Hey Dumb-Fuck, Fuck a license and EPA Certification! Either you go get your recovery-machine, your welding outfit, your vacuum pump and your micron-gauge along with a just couple of years of HVAC training & experience and do it yourself for less....... or STFU.....dumb-ass!
He cuts down on vaccum time by using one of the Vaccum port on his Pinto one barrel carberator.
Don't discount this and laugh for i knew a turkey years ago who would do it. The engine would run ruff till it got to about 10 inches and leveled off. He had a hose come out by one of the head lights and tied off on a 62 Ford F-100 . High Tech in Action.
So...out in CA where guys get over $1500 to change out a compressor....its OK, since thats what the market will bear? How about the larger commercial stuff, where its close to $5000 to change out one?
No I'm not referring to you as doing any of the work but if you think that you can do everything that a real profession hvac tech will do in all repair. well your kedding yourself. Your ganging up all hvac people as hacks when only about
1/3 are hacks, 1/3 are uneducated enough in the business to do it right, and 1/3 is real hvac service professionals. Now if you gang them all and call them all the same. When you do need some help professionally, you will probley call the hack for he will be the cheapest priced and agree with you on any decission made about the system. The Hack knows that if he let's you decide how it will be done. You will screw it up enough to get to sell you a new system when it comes apart later.
I don't mean to lump the whole lot together. In any service business, you have some that are technically competent, some that aren't, some who are competent but with no head for business, and those who are crooks with excuses why they're not. On top of that natural order, you have the government contractor licensing, the EPA licensing, in some situations the unionization, in collusion to bar entry to the trade and to maintain prices. And on top of that, you have the manufacturer's restraint-of-trade practices for price maintenance, which happens in every industry that sells costly equipment (white goods, farm equipment, cars, used to be personal computers before they got cheap), with manufacturer's constantly influencing dealers to stop discounting and competition.
Every bunch that wants government to enforce licensing talks about "protecting the consumer" and "raising standards of professionalism", but in reality it is all bout restricting the market, raising prices, and picking who gets to practice the trade. Doctors, lawyers, barbers, manicurists, morticians, tile-setters, etc. The chief determinant of which enterprises are free of this and which are lousy with it is the simple aspect of how easy it is to lean on people trying to do it. You can police the drywall trade, you can't software over the Internet.
I have to disagree with you on this. You are making is sound like you CANT get into the trade. You can. While there is a set order, FOR A REASON, that you have to be properly trained, its not impossible. The EPA licence is not difficult. Not at all. I dont support union..you want it...you can have it. State licence shows competence in paperwork, basically. In order to get to that level, you have to show time working in the trade, so that they can feel confident when you get your gas fitters ticket, you wont do something stupid like use garden hose for a gas line. As far as pricing...no one tells me what I can or cant sell my equipment for. I had one company that sent me a C+D letter one time, and I replied back with an up yours....and never heard back from them again. What I find amazing, is when I price out a system, as I just did, and will go deliver the estimate package to the builder as soon as I send this reply an check a couple of others, is that I normally get questioned about "Why are you so much lower than XYZ?" LOL...an the truth is, I am not lower, he is HIGHER.
I dont agree, and all it would take would be one week with a tech in a van to see what we see out there to prove otherwise... What we are for, is taking what we have now, and enforce the laws on the books, not so much to the homeowner, but to the so called pros out there that represent the licenced bunch we have now.
I do agree that as time goes on, the few that are entering the skilled trades are NOT so skilled, and therefore, in order to present yourself as a professional they need to show more experence, and the ability to do the work. You claim our trade isnt rocket science, and you are right, altho its used on the space shuttle and ISS. Its more a matter of thermal and fluid dynamics, basic math, and physics, and a good dose of common sense thrown in.
What I sell my units for, only the customer cares, and if the customer wants to spend more on a Goodman..so be it. If they are that weak minded to believe that a Goodman compares to a York, or a Trane...I dont want them on my customer list anyway.
first it is not possible to correctly trouble shoot a system over the internet.
Second I live in a State Louisiana who has the right to work laws and all you need is a epa card and a 1962 pinto station wagon and your a HVAC/R professional which can bid on $50,000.00 job right along side me. I've done this for 40 something years and been dealing with hacks all these years. Now these days they have to put up a $300K Contractor liability insurance policy to cover if they don't proform and that is about it. Contractor liability insurance compamys do a little policing of their own by not selling a policy to any person that does not have 5 years work experience in the field and atleast 2 years working on their own as a business owner. Yes you have to get out of state insurance to start or be let sub out under a regular hvac company like myself. Yes i have started a bunch of companys and is starting another one right now.
So you are being restricted not only by government but industry does not want the customer screwed and screwing up the jobs theirself. They know 90% of all home owners don't have any skill in the hvac or refrigeration field and wants them to call someone that will not screw it up for the next home owner to buy his screw up's. About 20% of my business comes from home owners fixing what should have been done differently years ago. Also another 30% of my business comes from hacks screwing up jobs and I come finish them. Most home owners will not sue the hack for a small $200.00 screw up and call me and say " Hey Turtle come fix this damn thing " .
Your story is not new and we hear it all the time when we are fixing screw up mostly.
Homeowners please read the charter for alt.hvac and sci.engr.heat-vent-ac
at:
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It states: The HVAC groups are not intended to supplement the homeowner groups such as
misc.consumer.house and alt.home.repair
So please go there and post your question or call your local heating/ air conditioning contractor to service your equipment.
According to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), a qualified heating contractor should inspect the home heating system annually. Checks should be made of the furnace or boiler, and its electrical and mechanical components, thermostat controls and automatic safety switches.
In article , Richard J Kinch the socialist f****it wrote: snipped rant
BULLSHIT. Allow you to hang a shingle and call yourself a Lawyer, Barber or a Doctor because you watched and helped a few times?
"Protecting the consumer" and "raising standards of professionalism" is precisely why we have licensing.
Make some software that harms someone. You know full well the software license is one long weazel clause. Stand behind your software like we do our trade Kinch. LOL
No, those things are perfectly well achieved with voluntary standards that intelligent people can pay for if they choose.
When the government forbids, ultimately with threats of force, a willing buyer and willing seller to exchange in an honest transaction, because of a lack of a trade license, then that has nothing to do with consumer protection or professionalism. It is motivated by greed, of the tradesman who benefits from higher prices and less competition, and of the politician who gains a moneyed special interest.
In the extreme, the government itself will decide who will do the work and tax us to pay for it, like the public schools.
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