In today's video, I'd like to talk about five mistakes that homeowners make when they're purchasing heating and air systems. If you don't know me my name is Josh and I host the HVAC guide for homeowners YouTube channel for more tips in the heating and air industry. Please hit that subscribe button. but let's dive into it.

Number one mistake that homeowners make when they're purchasing a heating and air system and that is selecting the wrong contractor. And I think there's a few things to uncover with this that I think would help you. The first one is a lot of folks will either try to be the contractor themselves so they'll do a DIY project and I've heard so many horror stories. we just replaced the system today from somebody that tried to purchase one of those systems online not realizing that.

Number one, they don't quite have all the knowledge that they'll need to do it properly. But number two, the product itself is Just Junk Most of the products being marketed as DIY products are just simply lower quality. But aside from that, when you're getting quotes from contractors, I would hope that you are getting quotes, you're going to get multiple quotes. You're going to invite them to your home to look everything over, and a lot of times folks won't take the time to vet the contractor themselves.

I Would say that you should be asking questions when folks subscribe to our HVAC Guide website. One of the things we send them is a questionnaire that they can use to ask the contractor. Certain questions compare apples to apples and we also did a video right here of the three best questions you can ask those contractors. One of those being why they sell what they sell.

Not just what do you sell, but why do you sell it? Tell me why And that leads us into. when you're selecting the contractors, how do you know who's good and bad? You know they all come in your home. They all do their tap dance to tell you why they are great and I think that's a good thing I would want to hear their song and dance. It's okay to hear the contractor brag a little bit and say Hey you know this is why you should choose us and why we're selling what we're selling but also checking their reputation obviously.

Google Reviews: Ask your neighbors and your family why do they use who they use and so on and on top of selecting that contractor. I would add also getting everything in writing. Wouldn't it be great if we lived in a world where you know everybody did what they said they were going to? Nobody ever has to go to court on anything and everybody just provides a great service at a great price and so on. Well the problem with that is not everybody does and so you want to make sure that if you do end up in a courtroom I Always tell folks to operate like you actually might like, you might end up in a courtroom And because of that, making sure you get certain things in writing and making sure that you cover all your bases and you'll have a leg to stand on in case that ever does happen.

Number two: Homeowners Not recognizing when something is wrong and what I mean by this one is There are times when homeowners will just select the cheapest guy, right? So you selected the wrong contractor and now you're into it and you're not noticing that things are wrong. One of those being things are not being put in writing. The contractor is not necessarily carrying themselves very well. Maybe they're already starting off with hey, you know we're installing this over here when you thought you were getting that.

But catching those red flags early and making sure that you don't go down this road where you know you end up at the end of the road and now it's time to make payment and it's too late. The damage is done. They've already done something wrong, Where they've already provided a service that you wish you would not have paid for a lot of times. If you end up in courts, you may not have liked the end product, but you still have to end up paying the contractor in the end because they did the work well.

Catching those red flags from the get-go hey, something's wrong here and stopping work before something happens and now you've got to pay for it. Aside from getting things in writing I Would even say you should have a contract in place signed by both parties and that contract should. State Certain things like what's the timeline going to be, what exactly are you offering and so on. So just noticing when something is wrong beforehand, hand before they go too far.

Number three mistakes that homeowners make when they're purchasing that heating and air system they cut. Corners They go with the cheap guy. They don't get a proper heat load calculation done. They don't get enough quotes and now the couple quotes that they've gotten, they've already noticed that maybe they're cutting.

Corners A little bit. This isn't quite the premium service I Thought I was going to get. They know they're spending all this money well in a lot of cases. Just like any other service.

I Consider heating and air systems and the people that install them a part of the hospitality industry. Just like if you were staying in a nice hotel, you expect a certain level of quality over a cheap motel beside the interstate. Right? You expect certain things. You expect a certain level of service.

You expect the contractor to carry themselves a certain way and so on. You're spending a lot of money here and it's okay to say hey, something's wrong here. They're cutting Corners here and stop that mistake before it becomes a bigger problem. I Would even say that not even just the contractor cutting the corners, but the hormone honor themselves.

So when you are going through the motions, don't just go with the cheap guy. don't go with the first gag. Take your time, put a portable AC in to buy you some time if you have no AC at the moment and don't make a Brash decision with a lot of money. I've even seen homeowners hire people that aren't even heating and air professionals, guys that are handyman or painters or electricians.

Oh I can buy the unit online and you know this electrician says he can do it. that would be cutting a corner I Could keep you on here for hours telling you some of those horror stories if you've never been on one of my live streams I do those on Tuesday nights where I do go over some of those stories I take time to tell people some of those crazy stories. The next one for the mistakes that homeowners make is they don't consider upgrades of their heating and air system And upgrades could be a number of things, some of them being things that will protect the system, things that will protect you, things that will improve the air quality in your home, and things that will improve the performance and efficiency of that heating and air system. So what are some of those upgrades if you watch this video right here.

We go through some of the upgrades that folks can do before and after the installation and some of those are surge protection. Or you can even go one step further and do the phase monitor. There are other things like Wi-Fi thermostats and some of the Technologies we see coming out with that today for convenience and also the performance of the system itself, saving you money at times on your utility bills. There's other upgrades that will improve the air quality like filtration, air cleaning UV Technologies ionizers, all those sorts of things and other products that can control things like humidity in your home working in tandem with your heating and air system.

So a lot of homeowners will just pick out the cheapest bid they get, go with the system that's the Plain Jane and not realize they may be missing an opportunity to save money in the end if they were to consider some of these upgrades and then finally, number five for mistakes that homeowners make when they're purchasing heating and air systems. and in my opinion, this might be the biggest one. And that is, they listen too much to guys like me, or they read stuff on the internet, they watch videos, Whatever, they take too much information or advice from people online, and they try to take a bad contractor and turn them into a good one. One example I can think of is if they hear in a YouTube video that one brand is better than another and they go back to their contractor and they say well, hey, you were the cheapest guy but I Heard on this video that you know I should probably choose this brand over here and that contractor says oh, okay, Well yeah, all right.

Well I'll do that I'll do that brand then or they say well, hey, I Heard online that you should be doing a proper heat load calculation. If that contractor didn't already do all the things that they should have done from the get-go then maybe that's a red flag. Maybe you should consider shopping a little bit more getting a few more quotes. Don't try to turn that bad contractor into a good contractor.

And ultimately, as you get all these quotes and you're talking to some of your local Pros ask them the questions. It's okay to say hey, I Read this online, but all markets are different. There are parts of the US that have a lot more humidity than others. There are parts of the US that they have a lot more extreme temperatures than others.

There's parts of the US that certain brands don't have a good Distribution Center or Supply Center for parts. All those things should be considered when you're talking to your local Pros hey I saw this on the internet and your local Pro says I would avoid that I You know maybe that's right for the part of the country that they're in or that maybe that's right for that particular scenario. Maybe you rented something in a blog, but in our area it's a little different. So that's my big five.

Did I miss anything? Do you have a mistake that maybe you made? or you've heard of others making when they've purchased a heating and air system? I'd love to hear about that. Please comment down below. Thanks for watching. Please hit that subscribe button.

We'll see you next time.