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Comment by conductr | Hacker News Reader

I also DIY a lot of things like this and find it really ironic how the DIY YouTubers I learn from are constantly better than a majority of professionals, especially given the insane costs they charge (I often see 3-4x equipment cost in my area).

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The main reason I diy most of my home and car repairs is that 90% of the contractors and mechanics I have used over the years have been shockingly incompetent. Their communication skills are crap, they cut corners at every opportunity, sometimes straight up lie, and treat every customer like an idiot.

There is huge gap in the market for tradespeople who take their work even semi-seriously.

I also DIY my car repairs, and not because I like cars.

I just hate, hate, cannot stand paying skilled craftsman hourly rates for rushed sloppy work.

Same. But I don’t do much on my cars. My strategy has been to just only buy Japanese cars (Honda and Toyota for me) and keep them for about 10 years or 150k miles. I’ve never needed do so anything besides replace a dead battery, fluids, filters, tires, and other basic maintenance which I let the lube shop and tire shop do. Basically the recommended 30/60/90/etc. I could do cheaper but it’s not worth the hassle for me given they can do it quickly.

I’ve bought new 3 times now with this strategy and while I could buy used and save some money or drive them longer, I view this as the cost of avoiding major maintenance.

Anytime I’ve owned a German or American made vehicle the chance of something failing is too high for me. The entire experience of having a vehicle out of commission is a huge hassle I want to avoid altogether.

Against better judgement, I do also own a Tahoe that I bought used just for doing “work”. Towing and doing dirty stuff, Home Depot runs, etc. It’s basically a tool for the DIY stuff I enjoy doing (house construction/work). It’s caused me the most grief, but still not too bad, belts and radiators and alternators, stuff I’ve diy’d because it’s easy but still stuff I’ve never had issues with on Japanese cars.

I only use a shop when it’s going to take a LOT of time.

I’ve opened up my hood a few too many times to find a cap or extra bolts tucked in between the side of the hood and the weatherstrip.

Are duplicates from the new part? Did they assemble it and find they had extra fasteners (I know I have)?

Did they puncture my seat while they were in the car and then gaslight me?

I could go raise hell, but it’s difficult to prove these things and the mechanics I trusted have moved on to better careers in HVAC or elsewhere, so I just put on a podcast and do most of the work myself. It’s not so bad.

Part of the problem is the pay for many tradesmen doesn't go up much for doing better work with more skills and knowledge, the only incentive most of the workers get is to just do it faster. You don't often get a bonus by making beautiful piece of work, you will get a bonus for getting done quicker even if it is the barest minimum quality of work. And many people who would make excellent craftsman are also smart and skilled enough to enter many other fields that pay better and have far less workplace hazards and doesn't involve them having to regularly pump out trash work to stay competitive.

DIY YouTubers read books, experiment, learn from others, and do extra-research. Most of the trades people are not doing any of that stuff. Almost all residential trades are poorly trained: many go to some trade school, get a job at a local contractor who doesn't want to further train. Unions are good at training; however, they want people to spend four years as an apprentice.

the DIY youtubers also know they will get a thorough drubbing in the comment section and may even lose subscribers if they do it to a poor level. the incentives for shortcuts on a job site by a worker are to get the job done(good enough for a layperson) and leave.

As soon as you learn enough you can start your own business and become the Boss client sees only twice :)

That’s kind of the problem, you don’t need to learn much at all/anything to do this right now. Because the bosses of the world aren’t enforcing any standards in terms of craftsmanship or quality of work. They pretty much just show up to see how much of a mess has been made and how quickly they can patch it up in order to ask for final payment or whatever is needed for completion

You're paying for:

- Trade licensing fees

- Liability insurance

- Medical insurance

- A vehicle to move equipment around

- Vehicle insurance

- Tools to complete the job

- The time taken to drive to your residence

- The time taken for the quote itself

- The expertise required to correctly spec/quote equipment

- The tradesperson driving to the city office

- The tradesperson applying AND paying for a city permit to do the work

- The tradesperson driving to a supply house

- Purchasing the equipment on credit

- Transporting the equipment back to your house

- Ripping out and disposing the old equipment (if applicable)

- The time and expertise to install the equipment correctly

- The time vacuum out the lineset

- The time charge the equipment properly with refrigerant

- The time commission the system and make sure it's running properly

- The tradesperson driving BACK to the customer house to be present for a city inspection

None of this explains why 10k of HVAC equipment would cost 40k to install, or most similar spreads. I've had over a dozen HVAC installations and it takes 2 guys a day even if they are doing multiple units on a 5000sf house. It takes them 2-3 days if it's a new build and needs ducts and everything. I've been a GC and built my own homes / managed subs / managed the build schedule / and personally replaced units on my older residences & rental properties.

All those big ticket items you mentioned are meant to provide shock and awe but when you break them down to their parts: 1 day of their license fee, 1 hour to drive to my residence, 1 day of vehicle cost/insurance, 1 hour driving to a supply house, 1 day of a equipment lease, they might amount to a couple thousand at most to the job itself. There's also a lot of efficiency they can find in them. For example, they stop at the supply shop on the way to the job site and bring the equipment with them on a trailer (3 birds one stone kind of thing). A lot of these things are also just included in the 2 day timeframe I've observed as being sufficient. There's going to be a part of the day where they are sitting in their truck while the lines charge or something like that.

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