Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler OT: Need good contractor in LA

not trying to be a smart-a$$, but do ya'll really even need AC units in canada?? from what i know, the hottest temps rarely get over 90 degrees, and thats only for 1 maybe 2 months.. granted, there always exceptions, but i just would never see the AC business being real lucritive in canada.

a few years back , my sister lived in fort collins colorado, and the apartments she lived in did not have AC.. and these were nice apts, real nice.. i was so surprised when she told me that they didnt have AC in them.. but it never got real hot,and they always had a nice cool breeze coming off the mountains.

just curious guys.. i dont think ya'll live in the stone-age or nothing..

bigjohn

Well bigjohn, think about it this way, our winters are so brutally cold that the body gets acclimated to lower temperatures such that an increase to 10C is equally brutally hot for us.
I start wearing shorts about the 8C mark on a sunny day.
(Sorry i could not mentally convert those Celsius values into the archaic Farenheit system, but 32F is 0C for reference).

In reply to:

---

not trying to be a smart-a$$, but do ya'll really even need AC units in canada??

---

Well, the Ontarians and British Columbians have the moderating effect of large bodies of water, but here on the prairies we get the extremes. Winter from -35C (-31F) to 35C (95F) in the summer (true temperature, without the humidex/windchill factors) not sure how dry Texas is, but on a 95-100F day where you can cut the air with a 2x4, AC is a necessity.

Though having a friend in AZ introduced me to the idea of a swamp cooler (evaporative cooling)... ingenious idea, that!

Bren R.

realsman, i went the other way. i told my contractor to install condensing units with out electronics. just a compressor, contactor, capacitor & motor, etc. here in mass, we don't need a high seer because it's only used for about 4 or 5 weeks. less in the unit= less to go bad.
dan

i didnt even think about the whole farenheit/celsius conversion thing.. i think 90F degrees, would be about 32-34C?? i think.. if it was 8C degrees, thats in the lower 40F's, so yea, that is cold to me.. but i am like a big polar bear, i wear shorts 12 months a year anyway, even when it is right at freezing. i would say that canada would be perfect for me in that regard, but i also like going and swimming in the lake, and water activities in general.. dont know if the lakes and rivers ever get warm enough to enjoy doing that up there.

bigjohn

haha you'll have to come ice fishing here in July

Problem in Southern Ontario is the heat and the HIGH humidity, I'd never ever own a house or a car without air.

Btw did you know that each winter parts of Texas almost always get snow before I do.

So far no good. I had an appointment setup to meet an AC/Heater guy at 12noon today. His office called at 11:40am to confirm...all's well so far.

At 11:45am the tech guy himself called me and gave me a lenghth of sh*t a mile long. Saying he wasn't going to "waste" his time coming over if "all decision making parties" weren't present, as he wanted us to agree to a purchase right there an then. I felt like I was talking to a car salesman for god's sake. I'm still ticked off about it. After I got off the phone with him, I called his office and let them know that their man had pretty much lost them a sale.

Grrrrrr...welcome to home ownership. Geesh...this is only the first day!

Craig, sorry to hear about your incident. Did this contractor happen to be part of a chain, or owned by a utility, supplier, or manufacturer? Up here, we have a number of contractors that fall into this category, and their prices are generaly 30 to 40 percent higher than the market average. Because of this, their salesmen pull some of the tactics you describe. We call it the "American" way of selling. (Ok everybody, don't start the attacks....)

With both you and Roger in the room, he would have pulled some very aggressive closing techniques, and you couldn't fall back on the old, "I have to talk to my spouse/partner before I make a decision".

Basically, with his prices so high, he has to be the first guy in and close it on the spot, or he really has no chance of getting the job once you comparison shop.

Shawn

Unbelievable! But, good for you for blowing him off. I don't react to high pressure at all. The harder they push, the more I dig my heels in, and the less willing I am to do business with them. Don't let it get to you. There ARE honest contractors out there. You'll find one. Just hang in there.

Dan, good point. Same goes up here, eh. Relatively speaking, our cooling hours are low and electrical costs are cheap. Spending the extra dough on high seer units doesn't make sense. (Don't tell my customers I said that! HaHa!)

But aren't the hydro rates in CA double or triple the rest of the nation? Plus with 3 times the number of cooling hours, it would make sense for Craig to spend the extra on a high seer unit. (BTW - in Ontario we call electricity "hydro", and for everyone else, SEER is Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio)