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Why not do it yourself?
Last Post 19 Jul 2008 11:27 PM by TechGromit. 6 Replies. |
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joe.ami
Veteran Member
Posts:4377
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| 19 Jul 2008 02:26 AM |
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My company provides substitute plumbing, electrical and mechanical inspectors to a variety of municipalities in SE Michigan. To a man our inspectors cringe when they see a permit pulled by a homeowner.
90% of the time this means the person doing the work is not qualified. Often it is an unlicensed 'handy-man" that somehow convinced the home owner to take responsibility for the work, but by far the worst situation is the unqualified homeowner that doesn't want to pay "high" contractor mark-up for "relatively simple tasks."
The inspection called for is often premature as there is no knowledge of what is required. If the homeowner/contractor is present there will be a lengthy exchange as they try to get us to design or teach them how to do the job. Finally, if we make a suggestion the H/O doesn't like or have the nerve not to approve the work the tantrums often follow us back to the office days later.
Make no mistake about it folks, we inspectors will not stop you from doing anything stupid, over expensive or doomed to perform poorly as long as you meet the bare minimum standards of the code.
We've heard "you can't make me" so many times we rarely offer advice to enhance performance.
As contractors ourselves, we have all met consumers who quote the price of a furnace they saw on E-bay or a water heater at Depot and with complete disregard for our cost of doing business tell us what we should charge to put it in. Is it any suprise that these same folks that have it all worked out tell inspectors how to do their job too!
If you take these responsibilities on yourself, it's not something for nothing. It is a lot of work that you are not familiar with. If you decide to be your own builder, all your trade subs will charge you more for two reasons; 1) a builder generally has relationships with contractors so he can negotiate a better price for you 2) homeowner builds go far less smoothly taking more of our time. Also later completion dates cost more on higher interest construction loans. If you do your own trade work satisfaction is a roll of the dice.
For the 10% of you that got it right; good job. For those of you trying to figure out how to pay a tradesman less; work a little overtime at what you do best and pay experts to build your dream home.
Joe |
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Joe Hardin
www.amicontracting.com
We Dig Comfort!
www.doityourselfgeothermal.com
Dig Your Own Comfort! |
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tuffluckdriller
Advanced Member
Posts:630
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| 19 Jul 2008 02:41 AM |
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GREAT POST!!!!!
You NAILED it.
Whenever a home owner starts telling me how much this stuff should cost, I almost want to turn around and walk away. If they aren't willing to pay a fair price for a fair job, let some other HVAC guy lose money. They are a dime a dozen around here, unfortunately. Guys who are more than happy to work for wages. By that, I mean that if they really tallied up the hours spent to do a job, including bidding the job, billing for the job, waiting to get paid, etc.... they'd see that they're working for about $2 per hour, and have absolutely NO profit. A homeowner who want's that type of installing contractor can have at it. They get what they pay for. No support, no comfort, noisy, high cost of operation, pathetic installations...etc. |
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| Clark Timothy ([email protected])<br>Geothermal Heat Pumps: Heating and Cooling that's Dirt Cheap!<br>www.pinksgeothermal.com |
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jerryg
New Member
Posts:6
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| 19 Jul 2008 08:43 AM |
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Posted By tuffluckdriller on 07/19/2008 2:41 AM
GREAT POST!!!!!
You NAILED it.
Whenever a home owner starts telling me how much this stuff should cost, I almost want to turn around and walk away. If they aren't willing to pay a fair price for a fair job, let some other HVAC guy lose money. They are a dime a dozen around here, unfortunately. Guys who are more than happy to work for wages. By that, I mean that if they really tallied up the hours spent to do a job, including bidding the job, billing for the job, waiting to get paid, etc.... they'd see that they're working for about $2 per hour, and have absolutely NO profit. A homeowner who want's that type of installing contractor can have at it. They get what they pay for. No support, no comfort, noisy, high cost of operation, pathetic installations...etc. If its so 'fair', why are the prices of all the equipment such a mystery? Why is it so hard to get detailed quotes? I have yet to see an open book HVAC contractor. I'd be more than willing to pay a fair profit, but fair assumes I know how much profit I am paying. |
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engineer
Veteran Member
Posts:2749
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| 19 Jul 2008 08:42 PM |
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Dealer agreements with manufacturers may forbid disclosing wholesale prices. As I said elsewhere here breaking down proposals is not only laborious but leads to nit -picking over details.
I'm not yet deep into HVAC installs but I do often price extremely complex and labor intensive factory automation software jobs. At the heart of those are a set of round number estimates of the time needed for various components of the project. Inevitably I'm wrong about the hours / days required for each part, but my hope is that my errors more or less cancel out. Generally they do. What I'm NOT GONNA do is expose the individual sub-estimates to the customer, or, even the sales account manager, for that matter. Chiseling the individual numbers results and I get hosed. Not liking hosing, I've learned to stick to my 'system only' estimate guns.
Your getting a system, so plan to pay for it as a system. Most people buying anything more complicated than a pack of gum want the "out-the-door" price and get angry when niggling little fees are added on. |
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Curt Kinder <br><br>
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is - Winston Churchill <br><br><a href="http://www.greenersolutionsair.com">www.greenersolutionsair.com</a>
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joe.ami
Veteran Member
Posts:4377
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| 19 Jul 2008 09:12 PM |
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Friends,
I too am weary of the whole "fair pricing" debate. To continue to focus on price indicates that I was not particularly articulate in expressing my observation that most DIY homes are not any one's dream come true.
Jerry, if you don't like how you are treated by contractors you've spoken too, find a different one, but don't try to convince contractors across the country, that you're entitled to a profit/loss statement from all of us. That's the kind of thing we might offer to a six figure customer but not a small residential project.
Of course you are entitled to your opinions but if you sense ire from the contractors on this site it is due to your continued insistance that we rip people off. Quite the contrary, you continue to assert this posistion with contractors who spend hours each week answering questions-for free- to all who ask.
My greater concern and point with this topic is that folks who assume anyone with a saw (or pipe threader or tin-snips) can replace an experienced builder. This is potentially more expensive than a high end or even overpriced professional.
To put it another way, do you really think that a FL engineer hopes to score a contract for a small job in New England by disagreeing with a home owner?
Or might he (just maybe) be trying to offer honest, candid advice?
We take time from our families to exchange ideas, learn and pick up or pass along a tip when we enter this forum. Our opinions are certainly influenced by our experience but as candid and honest as possible.
I would like for anyone with a pricing axe to grind to give it a day or two off.
What might be helpful in this thread is for homeowner builders to share success or disaster stories. I don't need to defend my quoting habits, but I would really....REALLY.....like to see our friends on this site have very positive experiences when they build homes or install geo systems.
Joe
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Joe Hardin
www.amicontracting.com
We Dig Comfort!
www.doityourselfgeothermal.com
Dig Your Own Comfort! |
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engineer
Veteran Member
Posts:2749
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| 19 Jul 2008 09:54 PM |
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The experts on this site might want to consider devoting less time to antagonistic posters in favor of those who have legitimate technical questions that we can dissect, parse and advise.
I'm a pro-member at HVAC-Talk, and they strictly enforce a no pricing rule on their residential forums - moderators rapidly delete any prices - replacing the figures with Xs. Sometimes I find that a bit stultifying since price is an obvious criterion for evaulating various options available to a homeowner, but it keeps Homeowners from starting bidding wars among pro-members
It is one thing to assist someone with evaluating energy and operating costs, but quite another to debate one guy's cost to install and duct a 3 ton unit vs another's. That is probably where we need to draw the line. |
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Curt Kinder <br><br>
The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is - Winston Churchill <br><br><a href="http://www.greenersolutionsair.com">www.greenersolutionsair.com</a>
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TechGromit
Advanced Member
Posts:634
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| 19 Jul 2008 11:27 PM |
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Posted By joe.ami on 07/19/2008 2:26 AM
My company provides substitute plumbing, electrical and mechanical inspectors to a variety of municipalities in SE Michigan. To a man our inspectors cringe when they see a permit pulled by a homeowner.
90% of the time this means the person doing the work is not qualified. .... I would have to agree with this, the half-hour do-it-yourself home shows have given a lot of homeowners false confidence that they can do it themselves. I know quite a few contractors that had to go in to fix a guy's house after they rip the bathroom out have no clue how much work is involved in a remodeling project, let alone how to do it. Personally I wired entire houses, Gutted and remodeled bathrooms, titled floors, painted houses and kitchen cabinets, replaced roofs, build stairs, but I would not attempt to do plumbing or HVAC work without assistance from a professional. I remember one project where i was just suppose to help a co-worker's friend do electrical for his new house, after working with me two weekends this guy I was helping split leaving me to finish the entire job by myself. This guy didn't even know the washer had to be on a seperate circuit he was so clueless. Although I don't have a electrical contractor license, I'm pretty well versed on the electrical codes having been a electrician helper for 3 years. After failing the rough electrical inspection once, I managed to complete the rest of the project without further problems. Some people shouldn't be be allowed to hold a hammer let alone swing it. :) |
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