Because there's no Super-Market store in the area for furnace parts, so a guy calls up his local service reps to help in need of cold temps outside no heat inside. In my case Eastern Heating and Cooling (also known as United Air Conditioning or HVAC Corp) and are the representatives for my furnace brand. Long story short very nice and professional technician showed up and within 5 minutes had the new part installed and out the door. The funny part is that it took him longer to write-up the bill than to fix my furnace. But heres the “What’s Bugging You?” being an engineer, I actually know a little how stuff works and he even wrote on the job invoice the single part replaced and a total of $395 on the bill just didn’t seem right. So, with a phone call to my furnace manufacture that part would cost a whopping $62 including shipping.
Now I understand the price of gas, insurance and an hourly rate works into a final price, but for a $62 part and 5 minutes of time (Beside the part is held in place by a single screw) and even if the gentleman was driving from NJ… $395 just seems excessive. Being on the greenside, I figure he meant to write $195 dollars which seems more fair and maybe still on the high side, but I have heat again. So, I made a phone call to Eastern Heating and Cooling and I got the answer of: “You don’t understand our billing process and thank you for your business we hope to hear from you again.” Which leads me to writing to you as this seems to be one of those old car mechanic traps on route 220 in the middle of the nowhere. I was thinking that maybe my story will help others to know or ask the price of the part being installed and the hourly rate before a bill is written up…. Or maybe the City could step-up to the plate and require such industries as the HVAC, Pluming, Roofing, etc… disclose their pricing structure as does the auto-mechanic has too.
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