Just cuz I know you are dying to know…
So the furnace was making a horrible racket and shutting off frequently. We first noticed the problem when old eagle nose Robin detected a burning odor. We tracked it down to the furnace. From the noise going on and watching what happened when I took the cover off I was 80% sure it was the blower motor. The odor was from poor combustion that resulted from the abrupt termination of the rotation of the squirrel cage pushed by the blower motor. Besides a bad motor it could have been several other things, a bad capacitor, a fault on the control board… I’m not up on the entire diagnostic tree for furnace ailments.
It has been cold here, below freezing. I found a HVAC company that at least on various web sites had good reviews. They would come out, even with the icy roads, $99 service call fee, plus any repairs extra. The young man who came out was very personable, very professional, he quickly diagnosed the issue after a discussion with yours truly and an examination of the motor/capacitor with a multi-meter. It was indeed a bad blower motor. The company carried a generic motor on the van that would work for most furnaces. They wanted $900 for the motor and installation. If the mounting hardware did not work there would be more cost. So with the service call we were looking at a minimum of $1000.00.
The tech had gone out and had come back into the house with the motor box in hand. I said give me a minute, let me look up some prices on the Internet. This particular motor was to be had for $300 plus or minus $50, depending on the website. I told him, you are a nice fellow, but I do not like the feeling of being ripped off. $600 to install a motor is a bit steep. He totally understood and said his hands were tied as his company set all the prices. He was kind enough to put our furnace back together, explaining to me the gotcha points in an installation of a blow motor. Our furnace was limping along, but I was hearing the death rattle. I paid him the $99 and he left.
I went on line and found an original replacement motor and new capacitor for $118.00 including tax here in town. The hard part was driving through the snowy, icy roads this particular Monday morning. All the schools were closed, most events had been cancelled and many businesses had shuttered their doors. We managed to do the 30 mile round trip to the Grainger store without incident. While the young tech could have done the repair probably in an hour or so, it took me a good 4 or 5 hours to do so. Of course, part of that time was running to Ace Hardware as I did not have as many terminal electrical female connectors as I had thought.
I got the motor in place, duct taped the kill switch closed so I could watch things and flipped the switch to turn the furnace on. The inducer motor started, but we never achieved flames. After futzing around for 15 minutes I realized I had knocked off a hose going to one of the pressure gauges. I replaced the hose and flipped the switch again. Voila! Heat! My wife will let me live another day, especially since I saved us $800 plus.
I understand that it is expensive to operate any business. There are employee salaries and benefits, insurance, licenses, etc. There are vans to be bought and maintained. There is an office, and phones, and all that goes with that. I had expected to pay a premium for the motor, and labor is never cheap anymore. However, my question is where does it change from fair pricing to price gouging. In my opinion that is what happened Monday morning. What if I had been more elderly than I am now and dependent on the good graces of others in my life? Or perhaps I was a young couple with small children and on a tight budget. Some things just are not right. I will just count my blessings that I am physically able and sufficiently mechanical to have effectuated the repair. I am not a big believer in the capitalistic maxim of whatever the market will tolerate. There is a fair price for all things.
Just as an aside my father was a technical representative for an aerospace company. He was an expert on helicopters, and very, very mechanical. He was always frustrated with me as he thought I had two left thumbs and zero aptitude for all things mechanical. I have come to realize that I do have some aptitude, but I am still two thumbed.
A basic cost estimator I learned in my time working construction was, add up the cost of the materials. Double that and add a third for labor. It will give you a good representation of cost for a project. Sometimes it was high, but still a number to work with.
My favorite Dave Rush response to me questioning him about helicopters, “More of them crash than you hear about.”
I shut up and went back to fishing.
So $118 * 2 = $236 + 78 = $314. I would have paid him that to avoid the aggravation.
Yeah, even with your original material cost estimate that’s $250*2*1.34=$670. Well under that $900. I know owners incur a lot of overhead but what gets me about these things is paying a labor charge of anywhere from $80-$150/hr and knowing that the actual guy doing the work is probably making $15-25/hr.
Perhaps missing in all this was the technician who took the time to point out the “gotcha points” and put it back together? Something I heard recently was, yeah, ‘stuff’ (trying to keep your G rating) happens – look at the people who show up to help. That tech helped, he showed up. Plus, you absorbed more from your mother and father (she was also a ‘tech rep’ in the domestic engineering side of the equation) than you realized.
I think, no, I know, Dad would be/is proud of you, Rev. Joe Dirt.
I vote for price gouging. The profit margin is indeed excessive. I say this based on my time selling and installing water softeners, way back in the last century. The economic factors have changed over the years, but the fundamental concept of fairness has diminished.
I too vote for price gouging, having worked for somebody of that ilk, who coincidentally is a Tea
Party Oklahoman just to let you know about his lack of thought processing and lust for the Almighty Dollar. Mr Perry is spot on with his price estimate if it is fairly done. The young service technician, who needs his job is probably lucky if he’s making $20.00 an hour, still had integrity and knew what was going on was not Kosher did what he could to help. The $99.00 service call is probably the normal hourly rate for a Metropolitan area and a better than most income neighborhood. Yeah and about the helicopters crashing, trim the carpenters best friend.