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Wowzers! Heat/air Services Make A Killing!


No Nicolaitans

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If you work in the heat/air business...please tell me if I'm wrong about this.  If I'm correct...how about cutting us a little slack! :nuts: 

 

 

We were quoted two prices by two Heat/Air services for installing a new thermostat.

(The quotes included the thermostat and labor)

Quote #1 - $150.00
Quote #2 - $125.00

I looked at thermostats at Lowe's online. Prices varied from about $20 to over $300. We bought one at Lowe's for $60. It was a little higher than I really wanted to pay, but it's a touchscreen and looks nicer than the less expensive ones. 

Anyway, it took me about 30 minutes to install...should have taken less time, but this was the first time I've ever installed a thermostat. I highly doubt that the thermostat that either Heat/Air service would have installed would have been as nice as the one we bought...but if it was, after breaking the pricing down...knowing it would have taken them less time to install it...that means they would have been charging us at a minimum $130 - $180 an hour for the labor!

Quote #1 - $150 - $60 (the cost of the thermostat) = $90 for 30 minutes work.
$90 x 2 = $180/hr.

Quote #2 - $125 - $60 (the cost of the thermostat) = $65 for 30 minutes work.
$65 x 2 = $130/hr.

 

:jaw:

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Did you allow for markup and trip charge? 

 My own hourly rate for design work, shop work, and installations is $60/hr which is really low even for my line of work. I'm sure HVAC rates are higher for sure.. If an installation were only 30 minutes but the travel was 15 minutes away, I would need to charge a full hour $60 (30 + 15+ 15) plus the fuel cost.

 

It;s good you could install yourself. That's what I would do.

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Did you allow for markup and trip charge? 

 My own hourly rate for design work, shop work, and installations is $60/hr which is really low even for my line of work. I'm sure HVAC rates are higher for sure.. If an installation were only 30 minutes but the travel was 15 minutes away, I would need to charge a full hour $60 (30 + 15+ 15) plus the fuel cost.

 

It;s good you could install yourself. That's what I would do.

 

Well, what's kind of funny is...the guy with the higher quote is less than 2 miles from our house.  The guy with the lower quote does our repairs where I work...he would have about a 45 minute drive to our house.

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Several things:

they are charging $90/hr or any portion thereof

if you have any office staff -- receptionist, parts runner, estimator -- they get paid even if you don't have business the whole 40 hours that week

if you have a building and utilities they are on commercial rates and property tax levels

it use to cost me $30,000/ year for fuel for my vans and I had one getting the oil changed every week

 

For me to make $17,000 as personal income I had to do $150,000 business (that was in 2007)

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Seems you expect the man to work for nothing & lose money on every job he does.

 

And to think many pastors complain about being underpaid, yet they want the heating & air man to lose money on every job.

I don't know if that really reflects his attitude towards it, many people just have NO idea how much it costs to employ people and run a business -- they see most of it as being available income.

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I don't know if that really reflects his attitude towards it, many people just have NO idea how much it costs to employ people and run a business -- they see most of it as being available income.

 

That's true, yet there's many that wants people to work for nothing & never consider what it cost the repairman to come to their place to do a repair. And its true some of them will charge a bit to much.

 

Because of cost & never having much money that's the reason though the years I did most of my own mechanic work, & home repairs, only calling a profession when it was beyond what I can do.

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Seems you expect the man to work for nothing & lose money on every job he does.

 

And to think many pastors complain about being underpaid, yet they want the heating & air man to lose money on every job.

 

 

Bro. Jerry, did you see the first sentence of my opening post? I said...

 

 

If you work in the heat/air business...please tell me if I'm wrong about this.  If I'm correct...how about cutting us a little slack! :nuts: 

 

 

 

Did you allow for markup and trip charge? 

 My own hourly rate for design work, shop work, and installations is $60/hr which is really low even for my line of work. I'm sure HVAC rates are higher for sure.. If an installation were only 30 minutes but the travel was 15 minutes away, I would need to charge a full hour $60 (30 + 15+ 15) plus the fuel cost.

 

It;s good you could install yourself. That's what I would do.

 

 

Thanks heartstrings.

 

 

Several things:

they are charging $90/hr or any portion thereof

if you have any office staff -- receptionist, parts runner, estimator -- they get paid even if you don't have business the whole 40 hours that week

if you have a building and utilities they are on commercial rates and property tax levels

it use to cost me $30,000/ year for fuel for my vans and I had one getting the oil changed every week

 

For me to make $17,000 as personal income I had to do $150,000 business (that was in 2007)

 

 

Thanks OFP...wowzers, see...it's things like that which I never thought of.

 

 

Wowzers! Heat/air Services Make A Killing!

 

We're that true, everyone would be in the HVAC business.

 

:nuts:

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Several things:

they are charging $90/hr or any portion thereof

if you have any office staff -- receptionist, parts runner, estimator -- they get paid even if you don't have business the whole 40 hours that week

if you have a building and utilities they are on commercial rates and property tax levels

it use to cost me $30,000/ year for fuel for my vans and I had one getting the oil changed every week

 

For me to make $17,000 as personal income I had to do $150,000 business (that was in 2007)

Wow! And I thought I had it bad. I've usually been able to to keep my cost of goods and overhead down to a little less than 66%, so I only need gross sales of about $50,000 or so to clear that much income. A big part of that is because I own my buildings and don't have to pay rent. But it still shows that none of us get to keep all the money

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