13 SEER Splits not cooling!??!

[Stormin Mormon]

I answered your question.

[Stormin Mormon]

Leave it to someone to bring up wanking.

[Nathan W. Collier]

i dont care how long hes been here or how long he has been toting a tool pouch, he has stated his limitations which i feel entitles him to a learning curve. if he is wrong, correct him. if he is seeking knowledge, teach him. if he is being an asshole then by all means be an asshole back but i havent seen that from him, at least not in my time here.

[Nathan W. Collier]

i think most anybody is capable of learning if they want to learn.

i charge T&M, minimum 1 hour. $60 hourly rate (ok, i need to update my website but who has the time this time of year?) + $10 trip charge. i dont believe in flat rate billing. no two systems are the same, no two problems are the same, and no two customers should pay the same "just because".....but thats another issue entirely. i make a good, honest living by billing T&M.

[Noon-Air]

I almost made a living with T&M but now I actually make a *profit* with flat rate billing. FWIW, a resi condendser fan motor is still a resi condenser fan motor and instead of the $150 I used to almost get with T&M, including the service call and sales tax, now under flat rate, its $363 and change(installed) including the service call fee and sales tax. I almost went broke with T&M..... GF opened my eyes.... Thanx Pat :-)

[Tekkie®]

Nathan W. Collier posted for all of us... I don't top post - see either inline or at bottom.

He has NEVER stated his limitations, as to being wrong, nor expressing his logic behind a conclusion.

His learning curve looks like this: O

They have; does he benefit from it NO!

Many have have tried - none have succeeded. He is not seeking.

Stick around; you work with him. Teach him something today - will he be able to apply it tomorrow - NO. Do it privately or publicly whatever...

Let's face it. He has no desire to learn. Like a thief he takes the easiest way out. He's a "locksmith" who breaks jambs.

YOU make the effort, report back with results.

[Stormin Mormon]

I appear to be getting the standard treatment, which is abuse and garbage. In some regards, it's not so bad. Cause everyone else gets the treatment, too.

[Noon-Air]

do some more homework junior

[Stormin Mormon]

So, where does one get a flat rate book, and how to convince home owners that's the pricing schedule they want?

[Nathan W. Collier]

i disagree with flat rate billing on moral grounds. i give the customer what he needs and whatever preventative maintenance applies and bill him accordingly.

my focus is commercial refrigeration, but i do handle hvac for commercial customers and very limited residential hvac (for landlords only, to much bad debt in residential work). using your example and assuming the job is in town (a LOT of rural driving in montana) i drive out to the house and diagnose a bad condensor fan motor. i should have one on the truck, and assuming i paid $90 for the condensor fan motor the customers cost is $198 ($90 x 2.2). i install the fan motor, chemically clean the condensor, check evap for air flow, check charge by superheat (subcooling where applicable) and bill accoringly.

labor 2 hrs - $120 trip charge - $10 fan motor - $198 ($90 actual cost X 2.2) capacitor - $25 nu-brite cleaner $15

TOTAL - $368 + anything else i might find wrong (such as if the evap needs cleaning which is more labor + evap pow'r cleaner). in addition, there is rarely a time when i find nothing else wrong. one of the most common issues i find is overcharged systems that require recovery (creating more labor and a $25 recovery fee). the most basic principle of hvac/r, and sooooo many technicians screw it up.

[Nathan W. Collier]

youd better make sure that your local area will support it first. if youre the only one charging flat rate and everyone else is T&M youll most likely go broke.

[Noon-Air]

I do a lot of driving in rural south Mississippi, and with you not charging for condenser coil chemical cleaning, you are leaving another $100 on the table, and only charging $25 for refrigerant recovery would cost *ME* money. Its a minimum of $77 for me to take the recovery can off the truck up for up to 4 lbs.... more than that cost more. When I went to flat rate, my -average- ticket went from $125 up to $312. BTW... how do you justify 2 hours to change a condenser fan motor and capacitor?? and your getting overcharged for your fan motors.

[Al Moran]

Because a lot of techs do not understand that, before all else, you MUST have correct airflow. I've seen techs where I work with 10 years experience do this. Went on a call yesterday behind one of them. When he went he had no 410a on his truck. Diagnoses the system as low. I go out the next day with instructions to charge the system. Because of some training I recently had, I decided to go through the motions of diagnosing the system myself before I charged it. Turned out tech never went into the attic. System was 3 tons with a 14 inch return. DOH! So now instead of charge and go, homeowners purchased new return, new return grill and filter. After installers install it I am going out again to check the charge.

[Nathan W. Collier]

cool. i was born at keesler AFB by biloxi.

but i _am_ charging them for it. $15 for nubrite, which i only use about

1/4 gallon on a typical residential condensor + labor.

that number is for pulling out a pound or less due to an overcharge. larger recoveries certainly cost more.

as i said, that covers driving to the jobsite, diagnosing/repairing the fan motor, PLUS washing the condensor, checking airflow over the evaporator, checking charge/superheat, and doing the paperwork.

granted rescue motors are cheaper and so would my bill be when applicable, but it depends on the fan motor.

i had to order these just last week, for bryant condensors in a church. some of the larger refrigeration condensors are much, much more.

[Nathan W. Collier]

i agree with you, and will add to it that i find most are ignorant to how much superheat can tell you.

[Bob Pietrangelo]

Stormy, why do you have to ask these type of questions, if you are at that point in your career that you need to think about these things please report yourself to the BBB and ask them to protect society from you!

Why would that be the case?

I would rather know upfront what a repair is going to cost before it is done. That is all that flat rate is.

The pricing structure in flat rate allows you to charge less or more than T&M. I it depends on who is doing the repair.

A properly designed flat rate book that you show the customer, shows the customer everything that is involved to do the repair, it entices them to purchase maintenance agreements because of the discounts that are afforded to agreement customers.

The customer is not going to be watching you and their watch too make sure your not taking too long and increasing her bill.

Any competent company now a days is on some type of flat rate system. Going Flat rate in a town of T&Mers would probably do very well.

[Bob Pietrangelo]

Nathan, do you have any real overhead or are you working for yourself?

[gofish]

Oh My Fucking God.....you're not my kid are you?

[gofish]

do you support those immoral restuarant owners who charge a flat rate for each particular entree? nah, lets dont go there.

suppose you had 5 techs running nothing but refrigeration service calls 5 days a week, 8 hours a day. tech 1 has been with you forever and knows everything there is to know about refrigeration and can fix systems faster than any man alive. tech 2 is close on his heels tech 3 signed on 18 mos ago and isnt quite up to speed. he takes 2x times as long as 1 or 2 to find & fix problems. tech 4 signed on a yr ago and is not quite as sharp as 3. tech 5 signed on 6 mos ago. he's your best money maker, as he takes the longest to find and repair the problem. The first two techs spend more time on the road and less time fixing.

So you pad the hours when $10 travel pay doesnt pay the techs hourly pay and vehicle expense? You're telling us you pay your salary, the techs salary, the overhead & taxes, vacation pay, pay all the insurance, fund all the retirements, all for $60 hr? oooooooooook

5 techs, 5 different find & repair times, 5 different hourly charges for the same identical problem. no wonder you're big on stormin moron. he'd be your biggest moneymaker.

I guess its morally ok to screw the customer by sending out the slowest tech, one thats going to take the longest to fix any given problem.

at $90 a motor you're paying almost double wholesale for fractional hp motors

500% markup??

I'd bet your fastest techs find more things wrong than the slowest techs, eh?

[Stormin Mormon]

That's a new subject. Your question was what types of rotary compressors do you know about.