Well, good for you. I suppose you must have had alternative suppliers available if they cut you off for discounting. But it illustrates my point that the mfrs are constantly pulling these price-maintenance stunts, mostly illegal nowadays. Nothing remarkable that the HVAC biz does it.
Maybe you are old enough to remember the "fair trade" laws (which were in truth the opposite of fair) up until the 1960s, made it *illegal* to charge less than list price.
When I sold a very popular line of PCs in upstate New York in the early
1980s, they literally had an Italian mob guy (yes, named "Tony") that came around and "leaned" on you if you were suspected of charging less than list price. He wanted me to succeed and be wealthy selling these high-tech products made in California, but not at a discount. These kinds of "interpersonal skills" seem to be valuable in the "independent manufacturer's representative" line of work. And you thought it was all Dale Carnegie hail-fellow-well-met win-friends-and-influence-people style.
People I know in kitchen appliance retailing, farm implements sales, garage door repair, etc., have similar stories.
Kinch, any f****it with a pair of pump pliers can hang a shingle and hold himself out to be a HVAC contractor in your idealistic world. That's exactly why we have licensing. You want the rules changed so your hack ass can do as you like. When you f*ck up and injure or kill someone you can explain your theories to the judge.
Selling something to someone and providing a professional service is two different things. Don't try to blur the lines.
You don't know shit about business. Get a education Kinch. Preferably somewhere other than where you got your Ph.D.
So just exactly how do you propose that we should charge enough to be able to stay in business, be able to pay our bills, feed our familys, pay our taxes, pay for our medical and dental care, pay for our vehicles, pay for our homes, etc and still work for free??? Just exactly what is it that you do??? how much are you overpaid?? what does it cost you to pay for a roof over your head??? how much does it cost to feed your family??? how much does it cost for your medical and dental insurance?? how much do you pay in taxes?? how much does it cost to run and maintain your vehicles??? how much less can you get paid and still survive??
Wow, what a difference. I am in a right to work state, but we have a Registrar of Contractors and there is a law against non-contractors doing jobs in excess of $750. Under $750, you can do it as a "handyman." Yes, I work with a number of folks who do side jobs and installs that are way in excess of that.
Technically, and I know it has happened, if you are not a contractor and the customer has you do a job that exceeds that total, they can refuse to pay and file a complaint with the Registrar of Contractors, and you are screwed. No, I have not felt compelled to drop a dime on anyone yet, though I've been tempted.
Thanks, you just made me blow Coke out of my nose. You owe me a nnnneeeewwww kkkkkkkkeeeeeyyyyybbbbbbooooaaarrrrddd.
Time and again it has been shown that even intelligent people can be at a loss in an area outside their expertise. Without being an expert in HVAC or some close-related engineering field, how is one qualified to judge whether the unlicensed "contractor" standing before him is competent to be entrusted with the potential bomb in the basement? As intrusive as I find the government system of licensing, inspections etc., it has its purpose. I'm not so much worried about blowing up my own house or whatever, because I am qualifed to do the work myself or to judge who can. However I'm damn glad that my clueless neighbor can't buy his own HVAC system or hire some complete nincompoop to do it for him. You see, I just don't want to come home and find the remnants of his house all over my property. This isn't about protecting the consumer, it's about protecting me from other "consumers."
Absolutely no benefit to society at large, nope, not a bit, no lives have ever been spared by restricting certain kinds of work to those qualified to do it, nuh uh, never, nada, nyet.
That has happened, or something like it as I understand, in the case of septic systems in some locales. People got tired of swimming in the neighbor's shit, complained to the lawmakers, and got the protection from the neighbor's incompetence they asked for.
Outside city limits all bets are off and only in citys will you see the rules come into effect. Outside city limits you don't need licences, insurance, or Permitts but you can't do any commercial work at all. Commercial means any open to the public businesses or any public owned buildings. So Only residentiual only. The Only thing you have to have outside the city limits is a E.P.A. card. If you don't have a E.P.A. card --- they don't have to pay you when you go to collect for a hvac job -- Big or little. A bunch of hands get a education without a E.P.A. card. All the warehouses will not sell to nobody except the ones with a E.P.A. card for they know they will get hit with a bunch of none payments and go belly up on the warehouse. Even goodman will want to see a E.P.A. card before they sell to them. Here a warehouse can go to school just like the Rookies.
now if your in the city limits of any city the following applies ;
Small Contractors === Min- $300K Contractor Liability insurance. Small Contractors === Min- Small job $60K or less Electric / HVAC Licences , HVAC Operator City permitt / licences, E.P.A. II Card in Pocket , Recovery Machine on truck, and Have Workman's Comp if you employee more than 5 Employees. This will get you to do a $60k jobs or less / nothing over $250K worth of business a year , but nothing over that.
Large Contractor === Min. $2 Mil. Contractor Liability insurance, Have Louisiana State Commercial Electric Licences [ Adult size Lesstricity Licences ] , Workman's Comp on all employees, Read to and apply to Equal opportunity State Regulations, City of Doing business in City Operator permit, Pay city fee on jobs over $1K of $3.00 on every $1K of a job and city inspector will inspect it, E.P.A. Card with Universial on it, Recovery Machine on trucks, Any job over $60K must have job plain submitted to State Fire Marshal's Office, Have and Submitt sales tax payments every month not Quarterly, and last of all full fill all signed contractor and if not you go on probation for one. Second one you get hit with paying other contractor to finish the job. Third one you get all licences and operator permitts pulled for one year and you pay other contractor to full fill your contracts. that means you go belly up.
There is no Company that can do jobs of over $60K in Allen Parish / County except myself. They do have bigger ones who come in but they are at a disadvantage by not being located here. The Citys and Parish Offical have a thing now about wanting to hire companys that Hire and employee Allen Parish people and not out of Parish or out of state labor. I hire 100% all Allen Parish employees. I got the Adult Electric licences by Grandfathering in back in 1975 when the state adopted Licenced companys in the different fields. I sub out Electric work on the HVAC systems if big enough to the smaller electric service companys and they work under my licences.
No problem with you being in business or making a living. You sound like someone who must do well at it.
The problem is the men with guns ... excuse me, the government, deciding who gets to be in the biz and forbidding the public from dealing with anyone else. The only situations where the gummint "cares" about "protecting the consumer" is when there is money in it.
If the consumer needs government protection, then everything should be licensed.
The homeowners and commercial customers asked for this? "Please Mr Politician, put all that in place because we want to be protected from shoddy workmanship and unprofessional hacks."
These hideous systems came from pols and the trade, helping themselves by making an industry into a gentlemen's invitation-only club.
Here we have no licensing or code enforcement outside of the city limits and just in this county alone we lose at least 6 homes and or trailers and several lives each year due to fire because some hack or home-moaner decided they could do it them selves. The only reason we *don't* have manditory licensing and code enforcement state wide is because of the builders/realtors (more often as not they are one and the same) political pull and money. They know it will cut into their bottom line because they know they will have to get it done right instead of getting it done the cheapest by unlicensed hacks and raping the home buyer in the pocketbook.
Do a google on this group and see how many time a legitimate contractor has had to correct a dangerous situation that had the potential of causing the loss of life, limb and/or property. The stuff like that I see on almost a daily basis is really scarey.
What Kinch's problem is he went down to the Dynamite Supply house and wanted 10 sticks and 3 fuse cap to get a stump out of his back yard and the fellow there told him to go away. Kinch told the fellow that he had a right to buy anything he wanted because he was a smart fellow. The fellow told Kinch that when he got a Dynamite licences to buy , come back. So now Kinch wants to work on HVAC systems and has hit a dead end here too. He does not know you work from the bottom / up and not from the top / down when working in a industry.
I like the part about a Written invitation to get into a field of work. He wants to by-pass the state & Federal regulations , schools on it, Permitting systems, and go direct to dynamiting stumps and working on 480 volt electrical systems. He must be a smart fellower !
The supply houses here ask that you have a contractor's license before they sell you units, but there are ways around that. They only require an E.P.A. card for buying refrigerant. At first they wanted one for units, then decided that you needed to be a contrctor to buy those.
Except at certain hardware stores, where you only need cash to buy a Goodman.
He has a Ph.D. Customer of mine liked to hire Ph.D's. Said they were the best dishwasher and bussboys you can get.
I think all that education makes Ph.D's feel entitled to live off the rest of us. Apparently adopting the socialist view is the chic thing to do. That seems to be how academia is contructed. I could be wrong as I only have a high school education. It must really piss Kinch off to lose an argument to us. I imagine he's used to that by now though.
Kinch , You must have missed Eco. 101 in Collage. it say the more money changes hand the better the System works. If you sell everything at wholesale , there would be nobody to bring it to you or work on it. The price difference between Wholesale and retail is for the service people and dealers to ship it to you and have a reason to offer it to you. Without this you will have to drive to Columbia to get your coffee and to Louisiana to get your sugar for your coffee. If you don't have the time. You will have to pay the mark up or retail price. I know this sounds funny but it works.
Goodman calls the Hardware store a Service dealer and if you screw it up. You can sue the hardware store to come fix it here. They all here are gun shy for getting sued to death. Here if you install it yourself and the compressor burns up. you call the company you bought it from and tell them to come replace it for nothing. AZ. must have not figured this out yet , but when they do you will see a big change in who buys what. Even Home Cheap-0 and Low's stores make you sign a contract for a registered or unregistered hvac contractor to install it. The first time the Law Sueing starts you will see the end of customer selling stop.
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