Comparing HVAC proposals. Hey guys, one of the things we do on the new HVAC guide is will help customers compare HVAC quotes So Some folks will subscribe to our website, they're asking for help and they'll send me a Gob of proposals. I've had guys send me like five or more proposals so they're hitting me with all this information. Of course they're being hit with it and half of it they don't even understand and I wanted to do a video helping you. If you're getting proposals, a video that you could use to just kind of sift through all the information, kind of break it down a whole lot easier because sometimes you're just being bombarded with all this information. and I think if you use this video in comparing those proposals, it might help you pick the winning contractor. I Think some folks will get all this information and they want to read every word on every proposal before they make their decision. and I don't think you need to do that I think if you follow when I'm about to go over, it might help you make your decision a little easier and again I'm going to break that down. So let's start out by talking about if you're getting all these quotes, let's first talk about the contractor and that's usually where I'll start on the guide if I'm helping someone I'll say hey, First of all, were there any contractors that just for whatever reason, you're sure you're not going to hire that person, right? So let's just say you've got this stack if you will of proposals and I'm I'm using a sort of hand gesture to say you got this stack of papers if you will, but in reality you're probably looking at more of a digital version. Maybe you've got a stack of emails if you will. Let's say you've got the stack of proposals. I Think just starting out. Just go ahead and take those ones out. Just take the ones that if you've got a contractor who came in your house for one reason or another, he didn't give you the warm fuzzies. You're like, there's no way I'm gonna hire this guy. Get those contracts out of there. Get those proposals out of there. You don't need them. It doesn't really matter what they wrote down, because you know for whatever reason you're not going to hire them anyway. So it really doesn't matter what they wrote on their proposal. No matter how great it sounds on paper, or how flashy it is or whatever, you know you're not going to hire them anyway. So just get them out of there. So you might have just now. Just with that one little blurb, you just might have went from 10 proposals. If you had 10 people come to your house and give you proposals, you might have just now went from 10 to 8. Or maybe even ten to four, right? There's some that you're You just know like you're like, well, that guy for this reason alone I'm not gonna hire him, right? But if you are comparing contractors I Think you should be doing things like looking at their reviews. We are in the 21st century now and people are online. I Think you can look up the reviews for most good companies and even if it's a company that either a just started recently and they don't have that many reviews or maybe they're an old timer and they don't have a good online presence I Think for the most part you can look up reviews or something like that for a lot of heating and air contractors out there, right? that's the first thing I Would check around. If you have a neighbor that's used a contractor or a friend or whatever, then you can check the reputation for that heating and air contractor. but just kind of do your homework as far as that goes. I Would definitely say that you should be getting at least three quotes. So If you had someone come out to your house they said hey, it's time for a new heating and air system I Would think the average homeowner would want to get at least three more quotes on top of that one quote that you're probably receiving from the company that says hey, it's time to replace your system I've heard from some customers that have got as many as 10 proposals or 10 quotes from contractors if they need a new heating and air system. But as you're comparing all of That so you're comparing the reviews and reputation, All of that. one thing I would say is that you could look at right from the get-go is what did that contractor do while they were in your home. Did they do a proper heat load calculation? Did they take the time to look at everything? Did they take the time to look in your electrical panel and make sure everything's on the up and up? Did they take the time to talk to you and tell you here's what we sell and why we sell it right? I Did a video years ago where I talked about three questions you can ask every HVAC contractor when they come in your home for you to be able to kind of compare apples to apples And that was one of those questions. why do you sell what you sell For example, one of the things that we do for people that subscribe on our website is if you subscribe we send you a free gift and one of those is a document of questions basically questions you can ask a contractor allowing you to compare each contractor and in addition to what they did or how they acted in your home. I would say if you're going through these proposals now, let's look at what are they offering that the others aren't right. So if you've got five different contractors, one out of the five might be offering something that the others aren't right? Are they offering a warranty that the others aren't Maybe they're offering some sort of Maintenance contractor, some sort of free services that the others aren't. Or maybe they're throwing in some sort of upgrade or accessories in addition to that heating and air system. Whether there be a humidifier or a UV light or whatever that upgrade or accessory is, but just something that again, the others are not offering with their system when they install it, That's a good snapshot. Now we're going to get to the Nitty Gritty. You've got all these bids. Hopefully you've been able to go from as many as 10 or 5 and then knock that down. So now you've got however many left. So let's say you have five left. You had ten. Now you're down to five and you're ready to go through the Nitty-gritty I Would say the majority of those proposals should have sort of options. as in the heating and air system having ratings. Whether it's efficiency ratings. Maybe they're going to have like a a sear two now used to be Seer but now it's C or two rating. Maybe they're gonna have some sort of AFU So if you've got a furnace got to compare the percentages, how much of that gas is it actually going to use? Maybe there's other ratings like the Eer or Hspf that you can compare. But you should be be getting some sort of ratings for you to be able to compare apples to apples. This was sort of like if you're comparing you've got a Toyota or a Honda which one gets better gas mileage right? So you've got these different ratings as far as the systems go. and I would say most good contractors should be offering you some sort of good better best, this is a good option. This one's a little better sort of deal. And I know if you are doing your homework and you have come across this video I'm sure you have done some homework on the brands. so you've been on different websites that are going to tell you oh, this Brand's the best and the next website's gonna say no, no this Brand's the best. My personal tip that I would give you on that is in my opinion, there are probably brands that are better than others in certain markets, but I would focus more on the contractor than the brand. so focus on finding a good contractor and then because they're good, they're going to be offering you a good brand in return, right? So you may may not agree with that. As someone that's diving into this, you might say, well Josh I Just love Toyota cars and so you telling me that there's other car manufacturers just as good? I Just don't agree with that. But I think in the grand scheme of things, there are a lot of heating and air Brands out there that. for one reason or another, they're good or bad or whatever. maybe they don't offer Parts in that market that you're in, right? So that would be a reason you wouldn't want to go with that brand right where you live. But I would say in the grand scheme of things. so if I'm talking to my own family I'm telling you that if you find a good contractor more times than not, they're going to be selling you a brand that they've done the due diligence on, They are going to stand behind what they're selling. So again, we've talked about a few of these other issues. But now that we're getting down to the Nitty-gritty now, you can compare when you've got these different proposals: things like the warranties, the accessories that they're offering, and the contract itself. So now you've narrowed it, hope hopefully down to one or two. and now you're gonna get to the nitty gritty of reading through their actual proposal. What are they proposing Now Read through that fine print. Make sure that if you're putting your name down on a signed document that you know what you're signing and I would go through that I would say that is protection for you as well. So if you've got a contractor that is not doing a proper contract and they don't have fine print and things in writing, I would be a little concerned with that too. I Would want a contractor to have a contract right? I would want to have something to now that I've narrowed it down to this one or two bids and I want to read through here. What are we saying here? What am I signing? What are the parameters? How are you protecting me? How are you protecting yourself Mr Contractor right? And so now that you've done this, so now you've gone from 10 down to one or two bids, the last thing I'll say to wrap up this video you might be saying already or have said watching through this video is the the last thing I would look at Is their price right? you might say well Josh that's the first thing I was looking at I I didn't I didn't even look at all this stuff you're talking about. The first thing I look at is the price I saved price for the end because I think as you're sifting through all these different contracts, you're basically picking out what's important to you, right? So if you immediately from the get-go just go by. Price You've got these 10 proposals and you pull out the cheapest one. For example, you may not have ever taken the time to look at what are some of the other ones offering. Maybe you would have gone with a maybe a higher price, but you got a whole lot more value there. does that make sense? So I would say the price. Maybe it's not the last thing you would look at, but I would definitely say it's not the first thing you should be looking at. I Think that you should be looking at a few of these other things because sometimes what you do get what you pay for, right? So I have seen websites that have said things like well, you should negotiate the price. In my opinion, most good contractors. They're not going to do a lot of wiggle room anyway and in my experience just being honest with you. if I've got a homeowner that's kind of nickel and Domino most good contractors are kind of, That might be a little bit of a red flag Anyway, for them wanting to do business with this homeowner now you do you? you might. Maybe that turns you off, you know me saying that. but I'm just being honest with you. If you're not in my market, right, you're somewhere it doesn't matter who you choose to meet, right? You're in a market where you're going to pick this contractor, but now you're going to try to whittle their price down a little bit. Some contractors that might change the way they're going to go about this I think most good contractors in my experience I've had homeowners say man I love your everything you're offering but is there any wiggle room on the price and with us? But usually the answer is no I Price What? I can as competitive as I Can and there's no games here? Uh, with my company and I I would say that's probably true with most good heating and air contractors, but if you feel like that, you want to ask, you've picked the right one and you want to ask that. sometimes you ask. Maybe there's some rebates that they can apply that they had not yet, or some sort of other discount they can apply to it, so that's up to you. But again, hopefully this helps. You've had this stack of bids again, and hopefully you've been able to whittle it down just by going through a few things again. just focusing on this, this and this and now you've got. Instead of having to worry about this whole plethora of information, you've now got just one or two proposals that you can focus on and say, okay, what's my better option here? Who's going to be the right choice for me? Hope that helps. Thanks for watching Hit that subscribe button. We'll see you next time.