nope, just three caps.  Their argument was:  "The trip charge is built in to the price of $375 for a capacitor."  I asked did you drive out there three times for each capacitor? And do you now have fucking tanks?  So right there they lost a property management account with 150 doors.  Why would you buy a company that is doing well and do that?  It was doing well because of how it was operating so why change it?  This company never advertised before but they must have run off all of the customers that came with the purchase because now they do all the time.  THAT is one reason I NEVER trust contractors that advertise all the time - they are almost always ripoffs trying to find new victims. Anderson Windows, Parker and Sons, etc.  You would think they would run out of suckers but they never seem to!

Even though the manufacture's warranty may still cover parts warranty, they will fuck you out of more in labor than the parts cost for anything short of a compressor changeout.

For our previous home and the new home (as soon as the 1-year labor warranty ran out) I purchased capacitors, contactor, control boards, condenser fan motor and air handler blower motors.  
The old house that was about $250, because they were the older style motors. For the new house, it was about $600, that was buying used (salvaged from perfectly good systems that folks had been conned into replacing) and both control boards new. I don't want to wait for days or a week for parts when the AC is out on a holiday weekend.

Also, installing a 24 volt surge suppressor on both outside and inside units cost about $50 and will prevent 75% of the control board replacements.  HVAC companies know these reduce service calls and will try to tell you they void the warranty...yet go larger apartment complexes where they have their own in-house HVAC Maint folks and you will find them installed on every unit.

A few years back I spent two hours of studying and paid $85 to take the EPA test online.  You cannot contract or run a service company with just that, but the supply houses will sell to you with an EPA card.  But check amazon & ebay before hitting the supply house for parts...many times you will pay more at a supply house because you do not have a commercial account.

I did my 608 Universal through Mainstream Engineering.

EPA 608 consists of type 1, (small appliances) type 2 (high pressure appliances) and type 3 (low pressure appliances) If you have all 3, it is called "Universal"

I took all the tests at once. 608 Universal has to be proctored, so someone has to watch you take the test. This was done at my local HVAC distributor supply.

If I remember correctly, I did all of it for less than $100. I just studied on my own using commonly available free online study materials and practice questions.

It looks like these days you can take the tests at home while someone watches you through your webcam to make sure you are not cheating.

I also did my EPA 609 which is automotive. It was very easy and can be done open book at home.

How big is your BIL's house? 10-11 lb's is a shit ton of 410 for a typical residential house unless there are stupidly long runs and it would have to be 100 empty to boot. only reason to crack into the systems is for either coil or the TXV and unless it's the outside unit coil, you can pull most of it back into it, close the valves, and keep it to reuse.

I'll be another guy who was reasonably good at diagnostics gone in well under 2 months.

I've always offered to try to help diagnose systems if someone is on ARFcom and can read a meter and know what the reads mean.

Property manager calls me the Friday after Thanksgiving. One of our properties, actually my old house, was having furnace problems. Company had been out the day before Turkey Day and replaced the thermocoupler for $380, below our $500 owner approval limit. So they were back out, and said it was either a regulator or something they couldnt figure out because the furnace was too old to have an LED diag code. Carbon monoxide blah blah, $600 to maybe fix it, or $9800 to put a new furnace in, could do it next day. Told the property manager to tell them to get bent, they were not allowed at any of my properties, I'll call someone else. Property manager was worried about a cold front coming in (high 40's low 50's). Told him it wasnt a cold front, the place has a gas fireplace, and it wasnt a little old lady who paid rent on time, but repeat code violators who were a month behind. My guy goes out. Thermocoupler was loose, primary blower fan disconnected,  replaced air filters that looked like someone threw a shitzuh in a dryer and ran it 8 times without cleaning the lint trap. Like you couldnt even tell they were pleated. He tightened the thermocoupler, hooked blower motor back up, and adjusted the gas pressure regulator. Ran fine all winter. Property manager was worried about CO2. Told him to buy them a detector if he was worried but the first company didnt lock out and tag the furnace so obviously they werent too worried about it and neither should he . AC at same property went out. New compressor at $2200 from my guy, entire 3 ton system to include the furnace, new ducts,  coil, everything replaced top to bottom for $7200. Yeah, the 10 year warranty is parts only, but they same guy who kept me running all winter for $100 is the guy I'm paying for the labor on a warranty call so I'm not worried.

Did mine last year, proctored, for free with SkillCat. Before they started charging monthly but it is still cheap. I think I paid $20 to take the 609 Certification.

It's not just contractors. It's literally every business. Everyone is fucking everyone where ever they can. Greed was always a thing but the money printer went brrrr. I bet you raised rent on the two family's?

One of the big companies here in Utah came out and said I needed $7500 in work done to keep my system going.  Mind you, at the time it was at least a decade old.  I asked how much for new - $14K.  I said no thanks.  Replaced a $200 control board on my own and it's been running fine.  That was three years ago.

I priced out the parts in that $7500 repair.  Under $1000 off of Amazon.  The refrigerant would have been a bunch, but it would have been over $4000 in labor to replace some parts.

And I didn't need refrigerant.

Ended up replacing a 14y/o R-22 unit because holy shit the price of R-22!

Also, blower motor on my current 10 y/o unit went out last fall… that cost over $1k for the motor and a master control board from a supply house. I probably saved a grand or three on the up charges and labor an HVAC company would have charged

The real issue is that, once the facades are peeled back, 90% of people in general are shitbags.  Sexually obsessed, selfish, materialistic shitbags.  It follows that most tradespeople follow the trend.  Our entire society is very sick.

Hell I remember buying r22 for 170 a can over the counter.

Your one of the good ones. You should get a 10% patch or something

One of my guys who works for me just had the tech out telling him he needed to replace his system. Yeah, no.

Our friend from church went out to check on his system. His diagnosis, good for at least another 8 - 10 years.

I lost a capacitor in mine last week. The biggest issue was Grainger didn't stock the cap. I found another local HVAC store that stocked. $15 I was up and running.

It was a Titan Pro, not the best brand.

I decided to reorder a GE Genteq. Actually my unit has two capacitors, I reordered 2. Even though the second one is still running after 10 years, I'm going to replace it. I also ordered a new contactor. Looks a bit worn, why put stress on the motor and compressor. I'm basically replacing all the electronic parts that don't directly involve the refrigerant. It's costing me $100. You aren't going to get a service guy to touch your unit for that.

For the record, I don't do AC work, but I manage a large facility with 44 exhaust fans and dozens of Modine natural gas heaters, alot of it has the same basic electrical architecture of your outside AC unit.

Got a link for the test?  Im sick of getting screwed.

Been there, done that….. lol

“My boss sent me over to pick this up”

Had a family member that worked in HVAC for years and he said the same thing. Every company he worked for was very shady and made most of their money on upsells of parts and straight up replacement systems. They were told to try and repair things that were not broken to sell parts that were not needed. This included an extremely large brand name commercial name most people would recognize in the HVAC world.

I won't share the story about getting mis-diagnosed on a HVAC issue, but I'll share this tidbit.

The tech was a decent enough guy, had a nice Fluke meter that he tested everything with.

He left and 20-minutes later the doorbell rang.  Couldn't find his meter so I let him back in to check the areas he was working in (attic, garage, outside unit area).   He didn't find it and started getting pissy, talked about how expensive it was, he was going to lose money on this job, etc and asked to look inside my tool chest.  I declined that option and sent him out, told him I'd call if I found it.  

Some years later I found it while cutting the hedges around the compressor unit, buried well inside there.   Must have fallen off his belt.  The irrigation wasn't kind to it and it no longer works.   If he hadn't indirectly accused me of stealing it, I would have called him when I found it.

Going through this currently, unfortunately. AC died right near the end of the summer last year. We have a home warranty, so they recommended a dude to come out and check. The outside condensing unit was older than the house (made in 1996 and house was built in 2000) so I wasn't surprised that it needed to be replaced. Dude replaced it, I paid my $100 deductible and that was that. Me, not knowing a damn thing about HVAC, noticed ice forming on the lines and figured "Yeah, that must be working well to get that cold." Well immediately after that it started getting cold so we didn't use it. Fast forward to a month ago, starting to get hot, turn the AC on and it can't keep up. Pipes freeze again. Look it up, turns out that's not good. Try to call the first dude, doesn't answer. Call another company who come out and immediately he tells me that the condensing unit that he installed is incompatible with the coil in the house. New unit runs R32 and my old unit runs R410A. Home warranty will only give $1000 towards coil replacement since they already paid fucko. I call the highest rated HVAC company in the area who have been in business for almost 100 years. Basically are dumbfounded that fucko did that without changing the coil/checking and accuse him of getting his license online. Oh well, they found me a coil that would fit my existing system so I wouldn't need to redo ducting, etc like one of the other companies I called said I would (and quoted me $8,000 to do). $1,200 for parts and labor, which actually seem lower for prices for this area.

Well, they change the coil and the dude goes to test it to find out that the condensing unit fucko put in is a 3 ton while the coil they put in is a 2.5 ton. Again, incompatible. They said that the coil they replaced was 2.5 ton. I finally get a hold of fucko who swears up and down that the unit he replaced was also a 3 ton (he could remember that but didn't remember who I was or even that he came to my house before). Come to find out talking with friends who work in construction fields that this is supposedly a common practice to make it so they have to come back to do more work? I don't know, all I know is I'm pissed.

Well, the upstanding company (I hope at least) will replace the unit with a 2.5 ton for $2,000 parts and labor, and now the home warranty company is telling me to go fuck myself if I don't use the original fucko that messed up. Well, not that I want to use him, but if it will save me $2k I'll take a chance, but now he won't take my calls. Ugh.

Side note: All of these tonnage calculators I'm finding are recommending a 3 ton unit for my house (1,760 sq/f) but the upstanding company says 2.5 will be fine. Anyone in the business have any insight on that? Don't want to have all of this done to find it's not enough to keep up.

It's not just the tradespeople and contractors, it's the manufacturing companies too.
Everything now has processors controlling the devices actions, do the manufacturers provide a way to ask the processor what's wrong - no they don't.
For example the post about the fan not running causing the heating elements to not turn on, it's the processor that is checking that the fan is running and refusing to turn on the heat, can the repair person hookup on a laptop or tablet to have the processor tell them this is the problem - no they can't. Can they get the processor to tell them what each sensor is reporting to figure out one of the sensors is bad - no. This problem goes back to the manufacturers as well as the repair people.

My Mr cool hasn't been perfect but it works.  They've been a little challenging on two warranty claims less than 12 months in, but they still took care of me, mostly.  I had to waste about 800 bucks to refil a leaking system, they sent new lines under warranty but wouldn't pay for the gas.

Bro you can buy the gas online, just check the box that says its for resale.  In minecraft.  Allied Refridgerents.

Last home I had a pretty good guy that talked about the crooks in his trade. He would go out of his way to repair my system at a great price.  Replacement was like him throwing in the towel.  His new system prices were about 65% of everyone else.

Then I moved.  System died last fall from a Freon leak.  It was 16 years old.  A friends SIL is starting up an HVAC company on the side.  He hooked me up for market value and he lives 10 minutes down the street.  Only time I might have an issue is if he’s on vacation and out of town.

corporate greed and profit margins, %'s etc are the root cause for all this shit in trades.  then comes how they are paid and treated. then them as a person. those combined, will dictate how the worker performs. if upper management is on their back to pump out calls, little pay, treated like shit, the worker is more likely to give less fucks than grow in the field and turn out more valuable.

The way people talk here trades are literally the only way you will be successful in our country? Now it’s all filled with scammers and low lives one step above stick up artist?

fuck yea dude.

2 summers ago, a dude here had his AC down and out. had a board and etc, posted pictures, we went back and forth in a thread and he bought me a membership here, got him going until a new board came in.


I just wish the kids that are coming into this field take it more as a career instead of a part time 8 hour day job. alot of the kids entering trades still live at home with little structure, no push to get a house, move out, start their lives. I ALWAYS pick my phone up to help.  but god damn, last week a 62 year old guy, 40 years in the field, had an issue, called me, I asked what the pressures were, what the superheat was, and if he had power here and here. "I dont have my meter on me but I have a ticker... and I dont know the pressures". I said when you can give me the SH and pressures and what the voltages are here and here when your in defrost, call me back.  he called me back, talked with him, it was only a dirty condenser for the freezer.  
give me a fucking break dude. im half your age, I wanted to say that so bad.

Reminds me of when I lived in DFW with my Toyota and bought a (used) Lexus.
Mom and pop shop to handle all my car issues on the Toyota; Oil changes, tires, a water pump going bad.. respectable prices and never an issue. Brought the Lexus in for an Oil change and spark plugs  - $1100 quote .

I called the Lexus dealership for a quote on the same services: $450. Massive Fuck you from the mom and pop shop. Never went back. I wonder if these places calculate in the "pissed off the customer" factor when trying to screw people over, but I guess not.

It IS a "thing" here.  Something about "making it" with your own sweat and back-breaking labor that appeals to a lot of folks.  They even see it as being more "earned" and somehow morally better than someone in say, a white collar profession that earns his living largely with his intellect.  GD has always ever since I have lurked here had a bit of an "anti-intellectual" bent to it.  For the better or worse I don't know.

I'm a jack of all trades master of none but it seems to me that the only real justification for AC replacment is leaking coils or a compressor and even then the unit should be old enough for energy efficiency to factor in.

Like most third world nations American men are going to have to catch up on fixing our own crap.
Truly skilled techs are hard to find in a sea of scammers and bloated part swappers.

A friend of mine owns an AC company. YEARS ago he told me "yes I can fix it but I won't. I'll sell them a new unit though".

1700 sf packaged unit think 4 or 5 ton in az.sounded like alot to me as well but the price was insane.

I found a good HVAC guy a few years ago when both of our AC units (5 ton and 2 ton) wouldn't come on in the Spring. The first company I called (big local company with tons of "good" reviews) came out and spent about 15 minutes in the attic and said that both units need to be replaced due to leaking coils. Quoted like 15k for replacement. I laughed him out of the house and he didn't even charge for the "inspection". A friend recommended a guy that owns his own, small AC company. He came out and fixed both units for $300 bucks and even gave me tips for troubleshooting. Turns out it was just a bad mainboard on one, and a bad capacitor on the other. He even topped off the R19 on the big unit for free. Been using him ever since for when I am over my head. That said, I've done a number of repairs on the units myself ever since. Usually just a bad capacitor in the condenser unit. Always check that first if the AC is blowing but the outside unit isn't coming on. It's usually under $30 and 10 minutes of your time. Also I have replaced blower motors and he is cool enough where I can message him pics and he is willing to walk me through it. I only pay him for his time and advice.

That said, he recently had to replace my 20 year old 5 ton unit, because it was low pressure and probably leaking. He offered to charge it but that was going to be expensive due to the cost of R19 and he was convinced it was leaking in the evaporator (the same thing the first guy lied about 5 years before). He recommend a new 5 ton unit and even sent me the part numbers with his quote. It was $6400 total and it was about $5k in parts for the evaporator and condenser. So ~$1400 for the install, 3 guys working at my house for about 3 hours. I figure that was fair for warrantied work and no BS. That comes to ~$150 per hour per man. They even took the time to show me the rusted out evaporator to prove that I made the right choice.

But yeah, most of those guys are absolute liars and crooks.

That's gotta be close to twice the required charge.

Yep. Everyone is quick to shit on old equipment but sometimes the old stuff is good and easier to maintain. My furnace is about 3 years older than me and it's running fine after I replaced my inducer motor. No leaks or anything and heat exchanger is fine. I'd rather not buy something new and risk problems.

I cringe at the idea of having to replace our furnace.

I know it could do it myself, but ... the air conditioner is out of my skill set for that. Plus I want to upgrade at the same time.

I'll call my "guy" and have him get me a quote, then prepare for the shitshow that will ensue.

https://www.skillcatapp.com/

Easily done in under a month, self paced.

My sister got her oil changed at Skill Lube the other day. Shop tried to sell her $1200 worth of brake pads and rotors during tire rotation. Thank God her head was screwed on straight that day and she said no.

She brought the car to me so I could take a look.
Car has 35k miles on it and pads still look mint.

This is just one small example of the rip off artists this country employees in the trades. Trust no one....

Just about "EverYoNe" is looking to Fuck you Extra Hard Today!

Appears to me the big pay day is repair
$325 marked up to $3300

Going through this exact thing right now.

Don’t waste your time with supply houses, nearly everything is on Amazon
When I worked in hvac most of what we ordered for repairs was from Amazon.

And for a personal fuck hvac companies story, this last year I bought a investment house and the furnace was pushing past 40 years old and still running

I’ve replaced a lot of them over the years and didn’t really want to dive into the project, out of 3 companies quotes the cheapest was 7k

I ended up buying a Goodman furnace from Amazon and installed it my self and it’s actually a fully code install, the furnace even shipped free with prime and delivered on a pallet for me to pick up from a local business

I spent less than 1600 dollars and in 12 hours (when I did this as a job 6-8 hours was normal)
I saved over 5k

And just because you spend the money on a company to put in your shit don’t assume it’s code, our own guys could never finish an install correctly and we constantly had to fix shit.

It’s absolutely mind blowing I can save more than 5k in 12 hours and do better work than most of those idiots

Residential can be pretty bad now a days.

Yup house is only 2.5 years old as well. Ac guys we’re gonna make their money one way or another.

I keep the cheaper items on hand so I don't have to wait for shipping.

Capacitors, contractors, igniters, etc. I can be back up and running in minutes.

It took me a whole day of dicking around with my 25+ y.o. high-efficiency furnace, even replacing a $100 (a friend in the biz hooked me up with his wholesaler) circuit board, to figure out that one of the pressure switches had water in it from condensation. I took the switch off, drained a couple of cc's of water out and was back in business. Zero cost fix!

I’m a cybersecurity geek by day but I think I'm gonna do this too for the hell of it