"Les, I'm sure you got a great deal and made out very well. I'm even more sure that you side-jobber made out even better. I have no doubts about that. I just don't like it when our kids get ripped off so that someone else can get a great deal. Especially if it's tax/education dollars that got ripped-off through illegal use of school district materials *AND/OR" equipment & tools. Jabs "
You know, you are an amazing fellow. You know that the guy who does A/C work for the school but also does other A/C work on the side is stealing materials from the school. You know he's using school equipment too. You must be clairvoyant. And at the same time you know that any other repairman someone might find, say through the yellow pages must be 100% honest, right, cause he has a nice ad and maybe a phone service. Ever see the TV news shows where they take things like a TV with a blown fuse to shops that appears to be 100% legit, only to be told by a third of them that it needs $250 worth of bogus work?
Tell me this. Did you ever buy anything on Ebay? Did you check out where it came from, whether the guy had a business license, if his house was zoned for business, if he had an arrest record, check his tax returns to see if he's paying tax and determine if he was using his employer's computer at work to check on his auctions? Or did you just buy the item on Ebay like everyone else.
These jobs require some specialized tools and equipment. Who owns those tools? If he uses his work tools on the side, then that is equivalent to theft. His company fronts all the money, but the worker is putting wear and tear doing under the table jobs. And how about the truck that transported those tools? Who owned the truck? And whose contractor license was being used? Most likely, you would have ended up with an illegal furnace that couldn't pass inspection. And who paid for stuff like worker's comp insurance? You did send in a check, didn't you? If not, then you took a huge risk of the furnace guy getting cut on sheet metal and being disabled. Plus you broke the law. Were you planning to send a 1099 for the work, or were you going to commit tax fraud along the way, too? And was the worker in the union? What kind of union guy does scab work on the side. Finally, what happens if the job went bad after the fact? Who is there to stand bye and warranty the work? Or fix the defects? Or do your emergency service call at midnight when it is 40 below? Or to accept the blame when your house burns own, and your own insurance refuses to pay because you had unlicensed work done with no building permit or inspection?
Every part of this deal stinks, and has huge cost risks for very little monetary gain. Don't fall into that trap.
-john-
-- ====================================================================== John A. Weeks III 952-432-2708 snipped-for-privacy@johnweeks.com Newave Communications
YOU are the one that's assuming everything, not me. You assume everyone steals tools and it's up to a homeowner to know where they came from. You assume a permit is required to replace a compressor. Oh, but now you say it "may" be required. Please do tell. Do you get a permit to replace a compressor? Almost everywhere, it's not required, yet you assume it was in my case and that by not getting one I broke the law.
You assume an employer has a problem with an employee having a business on the side that doesn't conflict with the employer's business. You assume there are tax reporting issues for a homeowner when they hire a repariman and they have to file 1099's, when in fact as others have pointed out, it's totally false.
I can just imagine the BS you feed customers to take advantage of them. You sound like the shyster that comes in and sites all kinds of non-existent BS, then tells the lady, sorry dear I'm gonna have to call in some non-existent agency to red tag your furnace to scare her into getting unneccesary work done.
Will your homeowner's insurance cover it if the unit is wired or installed in a faulty manner that results in a fire? Several buildings a year here have fires that start in the air conditioners.
Yup - that'd be them. Up until now, we had their archrival J B do our annual inspection... but their quotes for Carrier equipment was kinda high. The clincher for me was the design of the heat exchanger on the Rheem equipment (tubular steel compared to two pieces of sheet metal crimped together on the Carrier), and the outdoor AC unit that was less prone to damage from weed-whackers, soccer balls, etc.
Hmmm... either prices have shot up considerably in the past few years, or you had stuff with lower BTU's/tons put in given the smaller square footage. What did you end up having installed? Any problems with it or I H A A C ??
Trader, you keep argueing your point. The majority of the jobs done like this are performed like we said, basically stealing from their employer. I am sorry you do not see it like this.
You are correct about the 1099, it is required for a business to an individual, but not a homeowner to an individual.
I hope you can understand why us as owners do not like this. Employees doing work on the side generally use everything that we provide in our trucks except for the equipment they buy on the side, which is usually very low end equipment with little or no warranty. If they are friend of yours it is usually even worse, because if it fails who are you going to complain to. With the little amount of money you paid him, how much warranty do you expect him to cover when it fails.
Rather than arguing with everyone that doesn't see it your way, why don't you open your mind and see it from a different view. When you were questioned about the issues we brought, why not just answer them or ignore the thread, instead you have attacked everyone who you didn't like what they said.
One other point and then I am done, most commercial guys are profficent at mostly commercial equipment, and most resi guys are profficient at resi. So just because someone works in the industry, do not automatically assume they know everything. How many Chevy mechanics can work on a Jaguar.
" instead you have attacked everyone who you didn't like what they said. "
If you follow the thread, you will see that it all I did was say that I had a friend of someone I knew who did A/C work for a living at a major plant, replace my compressor for me. It was then I who was attacked by a barrage of BS Like:
Hiring someone who does work on the side is illegal - it's not
That the guys is using his employer's tools - As far as I or anyone else knows, this is false too. The fellow worked at a plant, not as a A/C contractor doing homes and showed up in his own truck.
The guy is stealing the parts from work - Totally unfounded
That I broke the law because no permit was taken out - No permit is required here or in most areas to replace a compressor
That I'm a tax cheat and in trouble with the IRS because I didn't file
1099's - None are required, since I'm a homeowner, not a contractor.
So, sorry, if you think it's an attack when I challenge lies and BS. But it's just the truth. BTW, the compressor job was done years ago and worked fine.
It's illegal to contract or hold yourself out as a contractor if you are unlicensed. We must all be dumbasses for following the rules and regulations.
Got to have complaints before you have to handle them.
Those moonlighters are doing your job with skills we paid for them to learn. Then having them cut our throat by having to compete against these no overhead SOB's just takes the cake.
Another reason I love our license board here.. Get caught with no license, face jail time. Get caught subing a job to a licensed guy, where the one acting as a contractor TO sub would need one, face jail time. Get caught doing work as a homeowner without a proper license or permits, and its twice the permit fee, fines, and possible jail time.
I'll have to dig up the paperwork to find the BTU's of the furnance, but IIRC, we got a 2 ton A/C.
No problems at all with the company. We've been very pleased with them. The compressor on the A/C died after about a year, and they were out within about an hour and replaced it. All labor and parts covered, of course.
The price we got may have been because of competition. There was a bit of a price war going on between I and B at the time, for furnace/AC packages.
(Snipped from) Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony Capitol Hill Hearing Testimony
Thomas E. Bettcher, President and CEO of Copeland (snip) ".......The number one problem of our contractors today is the inability to hire new technicians. Another glaring problem facing our industry is product "takeback," the return of products to the manufacturer. The number one cause of product takeback is the incompetence of technicians during installation leading to the return and replacement of units, even when there is absolutely nothing wrong with the product. This unnecessary replacement of good machinery drives up warranty costs and hurts our reputation, all because the installer does not have enough training to install the system properly in the first place......"
Rich, After reading the above snippet from the President and CEO of Copeland Corp's testimony to the U.S. Congress, maybe you will understand "price wars" in HVAC installations a little better.
Yeah. It's the ones who thought they had a "good" guy who cut out their limit on the furnace and then their belt broke.
Or the ones who over a few years had a few friends of a friend who works for someone who basically came, collected and left with the same problem still existing or offered a $6,000-$8,000 solution for an inefficient compressor.
Or the one's who "got a deal" on a heat pump that's wired to the two thermostat wires at the outdoor unit.
Or the one who got a deal on a new smaller furnace with a 3 ton blower that has five tons of air conditioning.
or the 5 ton compressors that the "great tech" put in the 7.5 ton systems and told the customer they make it more efficient.
Or the copper ott wire or 1/2 copper pipe used as fuses.
and on and on...
Consumers can bitch but most are actually getting what they pay for. The cheapest shit money can buy.
I've posted the story a thousand times, and I'm sure you will probably just throw an insult at me anyway, Bill -
But there is the flip side.
I paid top $ to what I thought was a reputable company (been around for
20+ years), for what I thought was top of the line equipment for a top notch install.
Turns out the "reputable" companys way of making a profit is to sell high $ systems to unknowing consumers (in this case - me) and then send out the cheapest labor they can find (2 or 3 teenage kids in my case).
When I asked the installers if they were going to put in new (whatever the hell you call the lines that take the coolant from inside to outside and back) they looked at me as if I were asking for the moon. (The distance from the furnace to the compressor is probably 20', and the ceiling joist spaces were wide open).
The day after they installed it, I had to have them back as all the compressor wouldn't come on.
Why? All the coolant had leaked out from one of their solder (braze?) joints.
There was an open splice made in the 120v supply line left hanging in the ceiling. When I asked the tech about it - he said "oh, don't worry. That won't ever hurt anything".
Even though I had a 2 stage stat installed for this 2 stage furnace - I realized a month or so ago that my stat isn't controlling the stages. How did I discover this? By downloading the tech sheets for my thermostat, noting that there is a connection for each stage, then looking at the thermostat and seeing there is no lead connected to the stage 2 contact. Also that there weren't enough wires in the cable that runs from the stat to the furnace to have the stat control it anyway.
The "top of the line" equipment (Lennox) turned out to be complete crap, and this past winter is the first since being installed in '00 or '01 that I havn't had to call for service. EVERY component has been replaced at least once.
Which isn't the installers fault, I understand this. Except I will say that their way of repairing a problem was to replace parts until the problem went away. Which is why they have had to come back every year, I suppose.
The one consolidation is they have replaced and/or repaired all the problems at no cost to me, which I wouldn't have gotten if I had been looking for a "deal".
And of course the lesson for the installing company (hopefully) is that if you sell a system, then send out flunkees to install it - you will lose your ass on the deal eventually. I'd say they spent roughly 24 hours (3 men one day) on the initial install. I don't think they are up to 24 hours in repair time YET, but it's close, and they don't get a cent for a minute of it. And I'm thinking the guys they send to service it are paid a bit higher wage then the kids who did the install, but I have no way to really know.
Lesson learned for me is never trust ANYBODY. I thought spending a lot of money meant quality. WRONG.
As a homeowner, do your homework. Get some referrals from people who have used the contractor you are thinking about using.
Don't look for the "deal". But don't let a supposedly reputable, long established company BS you either.
(Snipped from) Federal Document Clearing House Congressional Testimony Capitol Hill Hearing Testimony
Thomas E. Bettcher, President and CEO of Copeland (snip) ".......The number one problem of our contractors today is the inability to hire new technicians. Another glaring problem facing our industry is product "takeback," the return of products to the manufacturer. The number one cause of product takeback is the incompetence of technicians during installation leading to the return and replacement of units, even when there is absolutely nothing wrong with the product. This unnecessary replacement of good machinery drives up warranty costs and hurts our reputation, all because the installer does not have enough training to install the system properly in the first place......"
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