OT Service economy?

Not that the whole concept isn't flawed from the get but...

Late last year I had the farmhouse converted to natural gas from propane figuring to convert the boiler over. Never gave it a thought. The cost to do it here at the "town" house was only a couple hundred several years ago. Two of the local big name places sent "estimators" to look at the boiler. Both said our brand name boiler was obsolete. Couldn't be converted. Nearly 20 years old...had to go...$8-12,000. Got a referral from a friend for a small local heating guy. Came out, got on the phone with Carrier to get some specs, bought some parts and converted her over. I had him run the pipe also. <$1000.

Last week, Kinetico softener flooded the basement. All the local Kinetico dealerships have been bought out by one big outfit that does three counties. Tech came to the house...obsolete unit. No parts available. Had to go...won't even open it up and look at it. $2-5,000 to replace. Said ours was the "Cadillac" of the Kinetico line and they would gladly take it on trade in. Kicked him out. Small local generic softener company came over, pulled out a box of parts. Took it all apart and cleaned it. Replaced seals, etc...$350.

Hint, hint...those guys driving around town with their name splashed all over the truck and everywhere else don't repair things anymore. They only want to sell new. They don't care if they have to lie to you to get the sale. Nothing new I guess.

Hello Dave H (MI),

We have one of those company here as well. We can fix anything you have 24 hors or less 100% guaranteed.
EVERITHING the do is replace with new, whatever you have with a warranty................ REALLY!
A guy I know Had is air conditioner go bad, and called them. He said at one time there wee 4 trucks in his yard. HA! HA! They all eat! I asked him how much? new heater and air conditioner ONLY $10.000.00, And he was happy!
Guido.

I see the commercials on TV all the time. Michigan Plumbing, "We'll exceed your expectations". Ya right. Those who expected nothing,ain't gonna be deceived.

I knew it! My friggin standards are too high!

Sitting here today going thru 12 months of statements for a local retail store preparatory to doing a corporate tax return. Nothing balances. Slickbooks, you know. Sure wish I could dump the whole thing in the trash and redo it from scratch and charge them for it. But no...I have to fix it for 20 cents on the dollar.

All this just creates a market for small business. A lot of them went out of business back around 2008. Many who didn't I carried on my books...some for years. I took what money I had an sunk it in real estate. As the economy recovered a little, the small guys who weathered the storm started to come back and take back their market share from the predatory big guys. Last year when I had to make the balloon on my LC, the seller told me he would be fine if I just kept making the monthly payments...but those little contractors I was carrying all anted up their back bills and I paid off the loan. Some of the checks came with thank you notes. These things run in cycles and I have seen a lot of them.

As stated in the other thread about the economy today's world is geared toward the incapable and the disposable. Nobody wants to pay a service man 20 plus dollars per hour if they can devise a system where a guy gets 50 cents above minimum wage. That goes in hand with making 50 bucks on parts per service call when they can make 250 bucks on a 700-800 hundred dollar complete unit that will itself need to be replaced in under ten years.

I see those annoying plumbing and electrical commercials every morning.

Their specialty is instilling fear in the consumer with cartoon depictions of exploding water heaters and toilets gushing like Niagara Falls!

Then comes the night in shining armor, a pretty boy actor!

On one commercial he is even capable of "seeing through concrete" to find slab leaks!

I thank God every time I see that that I'm not gullible enough to believe it or helpless enough to need it!

Got a local outfit here that has my business forever. Heat pump at the office quit- service tech came out, tested everything (in 100 degree heat), found a bad capacitor and fixed it (I expected I'd need a new unit). Then the heat pump at the house was shrieking, same guy came out- fan bearing was going out, he replaced, good to go. Both times were $200 or less. Its especially good because he bought out the former owner of the company, who was indeed a scoundrel.

It's possible that some of the bigger outfits specialize in new installations and they have become are very successful at that. They only need to hire or train employees (or subcontractors) to do new installations, no trouble shooting, no searching for hard to find parts, no surprises, and no badly under-quoted jobs. They can do a tear out and new installation in half a day. For them it may take more time for less profit to repair an existing furnaces than to replace it. Through good advertising, they get first crack at a most potential work and they can pick and choose which jobs they want. They can easily afford to leave all the repair work to the smaller one man shops and moonlighting retires who are not their direct competition.

The trick for the customers is to call the little guys for repair work and the big guys for new installations.

In any industry, few businesses can be all things to all customers. For most successful businesses it is a necessity to pick and choose which jobs they can do competitively and which ones they need to pass over. Some will "no quote" the jobs they don't want. Most try to avoid alienating future customers, so they quote a enough high price on the jobs they don't want so that if they do get the job it is well worth their extra trouble.

That attitude of expecting folks to not know anything or be willing to do any thing is around here too. As a home builder I see it among the trades all the time. They take a quick look and come up with a stupid price. I guess so many fall for it the money roles in. Same in mechanics and parts suppliers. When somebody starts telling me how technical splicing in a 3/4" coupler on a pvc plumbing system or replacing a light switch is I automatically say next.

I agree. I used to build spec homes. You learn pretty quick which subs are looking for their own profit plus a piece of your action. Both these fellas mentioned here pointed to valves in the system and told me they all needed to go because there was rust on the handles. On the softener one was leaking. A wrench and ten seconds was all it took to stop the leak. I can paint the handles if that makes him happier.

I'm getting ready to move from the "big" city of Washington D.C. to a smaller town. No big deal except the bank where I have been banking has consistently defused to find the mistake when I balance the checkbook--after several attempts I have given up. The bank thinks I have lots more in the account then I do and it is growing. When I change banks I think I'll get a windfall--HAH. Bet they figure out they have an error.

Never know...you might get lucky. Just finished doing a DC tax return this morning for a young man who used to live here with his folks and is now a gvt employee. He gets transferred around the country and sends me his return in the mail. I have been the parents accountant for 20+ years. Been doing the boys return since he started working at 16.

Dave I would say par for the coarse. even seen warranty items just replaced instead of repair.

I get the not know anything part... I get frustrated with that, too. It is rampant on this side of Lake MI as well.

But keep this in mind, too. If you ran the business of servicing things (washers, refrigerators, etc) would there be money in repairing the stuff? You have the overhead of the van, tools, etc. If it is more than one guy, you need to have a competent, jack of all trades employee who knows his stuff. He will need to be paid well to stay around. You will need to have a good inventory of parts, etc. But to keep prices low, odds are you will need a sharp pencil as well. It wouldn't be easy.

We are blessed with a local appliance dealer known for service... but the last few years, they've only taken service on stuff they sold. No going to Sears or whereever and expecting them to fix it. I also think they stay in business by buying a lot of close-out inventory- last year's dishwashers, etc. Not that it matters, but it is what they have to do to stay in business.

I think the blame should be split between the customer and the company. Company can make more in new sales and the customer wants the latest and greatest new toy.I have pulled generators out of service. To see customer install the new toy that I knew wasn't going to last.I pulled a 100 KW Onan only to see a 100 KW Generac go in.Watched them do the test everything went fine. Everyone is happy taking pictures and patting themselves on the back. Salesman tells them what a wise choice they made. A month later the owner was calling me telling me about the fire at his house last night. Seems the new toy went up in flames.

I also saw many companies letting old guys like me go. Why pay my wages when they can hire some kid off the street. Give him a manual and turn him loose. Saw this across many fields. When I started out as a gopher over forty years ago. You had to learn to do repairs. From front to back and the control systems. New was a dirty word.

Finding technicians who can "troubleshoot' is getting harder every day. I used to work for a big company in their engineering department. One of my assignments was to evaluate troubleshooting capability of our technicians. There was an argument between Production and Engineering. Production was of the belief that if you produced a comprehensive enough "if-then..." troubleshooting tree then anyone could fix that particular appliance. Engineering said that a person either had troubleshooting skills or did not (could not be learned). I was on the fence on this when I started the assignment but later became convinced that troubleshooting ability requires deductive reasoning and common sense (in that order). You either have it or you don't. I believe we are breeding that out of our society.

I would stick with a bank like that!

We live in an era of ridiculously high prices.
Like P. T. Barnum said, there is one born every minute.
Some examples...

My transmission was bad in my vehicle. Local shop quoted $3500 to fix it. I did a complete overhaul for about $300 in parts and supplies. Granted they have overhead and other expenses, but $3200 worth??

Next, a neighbor needed a couple of ball joints and a tie rod end on a late model Sebring. Local shop quoted $2400 for the job. I did it for $300, parts AND labor, and MADE MONEY!!! Parts have a lifetime warranty.

Next, a good friend had a frozen caliper on his front disc brake on his box truck. Garage quoted him $250 for part and another several hundred for labor. It took $30 worth of parts and an hour of labor to rebuild it.

And the list goes on.

For small appliances, it is usually not practical to pay a wage to a repairman versus replacement of the appliance. Blenders, toasters, waffle irons, and the like. By the time you fix one, it costs more in labor than a new one. But, that is not the case with large appliances. Refrigerators, air conditioners, furnaces, and the like are generally less expensive to fix than to replace.

It may take some tinkering but I bet the burner for the boiler can be converted. You might have to get jets from a different appliance and drill and tap to fit. You just need jets with a smaller orifice for natural gas.

I can't sing but I can troubleshoot. I am an electrician.
One place that I worked for had about 16 custodians. They had a collage graduate spend about 3 months writing up procedures for deep cleaning bathrooms. The 6 page document was given to them. About half were illiterate.