why do every hvac contractor scam?

[Anonymous No.2423403]

installing furnace and air conditioner should be maximum $1500 for most residential equipment. Some contractors charge $10,000 on top of the equipment fee for a few hours of work. Its probably one of the worst industries i've ever seen.

[Anonymous No.2423405]

because the weak should fear the strong

[Anonymous No.2423406]

>>2423405
I can buy high end goodman which is daikin and install that shit myself

[Anonymous No.2423420]

>>2423406
I know someone with that brand, the chinese capacitors made it one year before needing to be replaced

[Anonymous No.2423425]

>>2423406
>goodman
>highend

[Anonymous No.2423436]

>>2423420
>>2423425
"highend" goodman uses daikin parts your friend probably uses the cheapest budget daikin

[Anonymous No.2423440]

>>2423425
>Inverter ac and modulating furnace that works with any thermostat
>bluetooth diagnosis
>daikin swing compressor
the most expensive Goodman is basically Daikin

[Anonymous No.2423504]

>>2423403
This is why you get prices from more than one contractor for the work.
I have three prices for putting in subfloor hydronic. One is around $30,000, the others are around $12,000.
The high price is basically telling me that contractor doesn't want the work.

[Anonymous No.2423519]

>>2423420
Oh no a $7 part had to be changed

>>2423436
>>2423440
Daikin builds great chillers and commercial AHUs because they're rebranded McQuay. Their VRF and ductless systems are excellent as well but their split systems, RTUs, and heat pumps aren't something I'd be bragging about. A "cheap" Goodman condenser has 4 parts that would ever need replacing including a Copeland scroll compressor which are hands down the best on the market. I absolutely agree though that HVAC contractors are crooks, I honestly feel guilty with some of our bids

[Anonymous No.2423524]

>>2423504
>The high price is basically telling me that contractor doesn't want the work.

This is an actual thing as high as industrial plant engineering projects that cost tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars (which is where I work).

Nobody ever says "no", they just give an insane price (2-5 times higher) to drop themselves from the competition.

I'd go as far as askig for 5-10 different quotes for OPs stuff, the only real problem is that you have to find enough companies and some places, e.g. small towns, might not even have that many.

[Anonymous No.2423576]

>>2423403
Just buy pioneer minisplits and install yourself. For the price it's high end disposable chinkshit.

[Anonymous No.2423597]

>>2423403
>installing furnace and air conditioner should be maximum $1500 for most residential equipment.

Proofs besides your feelings?

[Anonymous No.2423604]

>>2423504
Confirmed contractor who overprices jobs I dont want

[Anonymous No.2423605]

>>2423597
jew detected

[Anonymous No.2423611]

>>2423403
What you percieve as overcharging is consistent practice in any industry that works with equipment or parts that have very long life spans.
How many complete HVAC systems does the average homeowner willingly purchase in a lifetime?
Most people would hope for "none" and even one is a major hit even just for the equipment. When they can't put it off any longer people want the best deal *and* hope to never have to see the HVAC guy again if they can help it.
Theres no incentive to give a great bargain deal in hopes of repeat customers 15 years from now, so they make their money while they can. There"s also only 24 hours in a day so they will charge what they charge whether you are a rich guy buying $30k worth of HVAC or have a tiny job...and if your tiny job will prevent them from getting the $30k one you will get the "we dont wantvthevjob" price or if you are already in line you will go on the back burner.
Thats just how it is , dont like it dont hire them, or roofers, or ever get a transmission or rear end rebuilt.

[Anonymous No.2423635]

its a bullshit industry and the manufactures are all in on it by hiding the hardware prices. It should be no different than buying other gas and compressor based appliances, stove, fireplace, fridge.

[Anonymous No.2423636]

>>2423403
>installing furnace and air conditioner should be maximum $1500 for most residential equipment.
If you feel that way then you should /diy/, be sure to post your progress here so we can laugh at you.
You’ll realize it’s an absolute pain in the ass, and you have to do ductwork plus you need a ton of specialized tools.

[Anonymous No.2423638]

>>2423636
no you dont retard, theres cased coils and the units are factory charged. you can hire someone to help with the brazing and checking pressure.

[Anonymous No.2423641]

the basics can be learned in a week or two

[Anonymous No.2423642]

>>2423605
Memes are not a valid response. Proofs or fuck off. 1500 isn't even real money in 2022, boomer.

[Anonymous No.2423643]

>>2423638
/diy/ then faggot, be sure to post progress.

[Anonymous No.2423647]

>>2423643
you want to pay $10,000 to heat 4 pipes I see

[Anonymous No.2423786]

>>2423440
It's still shittier than the lowest end of better units

[Anonymous No.2423798]

>>2423403
What's even stupider is AC vs Heatpump prices. The plumbing and installation are identical with the only difference being the units themselves.

[Anonymous No.2423815]

>>2423647
$7000 seems reasonable for furnace and AC. You’re probably getting quoted so high because your shitty house doesn’t have enough room to work in or it’s so old it requires some special furnace with odd duct orientations. If you’re bitching about price, then do it yourself. But you fucking won’t, you’ll bite the bullet because you know it’s hard work. You’re the Jew in this situation.

[Anonymous No.2423859]

>>2423815
>$7000
heat 4 pipes and the equivalent of moving a washer and dryer.

[Anonymous No.2423863]

>>2423798
its probably the biggest scam for home owners

[Anonymous No.2423869]

>>2423403
>>2423798
>>2423815
It's really not THAT fucking hard to diy this shit.
Yeah, you'll want a few hundred dollars in tools and you'll probably spend a few days studying to go from complete noob to being able to install a normal residential split system.

If you're a homeowner without skills, consider using minisplits (no ducting) or get a package unit (no brazing/evacuation)

t. shitty residential hvac installer

[Anonymous No.2423996]

Federal energy guidelines going up next year dont get tricked into installing seer 13 ACs

[Anonymous No.2424048]

>>2423420
nooooo not the capacitors that you can order on amazon and have on your doorstep within 24 hours for less than $20

[Anonymous No.2424051]

electricianbro here:

They fleece the elderly retired who aren't mechanically inclined and who have the money. Easy to blackmail people into hiring you when their house is freezing/roasting and wife or kids are bitching to get it fixed at any cost. I've seen old r12 units last 50 years; i've helped replace central systems recently that werent even ten years old. People are potentially spending 10, 15, 20, 30k for less than a decade. Equivalent of buying cars.

Hvac bros correct me if i'm wrong, but my understanding is the refrigerant is partly to blame. The newer environmentally friendly refrigerants need to work at much higher pressures, and this reduces the life span of the equipment. Pair that with inferior indian, mexican, and chinese parts and you're lucky to get 10 years.

The 20 year old central heat pump at my house cant keep up, so I've been getting by with LG window bangers. Surprisingly efficient.

Worked doing electrical for a "premium" hvac contractor and lasted about four months. They were all about upselling and i saw no advantage between them and lower cost contractors. They all employ low wage hispanics who talk shit in spanish around the customers.

[Anonymous No.2424067]

>>2424051
HVAC guys are the biggest crybullies of any tradie on the internet. The second any homeowner tries to do something themselves, or someone posts tutorials and hints on YouTube they swarm the comments section telling you to give up, no one but them should ever touch HVAC. They act incredulous that it's not actually illegal and would love if it if it was so they could call the cops on you. No one else is like this on such a scale. Never seen electricians or plumbers act like this.

I think it's just little man syndrome because at the end of the day HVAC is a lot like general contractors where one fat boomer driving his F450 around hasn't done a job in 15 years himself and pays a dozen illegal alien "HVAC Technicians oh they took the open book online EPA refrigerant test damn so impressive" $15 an hour while he takes home half a mill.

HVAC isn't hard. The hardest part these days is getting your hands on refrigerant because globohomo EPA requires a license to buy just about anything that's not R134a automotive refrigerant now.

[Anonymous No.2424085]

>>2423636
>ton of specialized tools.
Oh give me a break. The only special HVAC tool you might need is a vacuum pump. Everything else is basic tradie shit that any self-sufficient handyman should get anyway. Stop huffing your own farts.

[Anonymous No.2424101]

>>2424085
Everyone on the job site hates them.

[Anonymous No.2424113]

>>2423642
>being a stooge to bankers and kikes is a meme
>it's current year! $1500 is pocket change now! spend it all, goy

yikes, coastie. too many foreskins for breakfast

[Anonymous No.2424114]

>>2423996
All they do is increase the condenser size so the fan doesn’t have to work as hard.

[Anonymous No.2424116]

>>2423859
>>2423647
>ignoring sheet metal bending tools.
Just /diy/ then and stop bitching about price. Better yet start your own hvac business since you’ll make a killing.

[Anonymous No.2424117]

>>2424085
Then the solution is clear, just /diy/.

[Anonymous No.2424125]

spot the maroons that are desperately trying to dissuade op because they need to feel validated in their career choice of ripping off old folks

[Anonymous No.2424128]

>>2424125
>implying I work in Hvac.
Keep bitching about what someone else is asking to do a job instead doing it yourself.
>complain about quoted price
>refuse to do it yourself to save thousands of dollars but claim it’s super easy
Yeah no, it’s harder than you think or else you would /diy/. Just keep complaining, but you know you’re going to pay the price because you’re too pussy to /diy/.

[Anonymous No.2424811]

>>2424128
youre posting on the wrong board buddy, you should be on /biz/

[Anonymous No.2424843]

>>2424811
This whole thread should be on /biz/.

[Anonymous No.2424847]

>>2424051
>Hvac bros correct me if i'm wrong, but my understanding is the refrigerant is partly to blame

its a bit more complicated than that-- the increasing efficiency requirements are being met by increasing the complexity of systems with more and more things to break... more vfd's, more zones with electronic controls, etc. And the material of the coils keeps getting thinner and thinner to help with efficiency but also to save costs. Cost cutting by the manufacturers is one of the only things that they can do to make more money; they can't really get more customers in this country, everyone already has central hvac in nearly every home.
It was also easier to flush the bigger internal diameter coils of the past when a compressor burnt up compared to the newer micro coil stuff.

Across a lot of industries, the way that the labor paradigm is working in the USA is making it a pain too. It's hard to attract techs who will work for shit money but are also competent, and it gets to where the cost to replace a blown coil starts to approach a substantial fraction of the replacement cost for the system. The way that a lot of companies are really paying their employees is more in commisions from system sales than in hourly labor rates for repairs, so a repair that should have taken one tech and one helper a single day to perform with 500$ in parts and supplies winds up turning into a 10K system replacement.

>>2424067
> The hardest part these days is getting your hands on refrigerant
Have a look at ebay, amazon, and craigslist/facebook marketplace. You'll find that the stuff is readily available and the EPA rules are a joke.
>>2424085
>The only special HVAC tool you might need is a vacuum pump.
If you wind up having a leak because this is the first time you've ever brazed copper lines, you'll find that you want more than a vacuum pump to help get it sorted. Same thing if you have to adjust the charge because of a custom lineset length etc.
It is still diyable

[Anonymous No.2424865]

>>2424847
>the increasing efficiency requirements are being met by increasing the complexity of systems
They are just increasing the size of the condenser so the fan doesn’t have to run as much. I have yet to see any furnace or ac have a VFD. They have had motor fans with separate windings taps for speed adjustments for ages. There’s no need to have a VFD, that would just add cost for no real energy savings.

[Anonymous No.2424868]

>>2424847
>If you wind up having a leak because this is the first time you've ever brazed copper lines, you'll find that you want more than a vacuum pump to help get it sorted.

Truth. I pressure test with nitrogen or welding shielding gas (even more inert but not as cheap which matters little with the amounts involved) since their cylinder valves are the same.

[Anonymous No.2425405]

>>2424865
10 years ago a furnace had a multi speed man motor with a universal control board and single stage gas valve. The condenser had an on/off compressor and condenser fan. The system I'm installing as I type this has a variable speed fan and gas valve in the furnace with multiple proprietary boards and the condenser has a multi stage compressor with control board. This is what it took to go from 14 SEER and 95% furnace efficiency to 16 SEER and 97%. Also doubled the up front cost and here in the upper midwest you'll never make up that difference.

Don't even get me started on VRF systems, those are insane in terms of complexity.

[Anonymous No.2425508]

>>2424128
You sound pretty defensive even though they didn't quote you specifically.

[Anonymous No.2425710]

A lot of sweating in here and not /diy/ing

[Anonymous No.2425880]

>>2424051
>I've seen old r12 units last 50 years
Can confirm. My central air unit is stamped August 1976 as the manufacture date. Still going strong. Broke down 10 years ago, called a HVAC company, tech told me inspected the compressor and found it burned out and wanted $8,000 for a new system. I told him to fuck off, found the schematic inside the case, and went through with a multimeter until I found that the contactor was bad. A $50 ebay part later my machine has been running flawlessly ever since.

>>2424067
>HVAC isn't hard. The hardest part these days is getting your hands on refrigerant because globohomo EPA requires a license
R410 is all over ebay. I own a rental house that the AC stopped cooling last year, after my previous experience with HVAC techs I said I would DIY it. Got a gauge set, a 5lb can of R410 from ebay, and an hour and a youtube video later the thing is cold again and still works great to this day.

I'm not even very mechanically inclined, but HVAC is literally the easiest shit on the planet. I can't believe these HVAC people make so much money for this.

[Anonymous No.2425922]

>>2425710
Because people are buying shitty, cheap compressors.

[Anonymous No.2425924]

>>2425922
It's all good, I don't mind ripping their shit out and putting in something good.

[Anonymous No.2426031]

>>2425924
>>2425922
You could replace your compressor every single year and still come out ahead vs buying a $15k system installed by an (((HVAC contractor)))

[Anonymous No.2426316]

>>2426031
this is true

[Anonymous No.2426390]

>>2423996
I just installed seer 13. Why does it matter?

[Anonymous No.2426399]

Have a Lennox R22 system from 2003, one upstairs and one downstairs. Two air handlers. Upstairs went out 2 years ago, developed a leak, recharged, went out within weeks. Coil must have developed leak. I hear that chlorine vapors in water and VOCs can develop pinhole leaks on coils, true? The downstairs Lennox runs like a champ. Original start cap.

[Anonymous No.2426401]

>>2426399
To add, wife always would shower upstairs w/o vent fan on. So all those vapors with chlorine would be going through the air handler chewing it up (pinhole leaks)

[Anonymous No.2426406]

>>2424113
>OY VEY I CAN'T POSSIBLY SPEND THAT MUCH MONEY WHAT ABOUT MY BAGEL PANTRY OY GEVALT MY MANISCHEVITZ CELLAR IT'S LIKE ANUDDAH SHOAH
Gotta love how the guy who refuses to spend money on anything calls everyone else Jews. You don't like it then install it yourself, kike.

[Anonymous No.2426408]

>>2426406
I think you're misunderstanding the traditional stereotype against jews.... They were perceived as greedy, not thrifty.

>>2426399
It's not unusual to have a coil leak in a 20 year old system like that, but yes the concept is that chlorine can accelerate or cause corrosion. If you haven't found the leak though, it's very possible that it wasn't in the evaporator coil anyway. Usually where you see chlorine causing a problem in a residential situation is with indoor pools or hottubs (which often involve much higher levels of chlorine than you would expect to see from someone showering with municipal water)

[Anonymous No.2426419]

>>2426408
>I'm not hoarding my wealth I'm being thrifty
Nice pilpul, rabbi

[Anonymous No.2426456]

>>2423642
>$52 for six inch diameter 25 foot length insulated duct lines
>say 250 feet of ductwork
>roughly $520
>just install AC/heater unit
>1.5 Ton 16 SEER 18,000 BTU R-410A Central Split System A/C Condenser and 24,000 BTU Vertical 17.5 in. Evaporator Coil
>~$1500
>grand total just above 2k
christ dude, this isn't even the cheapest i could go, this is much higher prices than you have to pay, i got these prices from home depot, not exactly the cheapest shit you can get

[Anonymous No.2426481]

>>2426408
I’m pretty sure that “cheap” is a Jewish stereotype

[Anonymous No.2426667]

>>2426419
>Foolishly wasting money is a completely normal virtue, fellow consumer! After all, taking care of your family and developing skills to do things for yourself is a jewish trick for kikes only!

You're through the looking glass, goyim

[Anonymous No.2426684]

>>2423604
How often do you get these overpriced jobs?

[Anonymous No.2426685]

>>2423611
wrong, they are just jewish

[Anonymous No.2427073]

>>2426684
bro can you read at all? you get someone telling you want x thing in x area. Might not be worth the time / effort so you give them a shit price

[Anonymous No.2428609]

>>2423403
>installing furnace and air conditioner should be maximum $1500 for most residential equipment.
Based on what? Your average residential system right now (basic furnace and AC) costs $1500-$2000 from the wholesaler. Equipment prices have doubled since last year, IF you can find what you want because of industry shortages.

Labor for a job is different every time. Sometimes a job is simple and everything comes out easy and slides right back in. Sometimes they fight you the whole way and every single thing is a fucking nightmare to do.

Don't forget all the government bullshit too. State Licenses, licenses in each city you work in, insurance, bonds, permits, plus salary for your crew, health insurance, business insurance, a fully stocked truck, gas, truck insurance, etc etc.

Plus you need to make a profit too, or else why be in business?

I'm sorry someone quoted you more than you wanted to pay but shit isn't cheap and thanks to the gubment it's gonna get worse.

[Anonymous No.2428612]

>>2424051
>They fleece the elderly retired who aren't mechanically inclined and who have the money
Like any other trade, we too have vampires who feed on the weak. They are fucking scumbags and deserve to be hung by their balls.

>Easy to blackmail people into hiring you when their house is freezing/roasting
People are panicky top. If your heat goes out and it's below freezing outside it will usually take a couple days for pipes to freeze, but people believe it will happen in minutes. You can get space heaters as a temporary measure, or window ACs in summer. Frankly no AC isn't an emergency unless you have legit medical issues.

>Hvac bros correct me if i'm wrong, but my understanding is the refrigerant is partly to blame. The newer environmentally friendly refrigerants need to work at much higher pressures, and this reduces the life span of the equipment.
Partly true. When R410a came out no one realized how corrosive it is to metal, and some mfgs tried to use thinner copper and got a surprise. What lowers the lifespan of new units is the Mexican and Chinese components they use to keep prices down. They could build them as tough at the units were 40 years ago but no one would pay the price.

>Worked doing electrical for a "premium" hvac contractor and lasted about four months. They were all about upselling and i saw no advantage between them and lower cost contractors.
I hate companies like this, cookie cutter corporate sales techs who get paid commission and push push push.

[Anonymous No.2428615]

>>2424067
>HVAC guys are the biggest crybullies of any tradie on the internet.
Been doing this 30+years and couldn't agree more.

>The second any homeowner tries to do something themselves, or someone posts tutorials and hints on YouTube they swarm the comments section telling you to give up, no one but them should ever touch HVAC.
The problem is that there's usually a few different ways to do things and each guy believes his way is best, so they all attack each other. Our trade is split into the "book smart" guys who do everything 100% the way the books say and shit on anyone who doesn't - and the "street smart" guys who know the shortcuts and use them to get the job done without all the extra bullshit. On HVAC message boards there's an eternal battle between these guys over who's right, but as long as shit is fixed and safe what difference does it make?

>HVAC isn't hard.
Doing it correctly is. I pride myself on fixing things the right way, charging a fair price and not trying to get rich off people, and not pushing upsells on people. I sleep well at night knowing that I didn't have to scare some grandma into buying a furnace she doesn't need.

[Anonymous No.2428915]

>>2425880
how many watts do a central a/c needs?

[Anonymous No.2428971]

>>2423403
stay in school anon

[Anonymous No.2429005]

>>2428915
all of them

but seriously, it varies by the unit, but would be stamped on the data plate.

[Anonymous No.2429123]

this is the most popular HVAC thread so I will post here
My AC broke and it could be either the motor or the control board, I had a contractor come over and diagnose things and he fiddled with some wires before he left. Wanted to charge 1 grand more for parts than for what I found online so I ordered my own and now he doesn't want to finish the job.
Now I have the parts and am getting ready to install myself and I don't know if he reconnected everything properly, the wiring diagram isn't matching up and there's some missing and extra colors, google didn't help much.
Does anyone know the proper course of action? Seems like the colors would all match up according to wiring diagrams in the manual and what I found online but I'm not sure.

[Anonymous No.2429124]

>>2429123
wiring diagram

[Anonymous No.2429602]

>>2429124
>>2429123
A monkey did this. Without more/ better pics i cant help, but for future reference C is cyan, thats your blue thermostate wire.

[Anonymous No.2429669]

>>2423611
What a weird way to run your hands

[Anonymous No.2429713]

>>2423859

>Line set is more than 15ft.

[Anonymous No.2429792]

>>2429602
I just took the plunge and tried changing out the motor and now everything works, turns out it wasn't supposed to be making a loud screeching noise whenever it spooled up and I got a bad unit from the home dealer
too bad the warranty expired a couple months ago
I'm fine with mechanical shit but I get spooked with electrical stuff

[Anonymous No.2430803]

>>2423611
>HVAC components have very long life spans

Lmao ok.

[Anonymous No.2430805]

I want a heat pump and I saw an Ad by the mrcool brand about their universal system that they installed in North Dakota and their machine was still operable in -24 F with no emergency or auxiliary heating.

Is this bullshit? I’d love to forget about paying the gas bill if I could get a killer heat pump set up.

[Anonymous No.2430971]

>>2428609
don't forget that if the area is audited you are also paying for the shitty license they had to buy to be permitted to do it there when the jew governor fucks up

[Anonymous No.2430972]

>>2430803
>laughs in igniter element cracks covered in 90 pounds of dust
>laughs in overpriced shitty filter burning out motors
When it's cold the phone always goes off.

[Anonymous No.2431004]

>>2430805
Keep some gas heat available for backup. I rarely use my stove (one end of house) and gas logs (opposite end) but I don't freeze during outages.

[Anonymous No.2431105]

>>2430972
I’m planning on keeping some kind of back up just for some general redundancy, I’m just really impressed by their video and I’m trying to not get scammed.

[Anonymous No.2431109]

>>2431105
For you
>>2430972

[Anonymous No.2431169]

>>2423403
That's what you get when there's a shortage of hvacfags.

[Anonymous No.2431180]

>>2431105
My tip is, even when you have central heating, keep some elements that can warm a room up. Even when you have ac, keep some fans boxed up.

[Anonymous No.2431243]

I have a dream. An eco dream. A cost saving dream. Free air conditioning for life sort of dream.

My dream is to create ice in the winter months of sufficient quantity to cool my home all summer. The electric Jews will be so mad at me.

[Anonymous No.2431247]

>>2423403
Dude prices suck ass right now, I've got a dead compressor from a system leak and just the compressor is gonna be $800 from the supplier.
I paid $1500 for the whole system 5 years ago.

[Anonymous No.2431262]

>>2431247
>Right now
They aren't ever going to get better and next year will be worse

[Anonymous No.2431668]

>>2431243
That's just a fantasy you internally understand is retarded. It's not to save money, it's to distract you from the challenge of doing genuinely attainable things.

[Anonymous No.2432095]

You're going to have to just realize the hard truth: All men have to learn the skills, or else get fucked. We live in a world of low social trust and low honor.

You need to learn to do your own HVAC, plumbing, electrical, construction and auto repair.

[Anonymous No.2432118]

>>2423403
Because they are contractors

[Anonymous No.2432123]

>>2424067
Lmao....it's everything this guy says plus th fact they only get work half the year in most places.

[Anonymous No.2432243]

>>2423519
For most people thats a 100 bucks atleast to have someone out and change that shit.

And Ive seen people (douchebags) charge 125 for a capacitor.

[Anonymous No.2432276]

>>2431243
that's actually very possible with geothermal storage of the cold.
you'd pump the cool liquid deep underground where it's extremely insulated by the earth and then retrieve it as needed.

[Anonymous No.2432472]

Doesn't the rising global temperatures mean HVAC dudes are about to make major fucking bank since literally everyone is going to need heating/AC to live

[Anonymous No.2432476]

>>2432472
more or less. When there is even a single serious heatwave, shitloads of people start adding or upgrading their systems even when it's not really representative of a new weather trend. It's the same way with the hundreds of thousands of home backup generators that they're selling in Texas after they had that blackout.

[Anonymous No.2432494]

>>2432472
there will always be an equilibrium point where it's cheaper or easier to just get window ac units.

[Anonymous No.2432507]

>>2423869
It took me 6 months to diy a forced hot air gas furnace. Granted I had to learn and install everything new except a few ducts, including the gas lines (replaced an oil burner)

[Anonymous No.2432756]

>>2432472
>need hvac to live
No not really

[Anonymous No.2432757]

>>2432476
I personally think that every homeowner should have prepared backup food water and energy just as a precaution.

You’re right about the perception of weather and what people need though.
The news in Britain is freaking out about their summer being so very hot when it was actually warmer last summer.
But they were busy going apeshit about Covid so there was no room for climate doomsday news coverage.

[Anonymous No.2432824]

Somewhat related, if you live in a top apartment unit should parts of the ceiling be hot? I'm seeing thermal readings on big chunks of the celining getting to 90 degrees F while other parts getting closer to 83 . Is that normal or is there insulation missing and I should contact the the apartment company about it?

[Anonymous No.2433509]

>tfw 2.5t condenser for upstairs, and I imagine a 2t or less condenser for downstairs since the condenser is so much smaller. Can't read the model number it's so fucking old.
downstairs AC is fine. Upstairs was just replaced but I swear it doesn't seem any better than the previous unit. 2400 sqft house in Houston. Did I need a bigger unit or am I just fucked and should just get a window unit for the rooms I really need to be cool quickly? This shit sucks. It doesn't get <75F until like 7 PM. Downstairs AC is just fine reaching 74 or so at most parts of the day. Idk I spent $6500 and I'm disappointed already.

[Anonymous No.2433541]

>>2426456
Looking for a mini split ~30k BTU, got any recommendations? Two zones, also NorthEast so needs that super heat shit.

[Anonymous No.2433627]

>>2433541
https://www.google.com/
there you go.

[Anonymous No.2433655]

>be my mom
>elderly. Dirt poor. Too proud to ask for money and too old to get a decent job (76)
>always told by son to call him when shit in her house breaks because he has the hookup on cheap tradesmen if he can’t do it himself
>AC goes out two weeks ago in the middle of Texas heat wave.
>doesn’t want to bother son
>calls local AC company
>tech tells her the unit is too old and she needs a new one
>$9,000
>calls me in a panic asking if she can cool her 1700 sqft house with a $150 window unit.
>that’s like throwing an ice cube in a bathtub
>call my AC guy
>he fixes it for $85
>less than what they charged her for a service call where they did absolutely nothing.

I’ve been thinking about exacting revenge and flaming them online but they probably sent a tech who has no troubleshooting skills. I’m giving them the benefit of the doubt on this.

[Anonymous No.2433657]

>>2433509
I had this problem and I put 1/2 sheets of silver-backed insulfoam in all of my southern-facing windows. The difference was drastic.

Measure windows and cut to fit with a razor blade.

[Anonymous No.2433664]

>>2433657
this might be the play. That or a window unit for the one room I really care about (newborn).

[Anonymous No.2433681]

>get into HVAC, company near me hiring entry level positions and will train you, get you apprenticeship license and everything
>neato, learning some shit
>job just ends up becoming a salesperson job, entire job at this point is just trying to sell the shit to the customer and then taking 10 minutes to install something
>I hate it now
I thought trades were gonna be cool

[Anonymous No.2433719]

>>2433681
does your job do commission or something? the job im getting an apprenticeship for specifically told me it wouldnt be trying to sell customers overpriced shit

[Anonymous No.2433730]

>>2433655
errrr, depends. i had just finished all my classes for industrial maintenance, it's one of those "jack of all trades, master of none" type things. i have a working knowledge of AC/heat units, but even i in a non-specialized training on AC can troubleshoot the units. so unless this was a completely untrained person, they can always test basics like freon pressure, if the unit is kicking on or not, if the heat exchangers are working properly, etc. so unless he's a day one employee, he likely was trying to rip you off unless he saw something that will cause excessive issues down the line.

[Anonymous No.2433737]

>>2423597
>8 hours work
>4 guys
>make $25/hour, $50 after benes
>15% profit because you’re not a jew

That even pays for lunch. Throw in markup and Freon and viola