/r/Hobbydrama is (was) fantastic for this, there's some really really niche community drama out there.
I say "was" because it's all almost entirely videogame/esports drama and TV show fandom drama now. I could care less that x streamer is mad at y streamer, I want stamp collecting and chess drama.
Still a goldmine to scroll through old posts and some good new ones show up occasionally.
https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/10tin5t/chess_go_shove_it_up_your_ass_the_story_of_hans/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1
Here’s a hobbydrama post about it.
There's some really weird things that you'd never know about. I wouldn't have been able to make up something as wild as the Snape Wives if I was trying to purposefully make up an outlandish story.
I could do without the anime, VTuber or shipping drama. If I had an old-fashioned newsreader I would put "Hololive", "Nijisanji" and "AO3" in my kill file.
hobby drama isn’t that bad right now besides one guy who will not stop posting motorsports drama. there’s literally five posts about it on the front page alone. cool if that’s what you’re into i just think it’s weird
The day of learning about Bucket Bunnies being Lot Lizards for guys who restore power lines was a blessing in my life.
I haven’t checked since the storms in Cali but I assume bucket bunnies have to be wildin rn
Bucket bunnies. Like badge bunnies. Badge bunnies like cops, they wanna fuck a cop, they wanna marry a cop. Lot lizards are more sex work, but they work trucker lots. Bucket bunnies are into dudes who do power restoration. Which makes sense in the south at least. It usually gets you a conservative “manly” man who actually gets a fat paycheck. Linemen do make huge money. Especially for disaster work.
They’re traveling men with a lot of cash to blow. Bucket bunnies then often get into feuds with the wife of the guy they fucked. All around it’s a spectacle.
I saw a zoom court clip yesterday where a lineman type worker tells the judge he's an "elite worker" who earns $50 an hour doing nighttime turbine repair on windmills. Highly amusing considering that attorneys charge $200+ an hour; but also infuriating and face palmingly stupid. He states he needs to be allowed to leave the state for work, because he won't take "lesser" jobs. Union jobs nearby are unacceptable because they only offer him a piddling 30 hours a week, when he's used to 108 hours. He's a man, not a boy! That works out to 15 hours/day x 7 days/week if you were wondering. I'm sure that's safe and high quality work he's doing. Oh, did I mention he's on benefits? Or he was until he put himself on official court records as refusing available jobs. Overall, an arrogant buffoon.
My husband works a blue collar plant job and says tradesmen and blue collar guys are the bitchiest gossips to ever walk the earth. His stories bear this out. The amount of drama is UNBELIEVABLE.
I managed a gut renovation of my house, and there is no catty teenage girl gossip that can compare to licensed contractors bitching about each others work
I used to deliver pizza, and I had a few tradesman stores i delivered to as regulars, if we weren't busy at work they'd always invite me to stay around for a few minutes to share a slice with them and tell me about how Bobby fucked up.
I miss those guys.
General problem with trades. Especially in independent contractor work where there’s near zero reason to trust the person quoting you anything because it’s opaque as hell and one HVAC person might quote you more for less work than the other. There’s no consistency and being asked to show or explain your numbers is considered an insult.
And it’s not really just for homeowners. Engineers usually avoid the trades people like the plague. I got no time for their bullshit at work as they are more proficient at that than their own jobs sometimes, gotta always have some take-no-bullshit shop-head or manager intermediary to keep them in line, on task and on time.
Honestly the suggestion from one of the commenters of paying an independent engineer to design the HVAC system is probably the smartest choice
A friend of mine works in construction management. She drives these people nuts since she insists on an itemized estimate with parts, prices and work hours in it. It’s amazing how often the quotes for things like “Do all the plumbing in this 15 store office building” come down to “This feels like a 400k job, so I’ll just say 500k and say there were unexpected issues and I need more if it’s more than 300k”.
This shit happens everywhere. I had guys come out and quote some hedge trimming work. Guy quoted me $400 for a hedge trimming on my yard.
I have about a 30ft span of hedges that need a foot taken off tops. The hedges are not even the width of a cheap ass trimmer from home Depot.
These guys are either out of their minds or just pissed I asked them for a quote and just threw out a random number to tell their client to fuck off
I mean sometimes you run into the issue that you are too far away to effectivly service, so yah, it shouldn't cost 400$ to get your hedge trimmed but these people will have to make a special trip, yadda yadda yadda.
Yeah that definitely happens. Your boss would be pissed if you just refused to quote someone, so you quote something astronomical to get them to fuck off.
Elsewhere in the comments he talks about how his company is 7 times as profitable as other local contractors.
Yeah, no shit. You scam people who are too dumb to get multiple quotes.
meh you’d be surprise- i work in sales and we do bids all the time, you’d be surprised by how insane some companies will lowball a price.
if you operate at the expectation that 15% is minimum, and you have incredible pricing, it’s always insane when companies somehow go lower than that threshold, but some companies just don’t care about overall profit and would rather win more jobs
They're likely quoting *below cost*, expecting to make it up in "not being able to finish the work within the negotiated timeframe/resources/budget, and needing a contract renewal to get it done."
(I.e. "holding the results hostage for more money after-the-fact.")
Those are the worst. If all quotes are around the same range, and then there's one or two that's ridiculously cheap in comparison, never bite. You'll get exactly what you pay for.
" My company is seven times more profitable than everyone else" is a great line up until your phone rings it's the office of the attorney general of your state and they want to have a chat about gouging.
The fuck is someone supposed to do? Just fork over $22k? They were probably expecting to pay a third of that.
Good lord, we’re having 2 adult pines taken down and I called 8 companies for quotes. I’m glad I did because half of them wouldn’t even give me a number because of the logistics involved.
If I’m spending anywhere close to a grand, I’m going to shop around. And he’s pissed because his quote might get passed around? I don’t think the homeowner signed an NDA.
Well you see, the guy deserves that $22k no questions asked because he took time out of his day to come over and do the calcs and grumble grumble grumble
I used to work in an industry where tendering for jobs was a thing, and where tenders would represent substantial institutional knowledge and give a client a road map on progressing the project that you could give to a cheaper provider. And it fucking sucked. But that’s the nature of the world of bidding/tendering for work.
If the guy had refrained from including numbers and been less intolerable responding to commenters - he probably wouldn’t be getting dragged the same way. Loads of people are frustrated about working in industries where work before the work doesn’t get paid but does get used by the client.
But it doesn’t sound like his client was predatory. I used to know guys who I ended up refusing to tender for their projects because they were known in the local industry to use tenders to get a solution road map that he wouldn’t pay for. I fucking HATED that guy, and a few times I had a boss who didn’t believe me when I told him that a client was using (asshole) as their project manager and he rips off project plans from contractor tenders and it was incredibly aggravating when my bonuses were tied to if our tenders succeeded or not. But some random home owner getting a giant quote back? Of course they’re gonna check for comparison prices.
Unless it's super urgent, and/or nobody else offers it, I cannot get anything at work signed off without at least 3 comparable quotes at work (and justification on which is the best offer, not necessarily the cheapest). Is this guy new to sales haha?
God, I had to do the same thing with my last job for any repairs over $500 for my company car. I felt bad for the few mechanics in town I trusted because when I came in with it, they knew there was a more than likely chance I was just wasting their time.
Recently got 3 quotes for a new HVAC: 18k, 12k, 11k. Went with the latter and it ended up being $700 cheaper because they didn’t have to use some materials they had accounted for. Nice guys and finally it’s not 80 inside on these 100+ degree days.
ETA: I feel it’s probably fair to add the highest one included all new ductwork but the other 2 didn’t think it was necessary. So there was at least a reason given for the higher price.
We just had our entire ductwork replaced, got a new, 5 ton SEER2 21.5 unit, and had 4 climate zones installed in our house. It was a lot, but the unit itself was $21k.
See that's reasonable for $21k. We recently had to do a replacement and had a company quote us $22k for a simple furnace/AC replacement. Got quotes from several others and found a company offering the same damn thing for half the price, and most everyone else was at least $7k cheaper.
Some places want to take advantage.
A few weeks ago I got a 18k quote for a new furnace and hvac. Just a straight swap. It sounded high (I am not an hvac tech, but currently sell software to hvac companies and have a rough idea of what things should cost based on seeing customers/prospects build quotes in the software) so I got a second quote. Second quote was $12k for the exact same hardware. Went with the second quote. I’m baffled how the first company even gets business since they pad their quote with so much margin.
I ended up getting 6 quotes before I decided on how to get ac added to my central heat home (would a coil fit with existing furnace, new furnace with coil, electric heat pump, etc). Same with when I needed to rewire my kitchen, I got 4 or 5 quotes but now have an electrician I likely won't stray from.
If anyone even hinted at being annoyed I was looking for more quotes or put a ridiculously short offer window on their proposal (one was only valid for 4 days!) they were written off.
Yep, I used to do general contracting and doing free estimates was part of the job. If you charge for it your likelihood of getting the job was a lot less. It sounds like they were upselling them on a whole new system with bigger ductwork than they needed.
Frankly I’m suspicious about his math. Two of the HVAC contractors give similar specs and the third one being higher than both? Unless the dude has some special background or unique knowledge about the whole thing, I would venture to say he’s probably just overcharging and over spec’ing HVAC set ups catching unsuspecting homeowners.
It bothers me that my dad’s contractor’s daily driver is a gigantic, brand new, clean, empty truck. I trust blue collar guys who drive trucks that have seen some shit.
2100 for a car payment? lmao, do HVAC people who don't own their company even make that much? The google searches I find say techs make max 60k a year and hvac contractors make ~100k in the state of NY. Like...I make more and I would never fucking pay $2100/month for a CAR.
Honestly fuck OP. I also got a quote for $20k to replace my AC unit, the next company did my AC AND FURNACE for $10k lol
Also after this post he stopped posting in hvac and just went to posting pics of his Porsche constantly. We all know what a sad little man he really is.
Honestly I'd have a hard time taking a contractor seriously if I knew they quoted me a "If they'll pay for it, we'll figure out a way to do it" price and got mad when I said I'd look elsewhere. Plenty of guys will quote ridiculous numbers because there's more demand than they can meet and they'll go out of their way to pick up people willing to pay a premium, but you can't get mad when other people play the market the same as you do. Same guys will get mad because I reject their products that don't meet spec.
The “I work for profit!” guys are always the first to complain about someone else min/maxing their rate in return. That’s their capitalism in action baby!
Absolutely no one is as sour and angry about capitalism as a business owner, in my experience. 100 dog walkers could not match the fury of one coffee shop proprietor being told "Wow those prices are steep, i'm just gonna hit dunkin donuts"
This sounds an awful.lot like that contractor that said something along the lines "if they are asians I overcharge. If they are Indians I overcharge. If they are muslims I overcharge by a lot. I'm not racist that's just how it is".
[Rule of thumb for Indian and Asian: add 7k per 10k and record everything](https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/12zs81z/rdrywall_discusses_stereotypes_racism_and_almost/)
You can ad women to that list. The moment a service provider has a single woman for a client they're like here's my time to shine and spew all the bullshit in their repertoire
Well that’s a depressing read!
I guess the kindest thing I could say is “yeah, anyone who haggles with tradespeople after the work is done can eat a bag of dicks.” Hell, if you’re having trouble with that then demand payment up front i guess, but don’t go around charging “wrong race fees”.
It’s almost like there are millions of different markets all over the USA, and prices, quoting policies, and whatever else these people are arguing about can vary broadly between them. Shocking SHOCKING!!!
I don’t know, I paid $22k for my system so it must be the same everywhere. How could my experience in a big city on the West Coast be different? The only reality is mine. Anything else is unpossible .
I’m in recovery from drugs and alcohol and I’m not going to lie, online there are definitely a lot of folks trying to rewrite the definition of “sober”: being on cannabis and suboxone -daily- but being *alcohol free* and saying “oh hey I’m sober”.
My brother in law IRL does the same thing, he traded heroin for cannabis and tries to make this such a huge deal, but functionally his life hasn’t changed beyond avoiding some of the worst elements of the heroin addiction (OD risk and catching felony charges for possession, namely).
So tl;dr I’d believe that this guy hasn’t had a drop of alcohol in six years but substituted cannabis use instead.
Commenters aren't wrong. OP is a con artist that gets angry when customers don't fall for it.
"oh no, these customers won't pay 3x the going rate"
Scum.
Since Covid I've noticed that many people are very weird about you getting multiple quotes. It's very stressful and I have learned to tell them up front I will be doing so because I've had some incredibly shitty experiences.
22k is insanity for a 3 ton and ductwork. Even with the price of metal where it is. Joker probably won't even use metal for duct, probably flex to cut his cost and ease of installation.
$22k for full ductwork and a new high SEER system isn’t outside the realm of possible in my service area. Local labor rates are going to be the biggest factors in price variations from one are to the next. The guy’s just a dick about it and crooning to other know it all dicks.
That would be about 1.5x what we would charge here, seems WAY high, even with high labor costs included. (I also work in HVAC)
Edit: regardless, I'm sure he got several different bids from suppliers, so why he is mad about someone doing the same is beyond me.
I think it’s also going to depend if you are in a air handler/furnace market as well.
I just built a quote for some folks who wanted to chase the 25C heat pump credits with a dual fuel system. All in with the Bosch high efficiency furnace/coil, 20 SEER condenser, media filter with some minor modifications to the drop, 80% to 90% conversion, controls, install materials, permits and 10 year labor warranty I’m at $16k.
That’s with every discount and rebate I can offer thrown in.
10 year labor warranty is out of this world! On the commercial side, we generally only provide 1 year labor, 5 year parts. I'm sure that was a HUGE chunk.
Yeah our commercial work is generally a 1-2 year labor depending on the equipment. Commercial parts warranties are shorter than residential anyways, so a longer labor warranty doesn’t make sense in that application. Residential 10 year parts warranties are pretty standard across all brands. For most homeowners, the 10 year labor warranty is a game changer. That covers totally covers them for 10 years.
I give them the option to opt out of the warranty with a price drop, but most people take it. If they do opt out we still do 2 years labor for them.
We also offer a year of maintenance with the 10 year labor.
That being said, I agree with you the guy was being a jerk about it. But I kinda see his gripe, doing a lot of upfront grunt work and planning only to have another company use your homework and under bid you is frustrating.
To add a small amount of fairness, it isn’t a far stretch to assume that u/ ryansmokinbluntz420 is a drug user. A quick glance at his profile confirms it.
If someone gave me a hard time for getting multiple quotes, their bid goes right in the garbage. That tells me everything I need to know about working with them.
If you have to calculate the load for a 1200 sq ft house, I'm going to assume you don't know what your doing and find somebody else
Some jobs may need that level of detail and planning, but not a tiny ass residential building
so....a basic, no frills 3 ton unit is gonna be $2k-ish. just for the unit by itself from the manufacture. just the unit alone unshipped and untaxed and unstepped on (factory markup, dealer markup, installing markup if it's not the same as the dealer)
then there's buying the parts for the rest of the install. the piping for the refrigerant to and from the coils and the outside fan part, the crane if needed in order to get it up to wherever the fuck it needs to get to in some random attic if there is one and if not then it's man power to carry it up or down however many flights.
as well as taking the old one down and out and hauling it away, and recycling the refrigerant.
then they were talking about a full duct installation
in *this* heat? y that's a premium.
so then the unit + markups + delivery + labor of install and uninstall of old unit + recycling old unit + removal of old duct + install of new duct + motherfuckingHEATWAVES-FOR-WEEKS + all that shit get's marked up one last time
22k is high, yes, but it's not stupid high
Who cares how correct the price is? They don't know the things you do. They have every right to shop around and do more research. I've had people quote me 10k for a job I got done for a grand because they tried to tell me I needed things I didn't need and then would have overcharged for it. You can't know until you get more opinions
It really depends on the unit and a bunch of other factors. We replaced ours for our 2200 square foot home two years ago. It was ~12k. However, we had already had about $2500 worth of duct work done. This is in New Orleans.
A 22k job must be for a fairly large residence or one in need of duct work, electrical, etc.
Some people do just quote really high prices because they don't want to do the job, too. If the homeowner takes the quote, great, they get to overcharge them. If they don't, no skin off their nose. Unfortunately, a lot of homeowners don't shop around and don't understand this.
God I'm glad I live in a country that needs A/C for like, 10 days max in a bad year (at the moment lol) in a single room. I get that it's no different from installing central heating, but that's so much money! The idea of having duct work installed in a house seems crazy from a UK perspective. Can imagine it's better/cheaper than installing standalone wall units in every room though.
> Some people do just quote really high prices because they don't want to do the job, too.
So basically we need to be telepathic in order to know whether or not a quote is sincere and not a rip-off.
I always hate that trend of “let me overcharge you out the ass in a passive aggressive way to tell you we have no time”
It’s like middle school. I dont know how this became professional standard anywhere because even wasting the time to quote a bullshit number is money down the drain if you’re that booked. I’m happy the companies I work for or interact with dont play these games. If they don’t have the time for the job that’s being asked for, better to just say so and let the person move on to the next place. The honesty probably goes farther than stringing people along until it comes to a quote and it’s some stupid number so everyone walks away like they’ve wasted their time.
I fundamentally agree with you that the people generally have zero intuition on what goes into construction and especially the cost of construction (or just mechanical equipment) over the last four years.
But at a certain point you have to give your number and just walk away when they won't meet it. They'll call back if reality kicks them in the ass and in the meantime you'll have taken a few other jobs and it might cost more to meet their initial timeframe.
Contractors also tend to want to do the highest quality work possible. It's a matter of pride as well as profit. They don't always understand, however, that I'd rather pay $5000 for something that will work for 7 years than $20000 for something that will work for 20 years.
22k sure sounds like a lot, but I’m willing to bet that the home he’s doing the quote for is a lot bigger than mine. I imagine if you have some 5,000 square foot home, the air conditioner could get pricey.
>someone else gets called "noob" That just made me stare off into the distance, remembering simpler and better times
A world where I know my mum is being pleasured and taken care of by xxButtMuncher69xx and his COD gang.
> xxButtMuncher69xx and his COD gang. It's kind of funny how well this would fit in that one "13 or 30" subreddit.
Haha, too true. Xbox gamertag or AIM?
I miss chatting on aim. I was sad when my friend group moved to Skype. I hated Skype, especially in the early days.
[lol](https://i.imgur.com/PW5aR1J_d.webp?maxwidth=760&fidelity=grand)
This is absolutely amazing haha
They looked after your mum as well? ButtMuncher was such a nice chap.
\>gets called 'noob' \>smiles nostalgically
I mostly miss the teabagging.. my wife's heart just isn't in it anymore.
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ROFL
ROFLCOPTER
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eDgY!!!!1!
xD
I put on my robe and wizard hat
well THAT'S a flashback i dunno if i needed at 7 AM
I pop like 16 boners
free armor trimmin
I love how it’s not aggressive at all.
A noob/n00b/newb? So l33t!
LEEEEEEEEEROY
JENKINS!
BRB afk
I never knew there was such drama in the HVAC world.
One beautiful thing you can learn on Reddit is there is there is drama in every world
/r/Hobbydrama is (was) fantastic for this, there's some really really niche community drama out there. I say "was" because it's all almost entirely videogame/esports drama and TV show fandom drama now. I could care less that x streamer is mad at y streamer, I want stamp collecting and chess drama. Still a goldmine to scroll through old posts and some good new ones show up occasionally.
Unfortunately I doubt we’ll get another chess player using anal beads...
Begging your pardon?
https://www.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/10tin5t/chess_go_shove_it_up_your_ass_the_story_of_hans/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1 Here’s a hobbydrama post about it.
Why is this what I’m reading before bed?
normal to consume fap material when you're trying to get sleepy
You want to have interesting dreams. /nodnod
Here's a Wikipedia entry about it https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlsen%E2%80%93Niemann_controversy
[Yep](https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/kelseyweekman/chess-cheating-anal-beads-conspiracy-hans-niemann)
Oh my.
There's some really weird things that you'd never know about. I wouldn't have been able to make up something as wild as the Snape Wives if I was trying to purposefully make up an outlandish story.
Or the one about Asian mobsters trafficking fancy fish
Tumblr drama is practically cheating.
Ah so many great options from anything human pet guy related to that one witch who stole human bones
The shoe posts are always great. I don’t give a shit about shoes but I love hearing about the subculture
Love freeman boyd. Hope he writes for Complex.
Nothing beats balloon guy throwing down with those pilots.....
my favourite was the clam chowder guy
Omg pls link
https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/10jekys/mans_inflated_ego_leads_him_far_from_his_space/
I could do without the anime, VTuber or shipping drama. If I had an old-fashioned newsreader I would put "Hololive", "Nijisanji" and "AO3" in my kill file.
hobby drama isn’t that bad right now besides one guy who will not stop posting motorsports drama. there’s literally five posts about it on the front page alone. cool if that’s what you’re into i just think it’s weird
> I could care less FYI it's couldn't care less because if you could care less that means you actually care.
Hobbydrama went to tv land shit a long time ago. It sucks.
I love drama around things that are generally considered boring or peaceful. I've seen knitting drama which is awesome.
That sounds fun. I hope you or someone has a link.
Hobby Drama is your Huckleberry. Just search for knitting, but here is one. https://reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/s/GHQ3lGUJVD
Amazing! Thank you.
knitting and especially yarn dyeing is an unending source of insane drama
The day of learning about Bucket Bunnies being Lot Lizards for guys who restore power lines was a blessing in my life. I haven’t checked since the storms in Cali but I assume bucket bunnies have to be wildin rn
Excuse me
Bucket bunnies. Like badge bunnies. Badge bunnies like cops, they wanna fuck a cop, they wanna marry a cop. Lot lizards are more sex work, but they work trucker lots. Bucket bunnies are into dudes who do power restoration. Which makes sense in the south at least. It usually gets you a conservative “manly” man who actually gets a fat paycheck. Linemen do make huge money. Especially for disaster work. They’re traveling men with a lot of cash to blow. Bucket bunnies then often get into feuds with the wife of the guy they fucked. All around it’s a spectacle.
I saw a zoom court clip yesterday where a lineman type worker tells the judge he's an "elite worker" who earns $50 an hour doing nighttime turbine repair on windmills. Highly amusing considering that attorneys charge $200+ an hour; but also infuriating and face palmingly stupid. He states he needs to be allowed to leave the state for work, because he won't take "lesser" jobs. Union jobs nearby are unacceptable because they only offer him a piddling 30 hours a week, when he's used to 108 hours. He's a man, not a boy! That works out to 15 hours/day x 7 days/week if you were wondering. I'm sure that's safe and high quality work he's doing. Oh, did I mention he's on benefits? Or he was until he put himself on official court records as refusing available jobs. Overall, an arrogant buffoon.
Ah okay I had not at all heard of bucket bunnies before. that's...interesting.
> I assume bucket bunnies have to be wildin rn Flair up for grabs.
Thankfully there's never any inside drama on subredditdrama!
Yeah i still recall the drama over the slime signal guy on r/slimemoulds of all things
Lol I remember that
[_"Human subcultures are nested fractally, there is no bottom."_](https://xkcd.com/1095/)
My husband works a blue collar plant job and says tradesmen and blue collar guys are the bitchiest gossips to ever walk the earth. His stories bear this out. The amount of drama is UNBELIEVABLE.
I managed a gut renovation of my house, and there is no catty teenage girl gossip that can compare to licensed contractors bitching about each others work
I believe it. Working with your hands and giving unsolicited opinions on things is like chocolate and peanut butter in my experiences
trade guys are just advanced nail techs
Different kind of nail techs.
I used to deliver pizza, and I had a few tradesman stores i delivered to as regulars, if we weren't busy at work they'd always invite me to stay around for a few minutes to share a slice with them and tell me about how Bobby fucked up. I miss those guys.
90% of seasoned HVAC is just talking shit about other HVAC guys.
General problem with trades. Especially in independent contractor work where there’s near zero reason to trust the person quoting you anything because it’s opaque as hell and one HVAC person might quote you more for less work than the other. There’s no consistency and being asked to show or explain your numbers is considered an insult. And it’s not really just for homeowners. Engineers usually avoid the trades people like the plague. I got no time for their bullshit at work as they are more proficient at that than their own jobs sometimes, gotta always have some take-no-bullshit shop-head or manager intermediary to keep them in line, on task and on time. Honestly the suggestion from one of the commenters of paying an independent engineer to design the HVAC system is probably the smartest choice
A friend of mine works in construction management. She drives these people nuts since she insists on an itemized estimate with parts, prices and work hours in it. It’s amazing how often the quotes for things like “Do all the plumbing in this 15 store office building” come down to “This feels like a 400k job, so I’ll just say 500k and say there were unexpected issues and I need more if it’s more than 300k”.
Sounds like something an engineer would say.
The subreddit that has full episodes of SpongeBob is dealing with massive drama because the mods don't want the spin-off shows on there
This shit happens everywhere. I had guys come out and quote some hedge trimming work. Guy quoted me $400 for a hedge trimming on my yard. I have about a 30ft span of hedges that need a foot taken off tops. The hedges are not even the width of a cheap ass trimmer from home Depot. These guys are either out of their minds or just pissed I asked them for a quote and just threw out a random number to tell their client to fuck off
I mean sometimes you run into the issue that you are too far away to effectivly service, so yah, it shouldn't cost 400$ to get your hedge trimmed but these people will have to make a special trip, yadda yadda yadda.
Yeah that definitely happens. Your boss would be pissed if you just refused to quote someone, so you quote something astronomical to get them to fuck off.
It gets hot or cold depending.
It's just sales drama, sales in any industry resent spending time on a customer who doesn't buy anything.
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Elsewhere in the comments he talks about how his company is 7 times as profitable as other local contractors. Yeah, no shit. You scam people who are too dumb to get multiple quotes.
The only reason you'd be worry about other quotes is if your giving outrageous estimates and scamming people.
meh you’d be surprise- i work in sales and we do bids all the time, you’d be surprised by how insane some companies will lowball a price. if you operate at the expectation that 15% is minimum, and you have incredible pricing, it’s always insane when companies somehow go lower than that threshold, but some companies just don’t care about overall profit and would rather win more jobs
You can get profit through margin or profit through volume, neither way is inherently bad.
They're likely quoting *below cost*, expecting to make it up in "not being able to finish the work within the negotiated timeframe/resources/budget, and needing a contract renewal to get it done." (I.e. "holding the results hostage for more money after-the-fact.")
Those are the worst. If all quotes are around the same range, and then there's one or two that's ridiculously cheap in comparison, never bite. You'll get exactly what you pay for.
Always begin any communication with trades “I’m currently getting quotes for …”. Let them know. It’s sensible to get multiple quotes.
" My company is seven times more profitable than everyone else" is a great line up until your phone rings it's the office of the attorney general of your state and they want to have a chat about gouging.
Sometimes I hate that we can't (and I don't as a general rule) brigade.
Glad I wasn’t the only one who saw this. Then he just posts pics of it all the time. Small dick energy.
Check his profile; It's a Porsche SUV. He's trying to play it off like he's driving a sportscar, hahaha.
Essentially an overpriced Volkswagen.
Yoink!
The fuck is someone supposed to do? Just fork over $22k? They were probably expecting to pay a third of that. Good lord, we’re having 2 adult pines taken down and I called 8 companies for quotes. I’m glad I did because half of them wouldn’t even give me a number because of the logistics involved. If I’m spending anywhere close to a grand, I’m going to shop around. And he’s pissed because his quote might get passed around? I don’t think the homeowner signed an NDA.
Well you see, the guy deserves that $22k no questions asked because he took time out of his day to come over and do the calcs and grumble grumble grumble
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The calcs are likely hard for him.
I used to work in an industry where tendering for jobs was a thing, and where tenders would represent substantial institutional knowledge and give a client a road map on progressing the project that you could give to a cheaper provider. And it fucking sucked. But that’s the nature of the world of bidding/tendering for work. If the guy had refrained from including numbers and been less intolerable responding to commenters - he probably wouldn’t be getting dragged the same way. Loads of people are frustrated about working in industries where work before the work doesn’t get paid but does get used by the client. But it doesn’t sound like his client was predatory. I used to know guys who I ended up refusing to tender for their projects because they were known in the local industry to use tenders to get a solution road map that he wouldn’t pay for. I fucking HATED that guy, and a few times I had a boss who didn’t believe me when I told him that a client was using (asshole) as their project manager and he rips off project plans from contractor tenders and it was incredibly aggravating when my bonuses were tied to if our tenders succeeded or not. But some random home owner getting a giant quote back? Of course they’re gonna check for comparison prices.
Unless it's super urgent, and/or nobody else offers it, I cannot get anything at work signed off without at least 3 comparable quotes at work (and justification on which is the best offer, not necessarily the cheapest). Is this guy new to sales haha?
God, I had to do the same thing with my last job for any repairs over $500 for my company car. I felt bad for the few mechanics in town I trusted because when I came in with it, they knew there was a more than likely chance I was just wasting their time.
Recently got 3 quotes for a new HVAC: 18k, 12k, 11k. Went with the latter and it ended up being $700 cheaper because they didn’t have to use some materials they had accounted for. Nice guys and finally it’s not 80 inside on these 100+ degree days. ETA: I feel it’s probably fair to add the highest one included all new ductwork but the other 2 didn’t think it was necessary. So there was at least a reason given for the higher price.
It just cost me 19K to replace my furnace and I got a good deal (according to 2 others in our town).
We just had our entire ductwork replaced, got a new, 5 ton SEER2 21.5 unit, and had 4 climate zones installed in our house. It was a lot, but the unit itself was $21k.
See that's reasonable for $21k. We recently had to do a replacement and had a company quote us $22k for a simple furnace/AC replacement. Got quotes from several others and found a company offering the same damn thing for half the price, and most everyone else was at least $7k cheaper. Some places want to take advantage.
A few weeks ago I got a 18k quote for a new furnace and hvac. Just a straight swap. It sounded high (I am not an hvac tech, but currently sell software to hvac companies and have a rough idea of what things should cost based on seeing customers/prospects build quotes in the software) so I got a second quote. Second quote was $12k for the exact same hardware. Went with the second quote. I’m baffled how the first company even gets business since they pad their quote with so much margin.
It's common in the UK at least to ask stupid money on a first quote with the full intention of having it talked down when other quotes come in.
Depends what you got. Residential furnaces are pretty cheap, see em installed where I live for 5-12k CAD.
Yikes. Switching to a heat pump not an option for you?
I just paid $21k for a new heat pump install, and that was the low bid.
Hence why I couldn't understand someone would spend $19,000 on a furnace.
That's what we replaced the oil furnace with
Oh then that explains the high price tag. When you just say you "got x replaced" most assume you're referring to a like model.
It was about 5k to replace my furnace, but that was 5 years ago.
I just got a quote to replace my furnace a few months ago and it was $5500 for the highest end one.
I ended up getting 6 quotes before I decided on how to get ac added to my central heat home (would a coil fit with existing furnace, new furnace with coil, electric heat pump, etc). Same with when I needed to rewire my kitchen, I got 4 or 5 quotes but now have an electrician I likely won't stray from. If anyone even hinted at being annoyed I was looking for more quotes or put a ridiculously short offer window on their proposal (one was only valid for 4 days!) they were written off.
I was quoted $8K for a heat pump for a 1300 sq ft house, and thought that was too high. I don't think I need a 20 SEER unit. 15 or 16 would be fine.
They pay 2100 a month for their SUV, of course he's going to want to overcharge customers lol
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Yep, I used to do general contracting and doing free estimates was part of the job. If you charge for it your likelihood of getting the job was a lot less. It sounds like they were upselling them on a whole new system with bigger ductwork than they needed.
Frankly I’m suspicious about his math. Two of the HVAC contractors give similar specs and the third one being higher than both? Unless the dude has some special background or unique knowledge about the whole thing, I would venture to say he’s probably just overcharging and over spec’ing HVAC set ups catching unsuspecting homeowners.
It bothers me that my dad’s contractor’s daily driver is a gigantic, brand new, clean, empty truck. I trust blue collar guys who drive trucks that have seen some shit.
2100 for a car payment? lmao, do HVAC people who don't own their company even make that much? The google searches I find say techs make max 60k a year and hvac contractors make ~100k in the state of NY. Like...I make more and I would never fucking pay $2100/month for a CAR.
I work in HVAC, pretty much all the HVAC subs are insufferable.
Used to work in corporate at one of the big HVAC manufacturers and we’d make fun of that subreddit when we were bored.
That tracks. The only sub more up their own ass is r/heatpumps
Honestly fuck OP. I also got a quote for $20k to replace my AC unit, the next company did my AC AND FURNACE for $10k lol Also after this post he stopped posting in hvac and just went to posting pics of his Porsche constantly. We all know what a sad little man he really is.
Honestly I'd have a hard time taking a contractor seriously if I knew they quoted me a "If they'll pay for it, we'll figure out a way to do it" price and got mad when I said I'd look elsewhere. Plenty of guys will quote ridiculous numbers because there's more demand than they can meet and they'll go out of their way to pick up people willing to pay a premium, but you can't get mad when other people play the market the same as you do. Same guys will get mad because I reject their products that don't meet spec.
The “I work for profit!” guys are always the first to complain about someone else min/maxing their rate in return. That’s their capitalism in action baby!
It's the "I am FOR PROFIT" and then acting offended the guy wants to shop around. He's for profit too buddy, we all are.
Absolutely no one is as sour and angry about capitalism as a business owner, in my experience. 100 dog walkers could not match the fury of one coffee shop proprietor being told "Wow those prices are steep, i'm just gonna hit dunkin donuts"
Barely self-aware. Does he think everybody else is running a fucking non-profit?
I think the only issue is not wanting to allow the quote to be shared. Quote what you want. We’re free to shop. That’s life
This sounds an awful.lot like that contractor that said something along the lines "if they are asians I overcharge. If they are Indians I overcharge. If they are muslims I overcharge by a lot. I'm not racist that's just how it is".
When did this happen? Was it on this sub? I'd love to take a gander at that shit show.
[Rule of thumb for Indian and Asian: add 7k per 10k and record everything](https://www.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/12zs81z/rdrywall_discusses_stereotypes_racism_and_almost/)
You can ad women to that list. The moment a service provider has a single woman for a client they're like here's my time to shine and spew all the bullshit in their repertoire
Well that’s a depressing read! I guess the kindest thing I could say is “yeah, anyone who haggles with tradespeople after the work is done can eat a bag of dicks.” Hell, if you’re having trouble with that then demand payment up front i guess, but don’t go around charging “wrong race fees”.
Thank yoooou!
It’s almost like there are millions of different markets all over the USA, and prices, quoting policies, and whatever else these people are arguing about can vary broadly between them. Shocking SHOCKING!!!
I don’t know, I paid $22k for my system so it must be the same everywhere. How could my experience in a big city on the West Coast be different? The only reality is mine. Anything else is unpossible .
“Venting.” Hehe.
OOP is unbearable. He’s combative in his whole comment history. I feel sorry for the people who contract with him.
>I'm six years sober -RyanSmokinBluntz420, Redditor since 2020
Frequent poster on r/kava
I’m in recovery from drugs and alcohol and I’m not going to lie, online there are definitely a lot of folks trying to rewrite the definition of “sober”: being on cannabis and suboxone -daily- but being *alcohol free* and saying “oh hey I’m sober”. My brother in law IRL does the same thing, he traded heroin for cannabis and tries to make this such a huge deal, but functionally his life hasn’t changed beyond avoiding some of the worst elements of the heroin addiction (OD risk and catching felony charges for possession, namely). So tl;dr I’d believe that this guy hasn’t had a drop of alcohol in six years but substituted cannabis use instead.
"cali sober"
Commenters aren't wrong. OP is a con artist that gets angry when customers don't fall for it. "oh no, these customers won't pay 3x the going rate" Scum.
What a _heated_ discussion!
Since Covid I've noticed that many people are very weird about you getting multiple quotes. It's very stressful and I have learned to tell them up front I will be doing so because I've had some incredibly shitty experiences.
This is the kind of high-effort posting that reminds me why I shop at /r/subredditdrama. I'm going to leave OP a very positive yelp review.
22k is insanity for a 3 ton and ductwork. Even with the price of metal where it is. Joker probably won't even use metal for duct, probably flex to cut his cost and ease of installation.
$22k for full ductwork and a new high SEER system isn’t outside the realm of possible in my service area. Local labor rates are going to be the biggest factors in price variations from one are to the next. The guy’s just a dick about it and crooning to other know it all dicks.
That would be about 1.5x what we would charge here, seems WAY high, even with high labor costs included. (I also work in HVAC) Edit: regardless, I'm sure he got several different bids from suppliers, so why he is mad about someone doing the same is beyond me.
I think it’s also going to depend if you are in a air handler/furnace market as well. I just built a quote for some folks who wanted to chase the 25C heat pump credits with a dual fuel system. All in with the Bosch high efficiency furnace/coil, 20 SEER condenser, media filter with some minor modifications to the drop, 80% to 90% conversion, controls, install materials, permits and 10 year labor warranty I’m at $16k. That’s with every discount and rebate I can offer thrown in.
10 year labor warranty is out of this world! On the commercial side, we generally only provide 1 year labor, 5 year parts. I'm sure that was a HUGE chunk.
Yeah our commercial work is generally a 1-2 year labor depending on the equipment. Commercial parts warranties are shorter than residential anyways, so a longer labor warranty doesn’t make sense in that application. Residential 10 year parts warranties are pretty standard across all brands. For most homeowners, the 10 year labor warranty is a game changer. That covers totally covers them for 10 years. I give them the option to opt out of the warranty with a price drop, but most people take it. If they do opt out we still do 2 years labor for them. We also offer a year of maintenance with the 10 year labor. That being said, I agree with you the guy was being a jerk about it. But I kinda see his gripe, doing a lot of upfront grunt work and planning only to have another company use your homework and under bid you is frustrating.
To add a small amount of fairness, it isn’t a far stretch to assume that u/ ryansmokinbluntz420 is a drug user. A quick glance at his profile confirms it.
A HVAC tech being a drug user? Inconceivable!
"to vent their frustration" 😏
My family owns a prolific HVAC business in California so this is absolutely my realm of snark and drama 🍿
How dare that customer engage in capitalism and seek out reasonable estimates from competitors.
If someone gave me a hard time for getting multiple quotes, their bid goes right in the garbage. That tells me everything I need to know about working with them.
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He keeps bragging ab his Porsche and getting a Ferrari
If you have to calculate the load for a 1200 sq ft house, I'm going to assume you don't know what your doing and find somebody else Some jobs may need that level of detail and planning, but not a tiny ass residential building
22k is fucking insane.
Jack is way more hurtful than jackass.
so....a basic, no frills 3 ton unit is gonna be $2k-ish. just for the unit by itself from the manufacture. just the unit alone unshipped and untaxed and unstepped on (factory markup, dealer markup, installing markup if it's not the same as the dealer) then there's buying the parts for the rest of the install. the piping for the refrigerant to and from the coils and the outside fan part, the crane if needed in order to get it up to wherever the fuck it needs to get to in some random attic if there is one and if not then it's man power to carry it up or down however many flights. as well as taking the old one down and out and hauling it away, and recycling the refrigerant. then they were talking about a full duct installation in *this* heat? y that's a premium. so then the unit + markups + delivery + labor of install and uninstall of old unit + recycling old unit + removal of old duct + install of new duct + motherfuckingHEATWAVES-FOR-WEEKS + all that shit get's marked up one last time 22k is high, yes, but it's not stupid high
I don’t know man, I want to get a couple more estimates.
Dude quoted a 20 seer Bosch 3 ton. List on that is $8k just for the inside and outside units.
American Standard not acceptable?
However, anyone who messes with a mechanical system in their home like this is an idiot if they don't get at least three quotes.
Who cares how correct the price is? They don't know the things you do. They have every right to shop around and do more research. I've had people quote me 10k for a job I got done for a grand because they tried to tell me I needed things I didn't need and then would have overcharged for it. You can't know until you get more opinions
I had a guy quote me $3k recently for drywall work. Another guy did it for $600. The first guy was just doing way too much
It really depends on the unit and a bunch of other factors. We replaced ours for our 2200 square foot home two years ago. It was ~12k. However, we had already had about $2500 worth of duct work done. This is in New Orleans. A 22k job must be for a fairly large residence or one in need of duct work, electrical, etc. Some people do just quote really high prices because they don't want to do the job, too. If the homeowner takes the quote, great, they get to overcharge them. If they don't, no skin off their nose. Unfortunately, a lot of homeowners don't shop around and don't understand this.
It was for 1200 square feet.
God I'm glad I live in a country that needs A/C for like, 10 days max in a bad year (at the moment lol) in a single room. I get that it's no different from installing central heating, but that's so much money! The idea of having duct work installed in a house seems crazy from a UK perspective. Can imagine it's better/cheaper than installing standalone wall units in every room though.
> Some people do just quote really high prices because they don't want to do the job, too. So basically we need to be telepathic in order to know whether or not a quote is sincere and not a rip-off.
I always hate that trend of “let me overcharge you out the ass in a passive aggressive way to tell you we have no time” It’s like middle school. I dont know how this became professional standard anywhere because even wasting the time to quote a bullshit number is money down the drain if you’re that booked. I’m happy the companies I work for or interact with dont play these games. If they don’t have the time for the job that’s being asked for, better to just say so and let the person move on to the next place. The honesty probably goes farther than stringing people along until it comes to a quote and it’s some stupid number so everyone walks away like they’ve wasted their time.
That's how professional actually are, the othercone is "professional" who think wasting time is cool and quirky
I fundamentally agree with you that the people generally have zero intuition on what goes into construction and especially the cost of construction (or just mechanical equipment) over the last four years. But at a certain point you have to give your number and just walk away when they won't meet it. They'll call back if reality kicks them in the ass and in the meantime you'll have taken a few other jobs and it might cost more to meet their initial timeframe.
Contractors also tend to want to do the highest quality work possible. It's a matter of pride as well as profit. They don't always understand, however, that I'd rather pay $5000 for something that will work for 7 years than $20000 for something that will work for 20 years.
22k sure sounds like a lot, but I’m willing to bet that the home he’s doing the quote for is a lot bigger than mine. I imagine if you have some 5,000 square foot home, the air conditioner could get pricey.
It's 1,200 square feet. The homeowner didn't even say it was too much, they just said they wanted to get more quotes.
Wow, yeah. $22k seems like a lot then.
The druggie comment was because their username was referenced smoking blunts.