Grrr
 

This come from something I read on fb. I can build a good bookshelf but I'll never be the craftsman fishingpox is. I can replace your bumper but I'm not southern151. I can't mix paint and make the accident disappear. I'm not a scientist like mathgeek is. I can't drill an oil well. I do what I do and I charge what I charge because I can do it and you can't. Pox and southern charge what they do because they know how to do it. I don't. I just saw something today that was dogging people that get dirty for money and It pissed me off. Oil, grease, saw dust, numbers or whatever. A man or women that works should never be looked down on.

I hear it all the time and how much we charge, in the HVAC field a first class tech makes a little more than 40.00 per hour and all the overtime u can handle, hot in summer and cold in the winter, people that look down on them can always give it a whirl themselves and call us when they've had enough, of course then it's extra to fix it if they really screw it up. Ask the ones looking down how much they make, usually nowhere near 40.00 per hour.

BOOM.... I can HVAC the hell out of a car but when it comes to my house I'm calling the guys that know what to do. Yeah it cost but I have had cars towed to me after people spent 1k trying to fix it themselves. You're smart when you know you should get someone that knows how to do it.

While I agree with what you guys are saying, don't you think it's f ing ridiculous what people charge for labor these days? I get that you can do something I can't but labor costs are out of control. I had a problem with my AC a while back on a weekend of course. I called an AC company (won't mention who) to come check it out. It took him all of 10 minutes to tell me it was the blower motor and charged me $150. Then quoted me right at $1,000 for parts and labor. I said "hell no"! I had him order me the motor and told him I'd figure it out. The motor was $300 and I figured it out and had the old motor out and new motor in in right at an hour. He could have done it in much less time and would have charged me $700 in labor?!? Come on man!!!!!

Reminds me of the old joke of a Harley mechanic and heart surgon. Harley dude giving grief that he can't fix an engine, surgeon comes back and says, ever fixed it while it was running!

End of the day, you get what you pay for, my take, let the experts do what they do best wether fixing me a meal at a restaurant or fixing the line that took the restaurant food out!

I never pay a mechanic. I bring my vehicle up to the shop and get them to figure out what's wrong with it, get an estimate, leave, then buy the parts and fix it myself

No sense paying for something I can do myself

You would still be paying me. Diagnosing problems takes time and time isn't free. Granted there are some places (as mentioned before) that really do rip people.

I hve a couple of buddies with small businesses. And I can tell you one reason labor is so expensive these days is because the government "taxes and fees" them so much on every employee thats the only way they can turn a profit after nonc sam gets his.

and the unions too

It's all expensive that's for sure. With us and everyone else it's a crap ton of federal bs and it all costs money. Not to mention all of the equipment and data. A new cadillac has a couple of miles of wire and as many as two dozen onboard computers that are networked together. It takes a lot to figure that out sometimes. Pile on the cost of communication tools and the cost keeps rising. Bought our fourth scanner last week and it was $4, 700. We have four and the cost of yearly updates at about 1k each and people wonder why we don't check codes for free. That would be like asking fishingpox to design me a house then give me the blue prints for free So I can build It myself. It doesn't work that way. Time is money.