Recently had my oil furnace worked on. Service guys does numerous test and decides transformer is bad. He informs me the part is $500. I about choked. It is a $60 part online shopping. To all you HVAC guys, is it normal to have an 800% markup on parts? Turns out that was not the problem, it was a bad nozzle.
Fairly normal.
A capacitor you can get on Amazon that costs $12, will be $150 on a weekday, and $200 on a weekend.
The cheapest parts have the biggest mark up.
But before the pitchforks, and angry villagers come out…. The guy has to pay gas, vehicle, inventory parts, rent, taxes, workman’s comp, employees, utilities, and a whole lot more.
When I used to do residential, the homeowner would look up the part online, while I was standing there.
“I can get that part for $20.”
Me: “Today?”
”No, but I can have it in 2 days!”
Me: “Ok, pay the diagnostic, and I’ll leave you too it.”
”Aren’t you going to come back and install it?”
Me: “Nope”
Commercial is so much easier. A restaurant with $10k worth of food in a down freezer, does not want to argue about a $150 pressure switch. They just care how fast you can get it running.
Give a man a fish, he will eat for a day
Teach a man to fish, he will complain that you stole his fishing spot.
It is dishonest if he puts the 800% price on the bill. Although I write on BBC, I am not a lawyer, but if I were I would go to the State prosecutor and BBB.
Well a friend called when we had that sub-zero temps and said that their
heat pump quit working and called local guy. He said the blower motor was
out and wanted $2,600 to replace blower motor, blower wheel, little control
board and capacitor. I called and got all the parts for a little over $300 and
had it changed out in about an hour. He also wanted $14,000 for a new 21/2
ton heat pump. Outrageous!!!!!!!
Still dosent mean people should be absolutely shafted to no end. Had a similar thing happen in a Toyota Tacoma, they wanted $457 for an 8 hour job, told them no thanks, ordered the part online for $13 and had it fixed in 30 mins myself.Originally Posted by Toypuller
You got to look out for yourself out there these days.
As a resi GC I do think hvac guys have gotten more out of hand versus the other trades, but at the same time it’s a free market. If you don’t like the price, you can either deal with someone else or do it on your own. But most people these days have zero confidence, lazier by the day, and to top it off they don’t want to screw up so they’d rather pay so they can point a finger if anything was to go wrong. And this goes for all ages we work with when building a home, not just people under 40.
Agreed. Been there a few times myself.
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I wish they would just list it honestly. If the part is $60, list it at $60. Put the rest of the number in labor. When you bury the labor markup in the part, it looks shady to me.
HVAC companies are running some of the biggest scams out there. I needed an indoor coil changed out. 3 years old and they tried to sell me on a complete new indoor and outdoor unit. Said it would cost more to fix it by the time they charged it up with new 410A. Told me 410A is $180 per lb. A 30lb bottle of the stuff aint but 350-400 and it only needed 8-9lbs. That was the end of that conversation.
I found a small company that did me right. It pays to call around.
It's only going to get worse and worse as fewer people are going into the trades after high school. Pretty soon, the ones that know how to fix HVAC, plumbing, electrical, carpentry, etc., are going to be able to charge whatever they want. There will be very little competition and consumers will need to get this work done.
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Amen.
Ranting incoherently
Another side to this. A lot of the HVAC guys shouldn't be in the trade. They either don't have the technical ability, the work ethic, or the integrity to be in any business. This is an observation by me from over 46 years in the trade. Some of them get in the trade working for a company and the company lays them off or fires them for poor performance. They go to the next company and say the work slows down and they are the 1st one let go. These guys think their good and think, all I need is a truck and a few tools and I can be be in business. The problem is a lot succeed in business!
Some boiler ignition transformers actually do cost a lot. A residential transformer shouldn't. A control transformer or an ignition transformer also makes a big difference.
As with any person or trade, some are fair and honest, some arent. They're varying degrees of technical ability.
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I for the most part had a 100 to 200 percent markup on parts I carried on my company trucks. There are about 30 additional costs that need a piece of that dollar to keep a company afloat. Sad part is most of them are not fixed costs. My fixed costs yearly were well over 50 grand just to keep a one man shop open.
John the Garage Doorman
They want to sell you all new because none of them can solder up joints anymore
You got that right!!They want to sell you all new because none of them can solder up joints anymore
Common practice not shady at all. If everyone sold their products for what they paid for them they would all go out of business.
Do you have a license to buy that refrigerant?
I'm not complaining about the final price, just list the number differently. And zero of them would go out of business. They can charge the same price, just put profit in the labor line instead of making me think you are a shady salesman trying to dupe me on a part because I don't know what it costs. Just how I operate.
List their profit margin on every product they sell, what company has ever done that? That's none of the consumers business.
Called the number on my furnace who last serviced it, told them i needed an induction fan replaced. They do not take customer diagnostics, i get it, everyone is an expert and probably lots of wrong home owner diagnostics over the years. Tech came out with the fan and wanted $800 for the part plus $1000 for labor for a $100 part, 3 screws and a plug. Paid the $200 diagnostic fee and thanked him for his time.
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