How to treat your HVAC tech

  1. When it's 105 out and I've just come out of your attic please do not offer me anything to drink. Us heating and air techs have a special gene that lets us recycle our sweat when licked of off our bodies in a timely manner. Heat stroke is a Zen experience!
  2. By all means tell me that you want to pay my after hours fee and then wait till I'm five minutes from your house and call and cancel. We have a special deal with the gas companies where we only pay half price.
  3. When I tell you that a part costs x dollars, please exclaim as loud as you can "For that!" There are no overhead costs associated with running our business, that's why it's called HVAC. You know, heating, ventilating and charity.
  4. When I tell you the price for a new system, please tell me how Joe down the street just got one for half that price. I'm just curious, did Joe get the Ford model or the Mercedes model or did BillyBobs heating, ventilating and charity install said system?
  5. When I tell you the price of a new system, please tell me how you can get one off of that internet thingy for half price. Those internet models install and warranty themselves I heard.
  6. When I tell you the price of a new system, please tell me that you want to get a quote from
10 other companies and make a decision five years from now. Our business is inflation proof.
  1. When I show you the problem with your system and you're standing right there, please tell me you want to call 5 more companies for a second opinion. All these certifications we have mean absolutely bubkis.
  2. When I ask you who put your system in and you tell me a friend of a friend so your cheap ass could save money, please get mad as hell when I tell you that that's what happens when you hire hacks. Oh wait, that's right, you hired BillyBobs heating, ventilating and charity. So sorry I insulted you, my bad.
  3. When I disable your system because your heat exchanger is cracked, please go completely off and tell me what a crook I am. If I don't hear what a crook I am at least once a day I start getting a complex. Besides, I heard that a little carbon monoxide, in moderation of course, is a Zen experience.
  4. When I have you scheduled for 10:00 and you are not there, please expect me to wait an hour while you do whatever it is you have to do. You are the only customer I have that day and I have nothing better to do anyway.
  5. When you see my van driving down the road, please do everything you can to impede my progress. We all attended the Skip Barber racing school and you are helping us keep our driving skills up to par without having to go back and pay that damn racing school for a refresher course each year.
  6. Please answer your door in the most revealing clothing you have and then offer to pay for the service call by "unconventional" means. Hey, all of us have screwed up marriages anyway, we only married our wives out of charity.
  7. Please argue with me about how much the office said the service charge would be. I've only worked for said company four years anyway, what the hell do I know.
  8. When I am looking at your system, please have your engineer neighbor there so he can make suggestions every 2.5 seconds. After all, all of these certifications we have, well, we had to eat a lot of cracker jacks to get them.
  9. After I have just fixed your system, please fiddle with the thermostat and turn it off. It's ok because we all have ESP and will know that you just turned the thermostat off. Besides, I really didn't want to give you the "complete system evaluation" that you're paying for anyway.
  10. When I tell you that your system is low on refrigerant and will need 5 lbs, please ask me to add only two pounds so you can save some money. You have a special system that will cool without the required amount of refrigerant, all I have to do is throw the kaniflin valve counter clockwise and this will allow the system to run correctly and as an added bonus will seal the leak wherever it is.
16a. If the system isn't cooling. Be sure to tell me that you know it's low on freon, and just to add a couple pounds. Don't let me sell you a fan, or scam you by cleaning the condensor.
  1. When I tell you that your duct work is improperly sized, please ask me why someone would do that. I can surely answer that question because as I said earlier, we all have ESP.
  2. When I ask you to explain what your system is doing or not doing, please start out with "it was working yesterday" with the tone in your voice like you expected it to ring you up and let you know that at exactly 5:04 tomorrow it's going to croak.
  3. Please do everything you can to get me to warranty something that is not covered under your warranty. Remember, I am running a charity, not a business.
  4. When I am diagnosing why your new system does not heat or cool properly, please start out with "well the salesman said." That's why they are called salesmen!
  5. Please ask me to estimate the repair over the phone. With only a sketchy description of the problem, and no clue what the equipment is. Ask for a firm, cast in concrete quote. Don't take no for an answer. And then when I get there, tell me the rest of the problem.
  6. After the phone quote, don't accept any hint of possibly saying something else was wrong. HVAC guys are psychic. We can diagnose over the phone. But we do, so, love scewing with you. We get there, and find five other things wrong cause we love to make you squirm.
  7. Be sure to call on a weekday about 10 AM, and ask for the quote on fixing the system. Then call back, Sunday night about 9 PM and say that you can't stand it, and want someone out right away. And that you want the quoted price.
Reply to
Stormin Mormon
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Pretty good!

Reply to
Gordon Shumway

Copied it off alternating havoc. I added the bit about adding freon, point 16a. That's from my own experience with a customer from Hell.

The guy had a couple systems which were obvious to me loaded with air. He wanted "five pounds freon in this one, and eight in the other one". I showed him that the receiver would only hold 1.7 pounds, so eight pounds is way out of line. He didn't believe me. Told him that the system needed to be evacuated, and get the air out. He also didn't believe me. I hope he's found another technician who will do exactly what he says. I sure won't.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

Glad to someone in the trade making that comment. Pretty obnoxious bunch over there.

Reply to
Bob F

Don't you just love coming out to work on anything after some Neanderthal has gotten hold of it?

TDD

Reply to
The Daring Dufas

I'm not sure what's worse. The other tech with the load of air in the system, I can deal with that. The customer who totally insists all it needs is 8 pounds of freon. I can't do much with that. I think it's sad, though. The restaurant has several of the world's nicest people. But the owner was pretty set in his ways, and not listening to reason.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

In the welding trade, I made a boatload of money from it. However, there were jobs where the client did not want to pay my hourly rate, or the thing was so screwed up it had to be redone. And on those jobs where I bid it, and they took low bid or had their brother-in-law do it, and now had to get a pro to fix it, I charged them full rates. A lot of it had to do with the attitude of the client. I'd help some people out, and then I'd give some people better pricing, but for some, I enjoyed either walking away, or telling them to get the original worker over there to fix their own mess.

Steve

Reply to
Steve B

I do read alternating havoc, now and again. Can't say as I am fond of most of the posters there. Ah, well. They need the voice of sanity now and again. Keeps them off balance.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

I've got a couple customers, it will be nice when they retire to Florida, and sell the place to someone else. Will be nice when I can go back, and prove to myself that I really did know how to fix that cooler that "needed 8 pounds of freon".

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

I often worked on equipment after the owner, or his friend the electrical engineer tried to fix it. When it came time for the bill I would go over how many things and how long it took to fix the damage they did, lets say $300 worth, and then the original problem cost about $75 to fix, the minimum charge.

Reply to
Tony

I've had a call or two like that. I'm remembering the furnace that tripped the breaker. The lady reset the breaker. Repeatedlly, until it stayed on.

Original problem: shorted out fan blower motor. New problem: Having power surged the furnace repeatedly. Finally, a relay on the circuit board vaporized.

Blower was $50 or so, and the board was $200 or so. Been several years ago, so I'm sure my memory of prices is way off.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

In another life I was installing/ repairing TVRO systems. I could have almost made a pretty decent living just because some of my competitors didnt know how to put an N connector on a piece of coax.

Jimmie

Reply to
JIMMIE

I give mine a cold beer and some hot sex. Needless to say, I'm married to him.

Cindy Hamilton

Reply to
Cindy Hamilton

The only problem I have with all this is that it makes the assumption that all HVAC guys are competent, honest professionals.

There are a LOT of outfits out there that are incompetent and/or just out to screw the customer for every penny they can. How they manage to stay in business for decades, I don't know.

Reply to
mkirsch1

Ah Dang! YOu had me putting on my tool belt!

Reply to
Tony

Cindy Hamilton wrote in news:ba428aa7-ac11- snipped-for-privacy@y11g2000yqh.googlegroups.com:

Does he need a helper by any chance?

Reply to
Red Green

You could hold his beer and watch.

Reply to
HeyBub

"HeyBub" wrote in news:- fWdnQHNB4l52hDWnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.com:

He could actually trust me with it since I don't drink. Now as far as Cindy...

Reply to
Red Green

Now how do I get a guy to come out and quote me a price?

seriously, I have been putting off getting a heat pump for my garage not because of money but because the contractor that put the A/C in my house has shown a decided disinterest in quoting any more work for me. Not sure what I did to piss him off, I did get three quotes for my A/C but he was NOT low, I picked him because I got the best impression of his professionalism and thoroughness of the three. If he gave me a good price for the garage I wouldn't even bother getting another quote BUT now I have to start all over again...

grr.

nate

(no, I did not offer to pay by unconventional means. That would be kinda creepy.)

Reply to
N8N

I can believe that. Ain't it awful? Gonna take care of yourself. Pay your bills honestly.

Reply to
Stormin Mormon

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