Homeowner Asking For a Price Breakdown

This is a question from a homeowner asking for some competitive bid information because his contractor only gave him a lump sum. He is curious what the breakdown should be for each piece of equipment. Basically, he wants an itemized breakdown of his bid. A reasonable request, right? Apparently not!

The professional contractors come back with very rude remarks, telling him that he should accept the lump sum and be done with it. I only copied the request and one professionals response, and then the homeowners retort. There were pages and pages of responses from professional contractors that were nothing less then brutal.

As I review, I want to point out a couple of things if interest in the post. First, the homeowner is very polite in his request for information. He asks his question and uses the term “Cost” in his request. Now maybe the contractors felt that he was trying to find out their cost, but I really think he just wants to know how much he is being charged for each piece of equipment on his bid. Again, reasonable.

Then, notice how the contractor goes immediately on the defensive. Again, if I had included the entire thread you would see comments from contractors like; “It’s none of your business” and “Stop wasting your contractor’s time asking these questions”. I don’t know about you, but if I was buying a car and asked how much extra the MP3 player would add to the price and I was told “It’s none of your business”, I would be checking out the hinges on the front door!

Also, I thought it was funny when I looked at the tag line of the professional and saw that it was in defense of asking about price. “You wouldn’t buy the cheapest parachute would you?” That explains a lot.

In the end, the homeowner did not get his answer but he was polite to the end.

From HVAC-TALK: