customer being cheap

Weezbo

with it to put it in the hands of the people to do good ...and that you are one of the very people.

ed wallace

customer being cheap

last month there was a visitor to heating help looking for help on a churches steam boiler system dates from the 30s or so i meet the man on saturday was at the church for 2 hrs boiler needs 3 new motorized valves a new pressure relief valve steam leaks fixed now the customer says consulting work is not billable guess an engineers time is more important then a repair persons time i will not mention the mans name but im sure you can figure out who it is

Mad Dog

What a guy............................................

He took advantage of your good nature and knowledge....just don't let it happen ever again. Don't feel bad, Ed the same thing happened to me ...with a church too. Spent at least 8-10 hours...looking, sizing, drawing up sketches with several options for new boilers. It had big old zone valves too. Brought a expert friend in to help me too (Thanks Mr Genny). They got all their bids and we were the highest. We never got the job, but got a hearty laugh the following year when my friend was told by the pastor that they went with the "middle guy" (like thats always the safe bet right?) and he didn't follow my sketches at all, undersized the boiler, the building never fully heats AND>>>>>>>>> THe gas bill is now 10,000.00 higher than it was last year......oh well!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ed, You must get a consulting fee when you go on those jobs...your knowledge is worth something!!!!!! Just do it. Email me if you need some help on that. Mad Dog

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Mad Dog

The other steam pros here can speak for themselves..............

but he won't get a morsel of info from me. Got your back, Deadman. Mad Dog

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Weezbo

Indeed!

burnt many hours of sunlight re- thinking the entire works for people that secretly only want a how to guide for hitchiking through the hydronic universe.

ed wallace

cheap customers

thanks for the advise my friends

kevin_5

I am the only guy in my area

that is actively promoting radiant at homeshows. I had a guy ask me the other day how many feet of tubing I put in a zone. I could tell he had been surfing the internet for DIY advice. I told him "It depends". Another guy wanted to know how big a boiler I would use for a shop of so and so square footage. Same answer. We got advice here once to "quote with lots of paper" so as to dazzle the prospective customer with your knowledge. I can see the psychology involved, but you have to be very careful who you give a detailed design, heat loss analysis, or materials list to. I heard once a doctor gets $20 to do the procedure, and $1000 for KNOWING WHAT to do. It sounds like the churchman you mentioned is missing something in the tranlation, because among many, many,other things, the Bible says that "the workman is worthy of his wages."
In fact, how we handle money is an outside indicator of what our values are and what we really believe. You can learn a lot about someone by looking at his checkbook registry. The wallet is the final frontier. Kevin

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Unknown

Charge for the work you put in. If you're doing consultation grade work putting together heat load calcs and materials lists, charge for it. Charge less if you don't want to scare people off, consider it sales work, but I'll tell you, good clients understand time is valuable and pay for it. Especially if you're the only one asking for it; who will they trust? Joe blow who says he did the heat load or you who shows up with the documentation?

The ones that can't understand or don't value your expertise are the ones you don't want to work for anyway. It is very important to establish things up front though. Don't take home a planset and come back with a bill. People need to know when they will pay, how much and why.

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Paul Mitchell_2

I think the key to this is

your statement "the customer says consulting isnt billable" Are you kidding me. The bill would be out and I would follow up to collect. We all get paid for what we know...not what we do. It is hard to remember that sometimes but very true.