When you are hiring an HVAC contractor
or an air conditioning installation company you are likely to be
apprehensive about the expenses involved in the installation or in
repairing your heating or cooling system. Each air conditioning contractor
has a different pricing model. Some of the air conditioning contractors
will use hourly billing rate while others will use flat-rate billing
system. As a customer, you are likely to be confused when it comes to
picking a service provider based on their billing model. Which is the
best billing method?
When you are hiring your heating or cooling contractor, you will
certainly not want to pay more than what you should. Which will be the
cheapest billing method or rather the most cost effective billing method
for the customer?
If your HVAC contractor is going to use hourly rates then you will be
charged based on the actual amount of time spent on the job plus any
materials used for the installation or repair. One can easily talk you
into choosing a service provider that used hourly rate saying that you
just pay for what you get. Well, if things where that simple, then the
hourly rate will be the best pricing model but let us look at some of
the catches with this pricing model.
How long your service provider spends on fixing the problem with the
heating or cooling system will depend on the expertise of the
technicians in dealing with the specific model heating or cooling
systems that you use. Moreover, your billing also will depend on the
sincerity of the service provider. As you are not likely to possess any
technical skills or have the time to actually monitor the job standing
next to your service provider there is no way of establishing whether
your technician is not trying to offset the rates by spending more time
than what it should actually take for the job at hand.
Thirdly, when your air conditioning contractor or your electrical
contractor makes the initial diagnosis of the issue there are chances
that other components within your heating or cooling system are also
damaged which the technician himself will come to know only after
opening your system. In other words, you have no way of knowing how much
it is going to cost you exactly to repair your heating or cooling
system. The chances are that you receive a bill that is way too
expensive than what you had expected. If you had known the exact bill
value before you hired the contractor, you would had have the option to
decide whether to go ahead with the repair or to go for a totally new
system or whether you want to postpone the repair job for a later time.
You get such advantages with flat-rate pricing system. Regardless of
whether your HVAC contractor is going to take just forty-five minutes or
going to spend an entire day, you will know how much exactly it is
going to cost you. Even if your service provider has to wrongly diagnose
the problem and gives you a quote to restore the equipment to full
working condition, it is upon him to stick to his quote and you are
completely safe.
Learn more about Charlotte air conditioning services at Caryl Mechanicals in Charlotte, NC.
