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Why AC is cheap, but AC repair is a luxury

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Re: Why AC is cheap, but AC repair is a luxury

#81

Post by mysterypie »

> With widespread AI adoption we plausibly could consume 10x or more of the service: Legal services, for example, plausibly fit this bill.

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.

Re: Why AC is cheap, but AC repair is a luxury

#82

Post by numpad0 »

korhojoa wrote: post #8
cake-rusk wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An AC is a heat pump too.

I don't know what the deal is about people saying heat pumps are expensive. They used to be a little pricier than AC units, but it's just a 4-way valve in addition to one. 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…

You have to specifically look for cooling only AC where I am. Most ACs come with heat-dehumidify-cool mode selection and therefore qualify as "heat pumps", as far as how the term is used. I think it's just quirks of regions that traditionally didn't have ACs by default.

Re: Why AC is cheap, but AC repair is a luxury

#83

Post by bickfordb »

s1gsegv wrote: post #71
turtlebits wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good mini splits aren't expensive. They're expensive because HVAC installers are fleecing US consumers. 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.

If it was so lucrative, wouldn’t more people set up shop undercutting the current offerings? Why not become an HVAC installer and make millions, if you’re really able to make $15k profit on a job you can turn out in a day. 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 jus…

In my state (OR) it takes 4 years to become licensed to do the work for others but homeowners can do the work themselves.

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

Re: Why AC is cheap, but AC repair is a luxury

#84

Post by ryao »

esperent wrote: post #35
magicalhippo wrote: post #10

Just had our minisplit develop a leak after 7 years. The shop recommended replacing it, as just the refrigerant is half the price of a new one if most has to be replaced, due to environmental taxes. Basically a repair is guaranteed to be at least 50% of new price of NOK 23k ($2.3k) installed and can quickly approach 80+% if the guy has to spend time on it. That made me wonder how on earth they make money on selling t…

Here in Vietnam nearly all ACs are these minisplit type. It costs about 500,000VND ($19) to get one serviced, including replacement coolant. It's cheap enough that I get it done at least once or twice a year for all units (the coolant doesn't always need replacing but I get it cleaned and serviced). I know the US and Vietnamese economies are very different, but something doesn't add up there.

Minisplit AC units are not very popular in the US. The US mainly uses either central air conditioning units or all in one AC units that are designed to be installed in a window. The window units are cheap, but inefficient. The central units are more efficient, but very expensive. Minisplit units are more expensive than window units (by probably a factor of 10), but are more efficient than either. I suspect most people in the US do not know that minisplit units are even an option.

In my home, I recently had a heat pump unit replace my central A/C with some minisplits that connected to the exterior unit installed in the basement. The entire setup cost as much as it originally cost to install the central A/C, despite parts of the central A/C being reused.

Note that in the US, what we call air conditioners only support cooling and not heating. When they support both, we call them heat pumps despite that being the scientific name which applies to the cooling only units too.

Re: Why AC is cheap, but AC repair is a luxury

#85

Post by AngryData »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #29
hexbin010 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's that rich people are the only thing the trades are catering to now. 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

I'm not rich (or at least, don't feel rich with the enormous cost increases on everything combined with no promotions for 3 years) -- but how do you negotiate with a tradesperson exactly? 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 d…

If it is a company with more than 2 or 3 employees you are already going to be given a significant markup right off the bat for their marketting and commercial office expenses and have obfuscated costs, individual contractors have lower overhead. Location is also important, if I gotta drive an hour each way for a job that is going into the price. Getting legit parts, especially with short notice, also costs more. While I might buy a $8 ignitor on amazon for my own furnace or a friends, I cant risk crappy counterfit parts for regular customers that might blow up in a week so now its a $35+ part.

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.

Re: Why AC is cheap, but AC repair is a luxury

#86

Post by Ekaros »

chemotaxis wrote: post #7

That's a lot of economic theorizing, but to me, it doesn't seem to be substantiated all that well. You can just as well argue that labor is getting more expensive in the West because of two non-market pressures. First, we have a multitude of government programs that seek to eliminate extreme poverty, so there are fewer people who are desperate to take any job for any money. Second, you have consumer protection polici…

Cost of living goes up. Cost of services if they are not done more efficiently must as well go up. In the end cost of labour in my theory comes down to cost of housing and cost of health care. Cost of food and most other things should follow cost of labour. When both are profit generations or being inflated. Well there is no other options than to cost of labour go up.

Re: Why AC is cheap, but AC repair is a luxury

#87

Post by consp »

XorNot wrote: post #72
locknitpicker wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> (...) a multitude of government programs that seek to eliminate extreme poverty, (...) consumer protection policies that make it genuinely expensive (...) I don't think this opinion holds a rational basis. Extreme poverty being a factor in low job demand is an argument for coercing people into performing certain tasks even though they are not economically viable just because it benefits you personally. This is not…

I agree. Given that as soon as cloud computing happened we stopped bothering to debug VMs and just started deleting them and rebuilding, I don't know why people find the idea this applies to other industries surprising. Repair involves establishing where in a very large state space an item is, and finding a path back to optimal. Whereas building a new item simply involves traversing an already known path to optimal.

While in understand your reasoning it is a limited view perspective: The rebuild cost of a VM to society as a whole is marginal at best, an entire hvac system has a lot more crap it needs to dump somewhere when it is replaced.

Re: Why AC is cheap, but AC repair is a luxury

#88

Post by tbrownaw »

testdelacc1 wrote: post #52

The author makes an error while explaining Jevons’ Paradox. They say “the cheaper and faster we got at producing coal, the more coal we ended up using”. But that’s not paradoxical at all. That’s basic supply and demand curve from economics 101. It’s exactly what you’d expect. Whereas if you take the extraordinarily difficult step of opening Wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox ), you understand th…

> But that’s not paradoxical at all. That’s basic supply and demand curve from economics 101. It’s exactly what you’d expect.

The key part is the "demand more than eclipsed the cost savings" bit.

The cotton gin is another well known example, labor per unit down, labor for the whole industry up.

Re: Why AC is cheap, but AC repair is a luxury

#89

Post by rkomorn »

ryao wrote: post #84
esperent wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Vietnam nearly all ACs are these minisplit type. It costs about 500,000VND ($19) to get one serviced, including replacement coolant. It's cheap enough that I get it done at least once or twice a year for all units (the coolant doesn't always need replacing but I get it cleaned and serviced). I know the US and Vietnamese economies are very different, but something doesn't add up there.

Minisplit AC units are not very popular in the US. The US mainly uses either central air conditioning units or all in one AC units that are designed to be installed in a window. The window units are cheap, but inefficient. The central units are more efficient, but very expensive. Minisplit units are more expensive than window units (by probably a factor of 10), but are more efficient than either. I suspect most peopl…

I don't think it's just "most Americans don't know."

When I installed AC in my former Bay Area home, I would have needed multiple mini split units to cover 1200sq ft, with questions about how many you could have on at once to still get the right performance. I went with a single central air unit instead.

It also (at the time at least) didn't come with a centralized thermostat, which meant managing each room individually (that would've been fine with me, personally, but it's a drawback for lots of people).

On top of that, many (if not most) mini split units are also somewhat aesthetically displeasing.

In my new home (on a different continent), I have mini splits. I'm somewhat satisfied with them, at best. I'd still prefer central air but it's not a thing for residential homes here.

Re: Why AC is cheap, but AC repair is a luxury

#90

Post by jonway »

esperent wrote: post #35
magicalhippo wrote: post #10

Just had our minisplit develop a leak after 7 years. The shop recommended replacing it, as just the refrigerant is half the price of a new one if most has to be replaced, due to environmental taxes. Basically a repair is guaranteed to be at least 50% of new price of NOK 23k ($2.3k) installed and can quickly approach 80+% if the guy has to spend time on it. That made me wonder how on earth they make money on selling t…

Here in Vietnam nearly all ACs are these minisplit type. It costs about 500,000VND ($19) to get one serviced, including replacement coolant. It's cheap enough that I get it done at least once or twice a year for all units (the coolant doesn't always need replacing but I get it cleaned and serviced). I know the US and Vietnamese economies are very different, but something doesn't add up there.

Its really expensive, its true. Prices spiked like mad after the coronavirus shortages, AC parts were back up forever. It sucked and the costs rose tremendously and seemingly never fell. Then we tarrif the imports and change the rate constantly. Nobody can sort out their supply chains(But it is not just the tariffs).

The refrigerant is often expensive, poisonous and flamable. We don't replace the refrigerant, we reclaim it and dispose of it properly. Its not without risks. Our building codes are pretty rigid as well, its a big pain point.

New HVAC install is gonna need an electrician, the lines pass through walls allowing the possibility of condensation to produce deadly mold. Every installation needs individual consideration. If it isnt %100 perfect, the customer will be riding the installer's ass.

The US has is a Safety Above All mindset on some things. We improve safety far beyond economic rationality because we don't want to systematically kill each other in this way, however few that is.

Unrelated example: a national EMT outfit operating here made all their techs wear plate carriers and ballistic plates. There is nearly no gun violence here. All the techs stopped carrying the plates after a few months because its dumb, and wont stop a baseball bat or a knife, but this is a national outfit, surely they did a cost benefit analysis. Someone signed the check and wrote a policy to make them wear em every day. Plates expire, also.

That said, we can definitely do better, and the cost is too high. Installers are in demand, and we tariff the imports to the tune of %15-%30.

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