Like I said, I'll save the funds and do it myself. Bad enough farming. Don't need to be in someone's basement working on a neglected furnace in the middle of a snowstorm thank you.
I find the cost of a specialized contractor (in this case a HVAC tech, a bit steep) and if I do it myself and it breaks, oh well, I get to do it again. Such is life.
I apologize if I came across as a prick. I completely understand your position, and agree with you, that if you have the know how to do it, do it. I admire people who have skill levels that can do a variety of things (and a lot of people here on this forum are very self sufficient). For myself, when it comes to putting wood together, lets just say you don't want a hammer or saw in my hands.
Thing is with HVAC, a good service tech or even good installer can start off around $20 an hour (like any trade, sometimes the working conditions aren't the greatest). You get an outstanding service guy who gets along with customers (not always the norm) and that guy decides (at least in NC) to go after his license because he wants to make a living on his own and become his own boss because he sees how much money a successful business can seem to make.
After that tech gets his license, gets a van, pays his insurance and perhaps brings someone in to help on installations, the new owner is generally the salesman, the service tech, the lead installer, the accountant, the secretary and the shop keeper. Guy just starting out his business wants work, so he generally will sell on price when he gets the call because he thinks he doesn't have any overhead (even 2 man shows can run 15-20% on overhead without even knowing it) because he works out of his house, his van may be paid off and other than what he pays other people (perhaps even part time employees), he thinks he's making money. Generally the new business starting out doesn't have time or believe running a monthly P&L is worth it, so he has his accountant do it at the end of the year for taxes.
Thing is, and this is a fact that you may find hard to believe, the average HVAC company makes about a 2% net profit after all is said and done at the end of the year. That great service tech who was making $25 an hour, is now making $23 an hour after all is said and done now that he owns his own business, added the fact that he's working longer hours and has 10 times the headache running his own business (and the headaches can seem to multiply with more people he brings in to work).
Like any line of work, you have good people and bad people out there. Generally it's the guys who work full time for a contractor who do side work that make "easy money" because they do jobs for friends on the weekends, and because he's not running his own company or pays any insurance, it's about as "pure profit" as you're going to get when you get paid. Problem there is because he has no overhead, he might put in the blower motor for half the price a HVAC company will quote the work to do, and because he can do it so cheap, people think the HVAC company is ripping them off. Only issue is if that "part time gue" does it, if for whatever reason the customer has a problem, the question is how soon can the guy get back out there to repair the work?
All that said, even if you are running a somewhat successfull business in the HVAC industry, you still have the general public to deal with. I can assure you, there are some real interesting people out there when you show up at thier home to quote work for. Biggest reason why I like my own job is because I don't generally deal with the public LOL
