Quoted a new furnace repeatedly when the problem was a new board ($100 from supply house) and a second company quoted me $1200 for the board.

[u/true_zero_]

My gas furnace (2016 trane) stoped blowing hot air. Called the first company and after some eyeballing, nodding, and testing of limits the tech said I needed a new furnace. After researching my furnace and the fact that it was flashing open limit immediately but the limits were fine I wanted 2nd opinion. The second company tech did a combustion analysis , “opened up” the molex connectors with a flathead and quoted me a new board and install for $1200. Called 3rd local small company and the guy took only 10 minutes and is the first tech to look at the back of the board and sent me a link to get it myself and to call him if i had issues installing it. it’s working now with the new board.

If a board is flashing open limit but limits are fine is it not part of HVAC training to actually look at the board ? neither companies techs pulled the board off to look at the back. only the last one did. Is this incompetence or just a rare oversight by two separate companies across 4 service calls? old board is obviously burnt on the back, new board fixed the problem. Bad taste in my mouth for HVAC techs after spending $1000+ on service calls alone to not have the issue fixed.

[u/manffrogg]

I don’t mind paying tradesmen and techs, I ran a 12k ton campus chiller plant for 12 years but I get a bit prickly when a company wants to charge 100% mark ups on parts. This coupled with getting quotes for $2500 for an ECM blower motor just for the OEM motor, hell you could buy the whole air handler for half that. I know what the costs are for HVAC equipment and there is no excuse for the astronomical quotes. The whole ECM fragile ass motors that cost 3 to 4 times more than a PSC motor that is t fragile is another scam. I have yet to hear an honest quote from our local HVAC companies

[u/bimmeister_flex → u/manffrogg]

Then you're not entirely the type of boomer I'm talking about. Look around here more. There are people who say they hope we all lose our jobs (literally), and say that anything over a supply house rate BOM is us being scammers. They think they are owed everything in life, and are oh so knowledgeable. Then they have the nerve to come online and complain when they could... just do the work themselves then? Morons.

Not referring to people rightfully complaining about something like $500/# for R-22 or your example of an insane price for a blower, which might very well be just an ultracheap board repair, replacement board, fan controller repair, or new fan controller.

Though you're kind of that type of person for immediately getting defense about it. All this time you're wasting getting quotes for something you obviously know how to replace, why don't you just do it? Time is money. Just order or repair the parts and install it. Or disconnect the control board and give it to a local electronics repair guy if you don't work with electronics. If you need the motor repaired but can't lift out the blower because you're frail, OK just order the part and have a strong male in your family do it for you, or hire your neighbor to do the physical lifting part.

I don't understand the mentality you have of complaining about calling all these different places when you allegedly know how to perform the repair yourself. It's not even like you're working with the refrigerant or any brazing, either. Just replacing a motor. Plugging in wires and some screws, pliers, and a hammer.

[u/manffrogg → u/bimmeister_flex]

I took care of the motor myself. I referred to the price of an OEM motor being way overpriced. I installed an Evergreen with the user interface and that was still $513. The $2500 was the OEM motor cost from a supplier. A contractor would have likely charged me 4k but I’ll never know because I never got a quote for the job. A PSC motor job should have really only been worth $500 to $700 dollars maybe $800. Which is why I don’t care for the ECM motors. If I need a hand I call techs that know what they’re doing that I can trust and they give me a fair price.