I am in the mid-eastern United States and my experience with professional HVAC technicians has been very poor across several providers.
Most techs I get from companies have been very poorly informed and almost hopeless at "debugging" any performance or functional problem. The operating model seems to simply be to replace parts in a pre-determined "likelihood of failure" model.
I don't blame the techs - I liked most of them but after casual conversation it seems clear that most of them don't get much training.
I guess my main complaint is that while I definitely want to "call a pro" my experience finding a good professional in HVAC (and plumbing for that matter) has not been particularly successful.
And don't get me started on part pricing - I am very happy to pay for knowledge (with high hourly technician costs) but more than once I have had easily purchasable OEM parts massively marked up by HVAC companies in what seems just like price gouging.
Most techs I get from companies have been very poorly informed and almost hopeless at "debugging" any performance or functional problem. The operating model seems to simply be to replace parts in a pre-determined "likelihood of failure" model.
I don't blame the techs - I liked most of them but after casual conversation it seems clear that most of them don't get much training.
I guess my main complaint is that while I definitely want to "call a pro" my experience finding a good professional in HVAC (and plumbing for that matter) has not been particularly successful.
And don't get me started on part pricing - I am very happy to pay for knowledge (with high hourly technician costs) but more than once I have had easily purchasable OEM parts massively marked up by HVAC companies in what seems just like price gouging.