So many places to find a good HVAC contractor and so many to find a bad one! We go through 5 places to look if you're looking for a new HVAC contractor and 3 places to avoid.
Buying an HVAC system will be the third-largest investment a lot of folks make behind buying a home and car. Where are the best and worst places to look? Joshua walks us down both paths here.
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0:00 Intro: Five places to find a Good HVAC contractor
0:41 Word of Mouth Advertising
1:49 Check out Reviews on Companies
3:04 HVAC Brand Dealer Locators
4:27 Call HVAC Suppliers
6:26 Google Maps - Search around
10:50 Avoid the Better Business Bureau
13:18 HVAC offered in retail stores
14:38 Lead Generating Websites
16:18 New HVAC Guide

Hey guys welcome back to the channel. This video is how to find a really good heating and air contractor. So, if you're in the market for a new heating and air system or you're, looking for a repair, you're trying to figure out who's, good who's, bad and this video is going to be the five best places to look five best places for you to look to Find your next hvac contractor and the hope and dream is once you find one, you develop a relationship with them and it's a long-standing win-win for both parties relationship. But until you reach that until you find somebody that you're in love with i wanted to give you some places, you could look to find that next contractor.

So let's get started and the first one is pretty obvious word of mouth, it's the most powerful marketing tool. Today and usually, if you have a friend that tells you about a contractor and if they're good or not, you can usually trust them be steered in the right direction, but not just asking a friend ask neighbors. Even if you don't even know your neighbor that well, if you see them out and about maybe just say hey, you know, i'm looking for some work to be done in my house, wondering who you use. Have you found somebody that you really like and if nothing else, they may tell you someone to avoid so maybe they'll say well.

Look i haven't found anybody. I love either, but i definitely avoid these folks. This is what happened to me right and i think, when a lot of people hear word of mouth advertising, they're expecting somebody to love their business love their product so much that they scream from the mountaintops. I love this company, but i think in most cases it's really more of you asking your neighbor, your friend, your family, hey, who do you use? Who do you like and go from there so now that we got that one out of the way? Let's get to some of the ones that maybe you hadn't thought of.

Maybe you did already ask your neighbor and neither one of you have found someone. You love right. The next one might be somewhat obvious as well, but i'm gon na go a little deeper and that is reviews. So if you are looking around, you find somebody that you know you're looking into and you check out their reviews and you're reading the good stuff, the bad stuff outweighing, and so on the thing i would caution you with we're going to talk later in this video.

After i go through the five about the places to avoid, but one of the things i just want to throw out, there is, as you're going through, reviews realize some websites companies can pay money to look better or to hide stuff or so on, and so, as You're going through those reviews, just keep that in mind as you're looking around, if you found them on a search engine website, or maybe you found them another way, but there's still reviews there for you to read and check out, i would say, unlike when you're looking For restaurants, or things like that, where you might just read a couple of them, you look at their star rating and move on with your life. You just pick somebody and move on. I would say just realize, especially when you're looking at someone to come in your home, you might want to go one step further than that, keeping in mind again that there are some websites that can be manipulated in one way or another. So we'll get into that later in the video number three most of the big heating and air brands out there have what we call dealer locators, i think a good place to maybe start is if you have a particular brand system and you go to that company's Website, so, if you have brand x, you go to their website, find their dealer locator, and you find folks that actually install that brand and i'm not necessarily saying that you have to go with someone that installs that brand most heating and air contractors today service.
More than just one brand, but i think it is a good place to start, and you already know who all the big dogs are anyway right. You know all the names that you've heard of as far as manufacturers go. You know you've heard of dyke and amanda goodman carrier, bryant, icp, train and american standard. All these bigger brands right! Well, you can go to their different dealer locators and usually find some good reputable contractors.

So, even if you have say a train heat pump, you can still go to carrier's locator and i would say, look around a little bit. You know, look on a few different dealer, locators see if something jumps out at you, but there is something to be said for if they already install that brand and the system's under warranty going with someone that is very familiar with that brand, they install it and You're gon na be taken care of, hopefully number four. We all have suppliers right. So if i need a part or if i'm buying heating and air equipment, i have a supplier for that.

A middleman, if you will, and sometimes the middlemen are not actually middlemen. They have a direct connection with the manufacturer, if not being actually owned by the manufacturer, but just realize all contractors or heating and air repairmen have a place that they're getting their parts and equipment. My little tidbit on that would be, you can call those suppliers and i do realize some of them may not even help you right. They may say, look, that's not something we do we're not in that game, but if they are willing to help you, i think, there's something to be said for the supplier has a front row seat, so they see contractors coming in every day, buying parts buying equipment And they have a front row seat to who's good and who's, not who's dressed well, who carries their self well who's known to be a more reputable contractor that holds themselves well or if you just care about who's.

The cheap guy they'll know that too. In most cases, so calling your local heating and air wholesale supplier just give them a call and say hey, you know i am a homeowner, i'm looking for a good contractor, just wondering if you might be able to send me somebody's way. I have actually done that. I've had people contact me and say: hey josh, i'm not in your coverage area right.
So i'm not in griffin, air's coverage area. But i'm wondering if you know somebody and i'll usually send them the information of my supplier for that particular area and maybe even send their information that way some suppliers are helpful. I did that recently and all the supplier did was say: go to the dealer locator, but some suppliers are very helpful and they appreciate the business. They want you to use one of their guys right and they'll say: hey look.

You know call these guys, they're really good, they buy from us and definitely call them, and then the fifth place that i will tell you to look is pretty obvious, but stay with me here, don't just skip on because i'm going to go a little bit further, But what i'm talking about is google maps. So if you go to google maps and you put in your zip code or your address and then you search hvac contractors, for example, you're going to get a list of contractors that are close to you and usually have a chance to read their ratings. Read their reviews, but what i wanted to say and the reason i wanted to go one step further is to let you know if you do that, just realize when you do that search there are more companies than will usually show up in that search. So what do i mean by that? Well, i think there's two things that i'm going to go through.

That will help you search that area better, but just realize usually there's this gigantic map of contractors and you're only getting to see one little tidbit of it, because you search something specific and that zip code. But there might be better folks that don't show up in that search necessarily. So, let's go through those two things with that, so the first being just realize there are keywords that when you search for a heating and air contractor on google that will bring up one versus another. So, for example, if you say i want the best hvac contractor for this brand.

Well, it's going to bring up these contractors, but if you change the brand it could bring up these contractors or instead of heat pump, you might put furnace repair right, furnace, repairmen or hvac contractors or heat pump replacement or whatever the keywords are that you use. I would use a few different ones with your local zip code and it's going to bring up different lists. Different people might show up higher on this list versus that list. I think in most cases, a lot of people just search one or the other, and really again they're just looking through that small little lens and they miss out on probably a better fit in some cases and the second one being just realize there are companies that Are not necessarily in your little zip code, your little area on the map that still service your area, so i wouldn't just search heat pump, repairmen or hvac contractor for that one particular zip code.
I might search five zip codes around me right because i want a better list. I want to look at several different reviews. I think, if you're seeing this and you're in a city you're going to have tons of companies that show up so as you're changing the keywords and you're changing the zip codes you're going to have tons of companies right. But i think this is more important for you, guys that are in more rural areas, because i can tell you in my area i only show up in a small little part right.

So if people in my little area search a certain keyword in my little area, i pop up, but people that are just one county over may not see all the five star reviews that my company has and all the great pictures and all the great brands and The best warranty in the area and all the things that we offer we might not even show up in that search because they just searched a certain keyword and their little zip code, and they never even see us over there right. So just keep that in mind. As you're searching around, i would probably try three different keywords: right, maybe like hvac heating, cooling, right, hvac, repair, heating contractors, air conditioning installation or whatever. Whatever the keywords you like to use right.

So i would try those three different types of searches and then i would probably try no less than five zip codes if i'm in a rural area, so i might try this town that town, you know kind of hit the little radius around me. That way, i can get a bigger snapshot instead of that little area. Now i have a bigger snapshot of who's good and who's, not looking at the reviews and so on. So i hope that helps now: let's go through the places that a lot of folks will look at, but they probably shouldn't.

I have three places that homeowners a lot of times. We get folks that come to our website, new hvac guide, they'll say you know. I started here or there and i'm looking at this and that - and they went through the one of these three places only to find out that it was a mistake right. So let's go through those three.

The first one would be the better business bureau. If you've watched any of my videos, you already know how i feel about the better business bureau, there's all kinds of stuff on the internet, you can google it do. I think that the better business bureau is horrible. No, i i don't think that they're horrible, but what i do think is: i think that the better business bureau either misrepresents themselves or people have the wrong idea of what they actually are or offer, and the better business bureau does nothing to correct that.

They're. Okay with people thinking the wrong thing, and what do i mean by that? So a lot of people think that the better business bureau, because of the name, the bureau in there, that they think that it's a government entity that it's government ran that it's regulated in some way shape or form by the united states government. And that is simply not true, so the better business bureau, although they may be a non-profit, they are not run by the government, they do have people that are employed there. They do collect money and they are somewhat of a business.
Well, even if they're, a non-profit, they're, still somewhat of a business, there's money being exchanged there. Right and again you can google all this stuff, but one of the things that the better business bureau does is. They have accreditation, so they'll have businesses that are accredited and they pay to be on that list. I'm not going to get into any of the lawsuits or anything like that.

You can google that stuff, but ultimately just realize i would take the better business bureau with a grain of salt. So i i would maybe look on there maybe see if a company has had some reviews, maybe some claims against them, which is something that the better business bureau does. But again, i would avoid it from a standpoint of them being a third-party government organization. That's a policing it a lot of folks think that they're the police, that they can go to the better business bureau and they're going to do something about something right and in reality, you can just make a claim and the better business bureau might even contact that Company or contractor, but in reality they don't have any legal standpoint, they're not going to go to that contractor and smack them on the hand.

In a lot of cases, companies have to be sued. They have to be actually taken to court by homeowners to have any sort of policing. If you will, they have to actually sue that contractor to gain any ground. If you will the second place that i think people look at to try to find heating and air companies is retail stores, so we see all kinds of stores out there.

Big box stores, hardware stores i've even seen wholesale club stores that they will advertise, buy a heating and air system from them and all they're really doing is inserting themselves in a relationship that would already be there and marking the systems up, marking the equipment up. So what do i mean by that? So if you go into one of these stores - and you call their number or you talk to someone in there about getting a heating and air system, they then bring their contractor in who's already a contractor by the way they're. Not employed by the company that you're at they're not owned by them in any way - and i know there's different programs out there so that store might have a referral fee for that contractor. Some of them actually have the contractor mark up the price of the job and they get profit off of that whatever the program is.

Ultimately, i am just warning you that you may pay a higher price by having that middleman in there. So when you're in that store and you're going through them on everything, you're going to pay a higher price than if you were to just call contractors directly and finally, the last third and final place that people look to find heating and air contractors to find good Ones and fail a lot of times is websites that are what what i call are lead generating websites. So maybe the website portrays themselves as a third party website that they're gon na send you three good heating and air contractors. They're gon na help connect you with the best ones in the area or, however, it is they market themselves, and so what they're actually doing is they're sending your information, your lead to that contractor and charging them money.
Because of that, your price may be a little higher because of that than if you were to just call the contractor directly and the other thing. I've said this in other videos, but the other thing is: if you have a contractor that works for one of those lead generating companies a lot of times, they're, not necessarily the best companies in the area. If you know what i'm saying, i think across the board for the most part - and i know there's exceptions to this rule - so please don't take offense if you're one of those guys but across the board in general. Most folks would agree that the best out there, the best heating and air contractors, the best heating and air repairman and installers they don't even work with those lead generating websites.

They don't have to they're the best in the area and they stay busy because of it. It's usually the guys that are not necessarily very good at it or they don't even have their company name on their vans and they may not even be licensed and insured in some cases that go through those companies. I know there's exceptions to all these things. I'm talking about, but i just want you to know the last thing i'll say, is: if you're in the market for a heating and air system before you spend thousands go to my website.

Newhvacguide.Com. This website is just loaded with information and, ultimately the guide itself. It's essentially like a book that i wrote, but unlike a book that would sit on a shelf, collect dust and become outdated. This website can change.

I can add information to it and a lot of that information, heating and air contractors and manufacturers. Don't even want you to know, i've got a whole page called no knows. I've got a whole page from the best heating and air brands and ones to stay away from so before. You spend thousands check out that website.

Thanks for watching hit that subscribe button, we'll see you next time.

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