Posted by walterbell 19 hours ago
A majority of mini splits are made in China and are inexpensive and reliable because they're so pervasive in Asia. Most are rebadged Midea or Gree.
You can get a decent mini split for <1.5K and install it yourself for $200 in tools.
Getting a similar system installed would have been north of $10,000, and before anyone says "well, that would be a licenced HVAC installer", no it wouldn't - it would be a barely-trained person who is simply "supervised" by a licenced HVAC technician.
The truth is probably more that the various money sinks in our society are starting to add up, things like healthcare, legal protection, licensure, compliance, rent (business or personal), even just having appropriate work vehicles, fueling them, compensating people for the time spent sitting in traffic to come across town to your house. Somehow you’re paying for all of that when someone’s livelihood is installing your mini split. A lot of those costs have grown faster than wages, if you try to point to a reason why it’s different today than 20 years ago. More people looking to make a quick buck without doing any work or providing any real value, and more people succeeding.
My experience is that it’s not generally well understood how simple it is to install mini splits. The supply companies won’t sell to you directly outside of d2c web companies like hvacdirect
If the AC catches fire because your electrician skills are bad, what happens? I guess you can rent a ladder if you need one, but they're at least $200 if your split is on the second floor and ladders can be deceptively tricky, and load ratings must be considered. Condensation can kill you and be an extreme cost with mold. Your first mini split is going to take a real long time to install, I promise, assuming you size it right. There is a non trivial risk to life and limb.
This is one of those "Reality has a surprising amount of detail" things.
Of course don't DIY it if you're not comfortable, but a simple exterior wall install is fairly straightforward. On a second floor install, (with the condenser on the ground) you only need a small egress hole you can drill from the interior. You'd need a ladder just to secure/cover the lineset.
The skill involved is that of tightening screws on screw terminals.
I just looked it up, and I can buy a heat pump for 200-400 euros (depending on desired output), installation is ~400 euros. Why are you paying 20-30x for something identical? This sounds like a price difference created by government behavior, like with solar panels and related hardware which seem to be significantly overpriced in north america.
It's a price difference created by market segmentation of heat pumps as a luxury product in the US, and the relative lack of qualified installers due to our under-investment in education in the trades.
Example of a solar install that was under $20k via DIY - maybe took this guy 1-2 weeks of full-time work. But he was quoted $90k and he did most of it himself - only hiring a backhoe operator to move some dirt around.
We're at the point where the trades are only going to cater to rich/desperate people because the margin they'd make on a job that is DIY-able (and charged a fair price) is not worth it to them. Why do 5-6 low margin jobs when you can do 1 high margin (rip-off) job? Your only competition out there is someone with the will to do it. Builders in CA are massive ripoffs as well.
I think the only way you bring costs from trades down is by having all your workers in-house - which is only doable for corporations. Your average homeowner is just fucked and is gonna have to youtube everything.
Why even bother when you could just work for a mass build and plaster up hundreds of walls in a single job on a new apartment building or housing development.
So as an individual it's almost impossible to get someone over to do a small job, and your only realistic option is to do it yourself.
This is my gut feeling too. I've known so many rich people who just accept whatever number a tradesperson quotes. There is no way that hasn't had a mass effect
All of the major trade companies around where I live (HVAC, plumbing, electrical etc.) in the US have rates that they quote before the person will even show up. As a new homeowner who didn't grow up in the US, that's all I've ever dealt with.
If the answer is “Give them a number you're comfortable with, and just DIY it as an alternative” -- that's fine, and I do it for anything simple; but for the remaining ones, I have already made a determination that learning this skill would be way more in terms of time invested than the $500 or whatever absurd number they are quoting for a simple repair (this logic likely breaks down over time, and I'm trying to invest more time into learning more house repairs).
I have tried pre-purchasing some parts in the past; and asking them to use them for the install -- that one had some success and a guy told me how much his company marks up parts (n00%).
I do try to get multiple quotes for something, but the difference between them isn't usually appreciable; they're all absurdly high. I've tried to ask them for a parts v/s labor breakdown in the past; some won't even provide that.
Buying your own parts can help but can also burn you if its wrong, or cost the same if something extra is needed that wasnt expected and requires a second visit or bought on short notice from a local parts dealer. A contractor often eats the costs of wrong parts they ordered and just hopes they can use it elsewhere later, but if you bought the parts that is just cost on you.
My recommendation, which is still probably of limited help and won't always be worth it, is to start by hiring a local handyman instead of a specialist and having atleast 2 weeks of lead time for parts. Of course finding a worthwhile handyman can have its own difficulties because so many tradesmen leave the industry after realizing corporate contracting pays workers like trash while taking a lot of the most valuable and worthwhile contracting work off the market from independent contractors.
The easiest way to find a good tradesman is to ask another tradesman. There is an HVAC person in my local area who will come out and do most jobs (such as, for example, moving an AC) for about $500. A PE rollup firm would quote $10k for such jobs.
A ten-fold productivity gain in legal services sounds simply awful for society. Imagine the time and money sink if everyone can sue you for every frivolous thing because AI can prepare and file the paperwork instantly without needing a lawyer. You'll need your own AI to defend against the onslaught of legal disputes.
Every contract for jobs and every terms & conditions for services will be 10x longer because AI has a much higher complexity threshold compared to a human. My belief is that one reason tax returns became much more complicated in the last ~30 years is because of tax preparation software. In the era of paper tax returns, there was a limit to the complexity that an individual or even an accountant could handle, so there was a limit on how complicated the government could make it.
Most normal people rarely need a lawyer in their lives. With AI's productivity explosion in the legal services, you're going to need legal services every day. Your neighbor wants to borrow your chainsaw? Your AI legal agent will negotiate a liability waiver with his AI agent.
https://www.marketplace.org/story/2024/10/24/private-equity-...
Is this not just inflation? If everyone got paid more and everything got more expensive, are we not essentially level?
Many things can get cheaper, some things get more expensive, and median person gets more wealthy and buys more of both.
In reality, yes, inflation plays a role in this, but the article is pointing to other patterns layered on top of it.
On average, over long term, despite inflation, people can afford way more good and services.
I got a $5000 quote to fix my AC 2 summers ago and no amount of Youtube was able to help me DIY a fix.
Maybe in the long term there will be more HVAC techs than auto mechanics. Somehow I don't think that's likely.
While this is true, the costs are inflated because you need to repaint the entire room to get the original look, rather than only pay the cost of merely replacing the drywall. Of course, some handymen are much more expensive than others, so it is possible that is more expensive too.
If you are one of the few using wallpaper and have extra wallpaper for just such emergencies, using the extra wallpaper to paper over it should be cheap.
I've seen a lot of people blow a lot of money on really basic stuff like this (myself included). The lack of basic awareness around hvac, landscaping, drainage, drywall, plumbing, electrical, et. al. has me wondering if I'm still in the right business. ChatGPT can't carry a bag of sand up a hill or dig a ditch. It can tell you about these things and make you feel like a hypothetical god over them, but it can never do the actual work on site. I don't feel like there's a lot of competition around being in Texas crawl spaces during the summer.
Everyone complains that it is $7 for a cup of coffee, and yet demand for barrista coffee keeps increasing and demand for barristas keeps increasing.
I find the term “cost disease” very negative. It actually describes positive social progress.
Instead of a “disease,” it’s really a sign of a healthy, advanced economy.