What Costs More?

Have you ever needed a service and found yourself calling around for prices? Sure you have, we all have. It's a natural reaction to any situation when you need assistance from someone on something you can't/unable to do yourself. Have you ever wondered why cost is the focus? Truly look inside and ask yourself that question.

I recently had to have a transmission replaced in one of my service vans and so I started calling around for pricing. I found the best price and I took the vehicle to a local transmission shop where they suggested just rebuilding the transmission and replacing the torque converter. It saved me $1300 versus replacing the transmission all together. Then the van started having issues again so I took it back to the same shop. They said something else needed to replaced unrelated to the previous work and that it would be an additional $900. I reluctantly agreed and thought to myself, had I just replaced the whole transmission like the dealership suggested, I would be out the same amount of money, but I'd have a brand new transmission with a warranty... Lesson learned.

I don't have the knowledge or ability to diagnose/replace a transmission so my default safety mechanism was to try and get out as cheap as possible so I didn't get taken advantage of, because I didn't know what they knew and there was "no way I could trust the money hungry dealership". It's a natural defense for us to automatically associate savings with "a good deal", but this isn't always true.

The world of HVAC is no different. We have to define what a good deal is in order to understand what the right choice is. This situation is going to be different for everyone especially in my community. In the Jacksonville North Carolina area we see a great deal of transient population as we are a large military community. Residents are constantly arriving and leaving all year every year. Sometimes entire families may only be here for a few years and leave and this often leads many to not wanting to invest in the home/property while they are here. I completely understand this mindset so in that case, quality and longevity of repairs may not necessarily be of a major concern. For the rest of the population, quality parts and services may absolutely be a major concern.

Let's talk about probably the most common repair needed here in Eastern North Carolina in the summer time and that is a failed capacitor. There are hundreds of manufacturers of capacitors and they all greatly vary in price and quality. There are cheap foreign options that may last a year and there are expensive American made capacitors that last as long as 20 years, and everything in between. Likewise, I've heard of contractors in my area charging as little as $50 to replace a capacitor and as much as $400, likely the difference between the cheap foreign and expensive American made. I guess you have to wonder, how long do I want this capacitor to last. Like I said earlier, the cheap ones typically last about a year and you will need another. Lets say a service fee is $100 and you go with the $50 capacitor, that's $150 total. In a year or two you'll need that again totaling $300, and another two years after that you'll likely spent $450 in a 6 year time versus the original $400 option. By the way, each time this happened your ac was not working and your home was hot. This is just one example and again, it just depends on how long you want the repair to last.

A more concerning issue is when you get the wrong contractor all together. I have a client who first called me back in 2023 for his ac leaking water onto his ceiling. I found that his primary drain pan was cracked and considering that he had a home warranty plan and his equipment was already 15 years old, we both decided that he would be better off replacing the system. I helped him with the documentation the home warranty company needed and they ultimately paid to have his system replaced (not through me but by a different company). This client called me about a month ago (April 2025) and said that he was having issues with his new install and he needed me out there because the installing contractor was not willing to come back out. Upon inspection of the new install, here's what I found. The condensate drain line was installed incorrectly, the new equipment was grossly oversized, the duct connections at the air handler were not sealed correctly, the zoning equipment was not set up or commissioned correctly, the unit was drastically low on refrigerant, the electrical wires going to the air handler were installed in a very unsafe manner posing a fire hazard to the home, and a permit was not pulled so a safety inspection by the county inspector was not performed. This as you can imagine was a nightmare, but all made possible because the home warranty company found the only "cheap" contractor that would do work for the price they were willing to pay. The end result is that this client again needs a whole new system and there was no "good deal" or win in this situation. Hiring a cheap service can and often will cost more than paying for a truly good service.

I was having some work done at my house and needed to find a good builder, that can really tough as I have worked with and seen some bad ones. I knew that my brother in law recently had some work done at his house and I remember looking at it seeing that the work was very clean and professional. I asked who he used and and what his thoughts were and he spoke very highly about the contractor. I called them for a quote on the work I needed done and I will say that they were $10,000 higher than a previous quote I got. I decided to go with them anyways and I wasn't disappointed. They answered every time I called, showed up to all scheduled appointment, completed all work in the quoted time frame, and the work exceeded my expectations. That's not to say hurdles didn't occur, anytime you are repairing or replacing something, things are going to happen. When issues arose, they responded quickly, professionally, and handled every concern I had. That to me was worth the extra $10,000. I realized that I was paying extra for a contractor that will go the extra mile.

Reputation is a good indicator of what you can expect when dealing with a contractor. If the reputation in the community and online is genuine and good, you're likely to have a good experience, and sometimes that can matter more than upfront cost; matter of fact, it may save you more money in the long run.

Kenneth Casebier