Future of HVAC and industry supply issues.

[Sigarms]

Have not been able to learn more… I left 2 voice mails and 1 email through the Contact Us portal after this happened.

A/C is a growth industry in Western WA with even military saying A/C will now be included in construction projects.

Hope the natives are treating you right in Northern California… seeing vastness of a dry summer must standout?

Did the company keep the same name or change it?

Generally the investment companies keep the same name because they want you to think you’re buying from the exact same company and nothing has change.

At least in NC. They don’t like to admit to their old customers any changes have been made.

I’ve got to ask, what is the diagnostic / trip charge in your local area? Around NC generally $85

Trip has been great and the natives are no different than anywhere else. Generally good people everywhere if you treat them with respect Might do Sonora pass tomorrow, and going to half moon bay Saturday with a trek over San Fran Sunday, then route 1 trek to Big Sur with 2 days in Monterey.

Has this year been exceptionally dry? I noted in my other post how dry the grass looked in Calvereras (sp?) county.

Today is a rest day

Edit- I’m going to guess our condo for our home base is about a 1,000 sq feet. The did it cheap though on the AC. Basic closet install on the first floor with open air return in closet, BUT only one supply outlet for “master bedroom” that is upstairs with the thermostat on the first floor. I almost hit the roof when we got here Monday and there was a good 7-10 degree temp difference between floors because someone took the cheap way out (they figured 2.5 ton would handle the load and oversize the one upstairs floor register and everything should be good. They were wrong lol

 

[ultrarunner]

One of the wettest winters in history but summer pattern pretty much normal as we can go many months without any rain...

Irrigation is the key to CA agricultural... water from snowpack in the mountains responsible for making deserts bloom it something like that.

San Francisco water sources near Yosemite...

The immediate SF Bay Area and much of the coast has built in air conditioning in that as the hot inland temps rise cooler ocean air/fog pulled in... sometimes only hugging the coast early morning but often to the east SF Bay Hills...

This can make for some extreme temp changes in relatively short distances.

If the prevailing wind switches from onshore to offshore it makes SF very hot... doesn't happen often but it does late fall?

Oh... name of the company not changed and have not seen indications of sale... still lists number of years in business...

The odd thing is it was husband and wife and office manager wife very personable and quick to respond.

It really meant something to be one of their install customers and I was told payment after job completed and I was satisfied with the job...

Quite a switch when payment expected upon arrival and credit card over phone too risky...

Maybe it's just Washington moving towards California model to conduct business.

Being from California it was refreshing doing business in Washington... no bad experiences and upfront money refused...

Glad to hear your California experience is positive!

 

[Sigarms]

Maybe it's just Washington moving towards California model to conduct business.

Being from California it was refreshing doing business in Washington... no bad experiences and upfront money refused...

Glad to hear your California experience is positive!

I’d sincerely be curious to the the going diagnostic fee in that area when the other company comes out.

A good company would require payment only when the diagnostic is done IMO. You don’t pay, you’re put on a red list and the company will never deal with you again. That said, company HAS to collect when work is done on residential.

That said$79-$89 is a big difference vs $200 to come out and then tell you what the issue is.

A good company should also give you one year warranty and labor on the part they replace.

Check the companies website and see if the have the original owners still there. In NC, they left the owners still on the website for at least a year and sometimes still do, but now they’re adding the new general manager.

In NC alone, one investment company alone owns 8 companies in NC alone and go all the way up to NY.

Guys on this forum would say 6k is to much for a certain tonnage system is too much, and I respectfully argue that $8,000 would be acceptable as long as the company does good work, and stand behind it. The issue is these companies that have been bought out by investment people now charge $14,000 for basic changeout and they are raping the customers.

I had a buddy from me a good company about 10 employees, brother of the owner, price out a simple change out for 8k and he was making money on the job easy. When he called and followed up with his “he found out the homeowner thought he was too cheap and he went with the middle guy on price. That price was 12k instead of 15k. Both companies that came in higher were bought out previously.

I tell any friends that asks me about HVAC to get three quotes and compare them. Believe me sometimes the cheapest should scare the living heck out of you unless if they have a very good rating and have been in business for a long time, but for the first time in my life, people are getting raped on prices from investment bankers who put people in management who have no clue about the HVAC business, but they are good bean counters.

A lot of good guys I know have left those companies, but a couple have stayed and they are good at what they do, but they get paid handsomely to run their departments and the company can’t afford to lose them. However, off the record even these guys think the money people have their heads up their butts.

Side note, I said blue jay in California (what I thought I saw), and quickly learned of the Stellar’s J, which honestly never knew existed.

Bad picture

 

[arto98607]

It doesn’t do you any good, but out of curiosity was the company bought out by a local company or a National company run by an investment company?

The northern western states (particularly Washington) were notorious for higher costs in HVAC, but $200 for a diagnostic fee is way out there IMO.

There are also professional consultant groups in business to convince contractors to raise thier pricing (in some cases rightfully so) and a big group is located in Seattle.

About cost of diagnostics & service:

We have just over 20 year old residential 2-stage geothermal unit closed loop installation with 2-zone heating / cooling that has worked very well so far.
The variable speed fan motor and HRV always run 24/7 and at the lowest speed when no heating or cooling needed.

The geo syst. GE fan motor control failed few years ago (it's part of the motor), and the whole motor was replaced.

Couple of months ago I requested a service visit from the same person who installed the system over 20 years ago, and he spent about 1.5 hours in diagnosing, adjusting fan speed little lower, checking the ground loop pressure etc. and replaced the two compressor's capacitors, since they were at the end of their life (bulging).

At the end of the visit I paid $280 which I thought was very reasonable, due to his geothermal expertise (that's all he does) and how much can I trust him due to over 20 years of history.

Good help is hard to find!

Cheers

 

[Sigarms]

About cost of diagnostics & service:

We have just over 20 year old residential 2-stage geothermal unit closed loop installation with 2-zone heating / cooling that has worked very well so far.
The variable speed fan motor and HRV always run 24/7 and at the lowest speed when no heating or cooling needed.
At the end of the visit I paid $280 which I thought was very reasonable, due to his geothermal expertise (that's all he does) and how much can I trust him due to over 20 years of history.

Good help is hard to find!

Cheers

View attachment 816656

I had a friend in Tenn who is an HVAC contractor and both he and his son are GOOD service techs and installers (they do it all). He had a rental property about 200 miles away he couldn’t get to, and the contractor the homeowner called charged him $475 for a capacitor change out. He was LIVID at that kind of price.

What some HVAC companies don’t realize is flat rate pricing can be set anywhere you want per your service overhead.

Needless to say, you better keep calling that same guy

Like any business, you have decent companies who offer good service and can live with what they make and stay in business year after year and you have those that try to maximize their profit that is beyond ridiculous IMO.

 

[ultrarunner]

Coils not holding so temp air trailer and generator set up to provide cooling

Today attempt at leak repair to buy time…

Lead time for replacement and/or redesign have me into next year…

 

[Sigarms]

Lead time for replacement and/or redesign have me into next year…

Simple air to air package unit or package unit with or without factory installed options?

Please don't take this the wrong way, but unless you have a gameplan for all the units which you know you're going to have to replace, you'll most likely be repeating this cycle with all those units, which is kind of stupid (and I understand that you have no control over that, just the facts as I see them from what you've given per info).

 

[ultrarunner]

Yep... no budget for replacing but make it work for today remedies tend to be yes or no...

One Bay Area hospital had a major renovation and pandemic hit and HVAC supply chain became unknown...

I was told a 150 ton temporary unit almost 3 years in service...

The prospect of cancelling cases because temp is out of range gets everyone's attention.

Plus Air Balance, Air Exchange, Filtration, Positive or Negative all factor into a compliant system not to mention efficiency of operation and parts/refrigerant availability...

The temp air is powered by a very nice CAT 480 volt 3-phase generator...

Generator is only California Air Resources Board Compliant to end of August...

I'm certain when it goes out of state someone will be getting a great unit at a good price...

If this was office space comfort cooling or a server farm the requirements for cooling not near as stringent...

 

[2manyrocks]

Would there be malpractice implications if the HVAC failed during some very long extended medical procedure?

 

[Sigarms]

Yep... no budget for replacing but make it work for today remedies tend to be yes or no...

In my line of work, IMO the issue is on the business knowing that they will need to replace the equipment due to age, not the vendor supplying product.

IMO the pandemic had a minimal hit on production. The bigger issue was the changes required by the federal government per ratings along with refrigerant change.

However, throw the pandemic into that same mix, and it was the perfect storm that know one could have predicted in 2017/2018 when everyone knew these changes were coming from the government.

Keep in mind, the life run time of a major refrigerant change to R410A was only 20 years for R410A to be in major production in equipment.

R410A came out around 2002-2003 (and even then, existing R22 equipment could still be sold), and as early as 2009, I heard possible gossip that R410 was on it's way out. I thought there was NO WAY the federal government could be that stupid.