"Richard J Kinch" wrote in message
. ..
TURTLE writes:

Your ganging up all hvac people as hacks when only about
1/3 are hacks, 1/3 are uneducated enough in the business to do it
right, and 1/3 is real hvac service professionals.

I don't mean to lump the whole lot together. In any service business,
you have some that are technically competent, some that aren't, some who
are competent but with no head for business, and those who are crooks
with excuses why they're not. On top of that natural order, you have
the government contractor licensing, the EPA licensing, in some
situations the unionization, in collusion to bar entry to the trade and
to maintain prices. And on top of that, you have the manufacturer's
restraint-of-trade practices for price maintenance, which happens in
every industry that sells costly equipment (white goods, farm equipment,
cars, used to be personal computers before they got cheap), with
manufacturer's constantly influencing dealers to stop discounting and
competition.

Every bunch that wants government to enforce licensing talks about
"protecting the consumer" and "raising standards of professionalism",
but in reality it is all bout restricting the market, raising prices,
and picking who gets to practice the trade. Doctors, lawyers, barbers,
manicurists, morticians, tile-setters, etc. The chief determinant of
which enterprises are free of this and which are lousy with it is the
simple aspect of how easy it is to lean on people trying to do it. You
can police the drywall trade, you can't software over the Internet.

This is Turtle.

2 things here.

first it is not possible to correctly trouble shoot a system over the internet.

Second I live in a State Louisiana who has the right to work laws and all you
need is a epa card and a 1962 pinto station wagon and your a HVAC/R professional
which can bid on $50,000.00 job right along side me. I've done this for 40
something years and been dealing with hacks all these years. Now these days they
have to put up a $300K Contractor liability insurance policy to cover if they
don't proform and that is about it. Contractor liability insurance compamys do a
little policing of their own by not selling a policy to any person that does not
have 5 years work experience in the field and atleast 2 years working on their
own as a business owner. Yes you have to get out of state insurance to start or
be let sub out under a regular hvac company like myself. Yes i have started a
bunch of companys and is starting another one right now.

So you are being restricted not only by government but industry does not want
the customer screwed and screwing up the jobs theirself. They know 90% of all
home owners don't have any skill in the hvac or refrigeration field and wants
them to call someone that will not screw it up for the next home owner to buy
his screw up's. About 20% of my business comes from home owners fixing what
should have been done differently years ago. Also another 30% of my business
comes from hacks screwing up jobs and I come finish them. Most home owners will
not sue the hack for a small $200.00 screw up and call me and say " Hey Turtle
come fix this damn thing " .

Your story is not new and we hear it all the time when we are fixing screw up
mostly.

TURTLE