[doctorhandshake]

This. I had 12 contractors come out for an estimate. I insisted to each that I would only consider estimates accompanied by a Manual J (aka show your work). I got 4 estimates with a manual J, and one of them the vendor said ‘despite that the math says you need a 4 ton outdoor unit, I’m giving you two,’ and refused to budge on that.

I went with a vendor who did the math and sized accordingly and my system works great - great comfort year round and very low energy usage.

[JeremyPOsborne]

If we’re trying to bring down cost the this is the issue with so many contractors coming out. The cost of sales is about 10-15% of the installation in the US. So thats $2-3k in California per heat pump

Try to get an install for $600 like in Japan when you have to pay $2k to find the customer.

Let’s have a lower cost sales process. Review 12 companies online, pick top 3, ask them to come out.

[doctorhandshake]

Yeah in case it wasn’t clear - I wasn’t asking a million vendors to price the job, I was asking them to do a manual J so they could price the job. It took 12 to get 4 to do the manual J. The other 8 came on-site and then refused to do the calcs even though I told them before coming out that it was a prerequisite for me to consider their quote.

I got a variety of explanations for why they weren’t going to do it, most of them along the lines of ‘I’ve been doing this forever - I know what I’m doing,’ but a few disappointingly ‘I don’t know what a manual J is.’ Again, this was AFTER my telling them over the phone that I wouldn’t consider a quote that wasn’t based on the calcs.

[maxerickson]

Wild that you put it on the customer to reduce the sales cost.

I can see it being reasonable to explain during the initial contact that you want the standardized estimate, once that happens it's not really on the customer if the contractor goes out to chase the business even if they know they aren't going to do it.