"Jeffrey J. Kosowsky" wrote in message
...
"TURTLE" writes:
"Jeffrey J. Kosowsky" wrote in message
You seem to not be able to read what I write. I have said many times
that I have nothing wrong with total price bid. Just if you are going
to break it into parts and labor, then you should do so in a way that
reasonably represents the two components. Otherwise, at best you are
providing useless information and at worse you are misleading me into
believing that your labor is more competitively priced than your
competitors and that the difference in materials cost is due to true
difference in choice of materials.

This is Turtle.

No Jeffrey, The only reason we are still talking about this issue is you
don't
like the mark up on parts and material and You not being told about it. You
want
like a hvac contractor to tell you he buys the condenser for $411.00 and will
install it for $1,200.00. Then you take that info and tell the next
contractor
that you will give him $411.00 for the condenser and you think $300.00 labor
seems good enough and take it or leave it.

Not sure where you are getting the above -- you seem to be either
unable or unwilling to understand what I am saying.
- First, if you have at all followed the thread, my primary
question was about how I can increase my odds at getting a
contractor discount when I am acting essentially as a contractor
(whether as a DIY or as a general contractor for my own own
job). In reality, I find that I sometimes get the discount and
sometimes don't.

- You and others then twisted this thread into a discussion of
contractor markup on pricing. In that case, I responded that
adding a large markup to materials essentially is a hidden way
of shifting labor costs from the labor to the materials
column. My point there is that this is confusing, potentially
deceptive, makes it difficult to compare true pricing, and
basically makes the labor vs. materials cost meaningless.

- In any case, I have always said that total price is what matters
(assuming contractors are of equal quality and job is the same).


The good contractor will walk off,
but the hvac hack will take you up on it and just throw it in and collect the
money with no warrenty. Then when you want some one to come fix the mistake.
You
have to call the good contractor back which will charge you out your ass for
fixing it because your stuck with no warrenty. All good contractors know a
hack
has been there by just looking at the equipment and we all think a like. If
you
pull the price game on one contractror. They tell each other and wait for
you.
If you was just screwed by a hack out of just getting bids from all. I / We
will
try to cut the cost of fixing the screw up as low as we can.

Not sure what you are ranting about but this has *nothing* to do with
labor vs. materials mark-up. You seem to be saying that one should not
go with the lowball price because you often get what you pay for which
is of course self-evident.


If you think you breaking new ground on the pricing game , well son , it has
been done back in the 1950's till today and the result is still the same. 1/3
of
my HVAC business is just fixing screw up by Hacks and Pricing Game players.
Tuesday i will be replacing a split system on a $400k home that a hack put in
and was under sized & Poorly installed. The system is 3 years old and will
pull
it out and install it correctly in his guest house and replace the main unit
with a new 4 ton 15 seer. Now the hack sure give him a good price on the
system
but it did not work like it should have.

Again, this has nothing to do with anything I ever said -- sounds like
you have some personal problems with this but not sure what this has
to do with me.


I know it is tuff on you have to be not told all the details of the job but
the
world and the industry will go on without you. If you did not know it but
your
the best help the Hacks of this industry has because of wanting to know all
price and not look at who is doing the job. The Hack's love Price Game player
for they can cut the price down to do the job without worring about quality
of
the labor being presented. If all, customer really started looking at quality
of
the installation. Hacks would just get out of the business for they would
have
hell getting jobs.

It is always easy to win a strawman agrument... the only problem is
that you are arguing with yourself. Again, I never claimed that one
should buy only on price.

The irony (which you clearly fail to appreciate) is that having more
transparent pricing for labor and materials actually helps in part to
minimize the problems that you are ranting about. Specifically, if the
pricing for materials and labor are accurately represented then when
you get a low price you can more easily analyze the following:
- If price of materials is lower, is that because the contractor
is using cheaper quality materials?
- If price of labor is lower is that because one contractor is
pricing too high or because one contractor is lowballing?


I know I Know I got to complex into the discount game being plaied in the hvac
business and you would only understand what i was talking about if you were in
the contracting business. Sorry

TURTLE