On 05/01/2016 10:17 PM, Ralph Mowery wrote:

snip

Last year my heat pump went out in the summer. Called the repair man
and was told it would be about $ 90 to come out. He said it was the
capacitor. I thought it might be $ 50, but his company has a fixed rate
of about $ 350 to replace one.

Felt ripped off on that, but he did a coil cleaning for less than $ 100
and a good checkout. I learned a lot from that and got a capacitor and
contactor off ebay for about $ 40 in case either may go out again.
Most would have felt ripped off, but I felt like I got a good education
on the system while he was here. I do have some gauges and a tank of
refregrent that I used to charge a sysem in another house I lived in.
Had to buy the refrigerant but aquired the gauges and hoses for free.
This man did seem to really know what he was doing.






If the price seems a bit high but the work is done right , it is not a
rip off.

In the situation with the OP though, it might have been.


Then there is this (which I posted maybe a year ago):

While fiddling with a leaky toilet my wife told me a dozen times to
"call a plumber!" Since I really did not want to fool with it anyway I
took her advice and thought, "well there goes $500."

Nope, he quoted me $2000! I'm serious!

Fortunately the service call just to come out was just $64 and he did a
thorough inspection of the pipes.


I went to Home Depot, spent $85 for a new toilet which works just fine.

It took me an hour to put it in.