this post was submitted on 30 Apr 2024
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Yes. It infuriates me that members of my species keep these places in business. They should all be out of business since absolutely no one should be buying their unpriced shit.
Short of custom work, but even still, give me a "starting at" price so I know whether it's worth my time to investigate.
I wanted to get a quote on a mini split, or ductless A/C, the HVAC company said they can send someone over to review the location and give me an estimate.
I'm not asking for a full system, I literally just need an A/C drilled into my wall, there is no need for someone actually visit my home to give a guess.
There is a lot of info they need that frankly you can't trust the average client to accurately give over the phone. They need to know what your walls are made of, are they concrete, brick, wood or metal stud? Are they going to need masonry tools? What is the interior wall material; asbestos reinforced plaster is still not uncommon in older houses and if they're working with that the the price goes up dramatically? Is there electricity run to that location already or will they need a new circuit? If there is electricity run to that location does the existing circuit have capacity to handle the load? Is there even available space to mount the new unit? Is it in a neighborhood where it will need a cage around it to deter theives? And that's only some of the info they need.
About the only accurate price they could give you over the phone is the cost of the unit itself which you could also just find via a google search. The actual labor and other costs will vary by orders of magnitude depending on certain conditions.
say you want the condenser unit placed on your roof or backyard. the routing would be completely different. Say you have an unfinished basement vs they have to remove and replace a shit ton of drywall. completely different. the unit itself is a static price. the conditions of installing the unit are a huge factor. is it on a drywall wall or are your walls all poured concrete?
Understandable, but really unless the price difference is going to be triple the minimum, I just want a general guess.
It's a balance, they might not know exactly what the job would entail until they send someone to look, and labour could double the price if it's something ridiculous.
However, they absolutely should be able to give a ballpark, and it drives me up the wall, especially when I've given enough details for them to do so.
I hate it.
If you won't even tell me how many zeroes your service is going to cost, there is an absurdly high change you're going to be wasting your engineer's time doing a visit.
"How much for a 12000 BTU on the ground floor with electrical already run?"
"Well sir, we can't give an accurate number yet, as we need to send someone out"
"Not even a ballpark?" "I'm afraid not sir"
Which led me to investigating what I could do myself...Turns out, they now make self-install units for about £600.
Or Costco sell a better brand one including fitting for £1500.
Which is really all I want, minimum it'll be 1500 bucks, maybe up to 3000 on the higher end.
Three different HVAC companies wanted to charge me 5k plus for a second compressor to cool my second floor. I bought a $500 u-shape window unit from Amazon and have kept it perfect for 2 years now. Some of these hvac folks are on fucking drugs I swear
Unless you're just talking about a minisplit or something $5k is remarkably cheap for a full AC install. Theres a big difference between throwing a window unit in and having an actual AC unit installed. You can't just slap a second compressor on an existing condenser. It would need a second condenser or an upgrade and second circuit run for your existing one, plus running refrigerant pipes, likely running new wiring, ventilation, controls, refeigerant costs and system tuning. A window AC unit isn't even in the same ballpark as far as price goes.
When somebody doesn't want to give me a price, I've started asking them for an order of magnitude. Sometimes they still don't want to say a number, but when I ask "is it 2$, 20$, 200$, 2k$, 20k$?" they will usually give me a ballpark, along with the factors that'll make the price vary.
Sometimes you have to shame a person by insulting the number. Starting out at $2 and going up to an absurd 200k really just illustrates how wide of a range they leave open. Just give me a jumping off point. If you can't, someone else can.
I mean you are talking about stuff where someone hires someone to make something that does not exist yet? totally get that. you are not buying so much as hiring someone in that case. if it exists and does not need to be modified though it should be able to be priced.
That exactly what I was thinking.
Yeah. Like a $1,900-$4,800. I've seen that a lot because even w/o custom work there's a lot of options or additional features/drawers they can add in. Sizes, etc.
That happens at my job, we're instructed to not give prices cause it depends on a number of factors but I do give starting prices and make sure to repeat at least three times that's they're the minimums and there is no upper limit cause it depends on those factors. It's free to have one of my licensed inspectors go out and do his thing to provide an exact number anyways. The number includes taxes too so there's no surprises.