My Prices: The Summary

Intermittent problems (problems that magically disappear), problems with advanced equipment (highly proprietary equipment that most don’t have), refrigerant leaks, etc. can take longer to diagnose. Additional diagnostic time beyond the first half hour costs $100 per half hour, prorated.

During the busiest of busy times, I may raise my minimum to $200. Even when the minimum fee isn’t raised, the effective hourly rate may still go up because I work fast as possible during the worst weather in order to help as many people as possible.

Please don’t kill the messenger! Seasonal pricing is a fact in this profession, even with most flat rate contractors who claim otherwise. I’m no different, except that I almost always charge less out the door than flat rate contractors and I tell you all of this in advance.

Not every request for the following services is accepted. When it is, the following services may cost more than normal even during non-peak seasons. Don’t worry! We’ll talk about it on the phone and/or in person long before you’ve incurred significant cost.

• work performed in brutal conditions (120 degree attics, etc.)
• troubleshooting and/or repairing water drainage problems
• fixing and/or finishing another contractor’s work
• troubleshooting highly proprietary equipment
• deep cleaning of a furnace or evaporator coil
• work on relatively new equipment
• most-of-the-day or all-day jobs
• troubleshooting-only work

Now I know $150 seems like a lot, but let me give you a couple of common repair scenarios where paying me $150 up front will result in you paying hundreds less in the end. And these are just two of many different repair scenarios. I’d argue that most repair scenarios end up this way, but I’ll just give you just the two.

The first repair scenario is where you need a new circuit board in a simple furnace that’s maybe 20 years old. A lot of contractors will charge 70 or 80 bucks to go out. And a lot of those same contractors will charge 800 to a 1000 dollars out the door for that circuit board. And that’s if you can get them to do the repair at all. They may just tell you to buy a new furnace.

Now that’s certainly not every contractor, but I would say that most large contractors and quite a few smaller ones will charge that much – and most of them are highly rated believe it or not. As where if you call me, I’m going to charge you a minimum of $150 up front. And for that same circuit board I’ll charge about $575 out the door, which is hundreds less than some of the competition. And I’m not going to push you to buy a new furnace that you don’t need.

I do have to say “about $575 out the door” because there is a range of prices that any particular repair can fall in. That’s because there are quite a few variables that can make replacing a part on one furnace take more or less time than changing that same part on a different furnace.

You’ll be happy to know that I give you those ranges on this site. If you go to the repair section of this page you’ll see a link that says “My Prices: The Menu” and then on that page I give you a whole bunch of different repairs including the aforementioned circuit board. As you’ll see, that particular board is pegged at about $575, with a range of $500 to $700. It’s pretty rare that it exceeds $600, but I want to give you a worst case scenario just so you’re prepared. And of course many repairs cost a lot less than that. And I always give you a quote before starting any repair.

For the second repair scenario, let’s say that you’re AC is low on Freon and you want to know where the Freon leak is. Well that’s a good idea because if you’re low on Freon you almost certainly have a Freon leak. And you can’t fix the leak unless you know where it is. So again, most contractors charge 70 or 80 bucks to go out and virtually none of them include any sort of thorough leak check for that price. In fact, a lot of them won’t even do a cursory leak check. They just tell you that you’re low on Freon and then quote you an additional 500 to a 1000 dollars to find the leak.

Now you might think I’m exaggerating, but I’ve heard that story many times and it almost always involves some other highly rated contractor. And of course that crazy price comes from a highly rated contractor. No one’s calling low rated contractors. Ratings systems just aren’t what most people think, but that’s for another time.

Anyway, a of couple months ago I had a customer who called a different contractor first and was told it would be around a thousand bucks to find her Freon leak, regardless of whether it took five minutes or five hours. Naturally she wasn’t interested in that. So she called me and I gave her a price range for leak detection because leak detection can indeed take 5 minutes or 5 hours, but usually it’s somewhere in between. Ultimately she paid me about $400 to find the leak, which of course is $600 less than what that other contractor would have charged her.

See you gotta realize that what’s happened to this trade is that trip charges, or whatever you want to call that initial fee, have become, in many cases, a marketing gimmick. Some of the most horrendously expensive contractors have some of the cheapest trip charges. That’s because they know that many customers assume that a cheap trip charge translates to cheap repairs when, in fact, it can be and often is exactly the opposite.

If you want proof that 60 or 70 bucks is way too cheap, and therefore could lead to way too expensive, let me tell you: I got my first job in this trade back in 1994. That contractor charged 60 bucks for the first half hour – and this is 1994 we’re talking about – and that was not an expensive contractor. And to this day you can get contractors to your house for that much and sometimes even less. It doesn’t make any sense until you realize that, for some contractors, the cheap trip charge is the bait they use to reel you in.

So please, before you get seduced by the cheap trip charge start asking questions. Ask your prospective contractors what repairs usually cost. Ask them if they put their repair prices on their site like I do. I’ll be amazed if you get a straight answer. In most cases they’re just going to tell you that they can’t give you a quote until they’ve made the diagnosis. As where with me and my website, you’re just a couple clicks away from a whole list of repairs and what they usually cost. I definitely charge more upfront. But in the end I often charge less, sometimes hundreds less.