Comment by jeffbee
11 hours ago
In general, contractor overhead in America is obscene, compared to Europe. We have a lot of regularly capture working to keep it that way, too.
11 hours ago
In general, contractor overhead in America is obscene, compared to Europe. We have a lot of regularly capture working to keep it that way, too.
DIY is viable if you're a bit nutters (like me).
I just paid ~$35k (pre-now-expired-tax-break) to install a grid-tied 25kw ground mount system. I DIY'd everything except the connection between the array and the grid, which I paid an electrician to do, and the trenching which I paid my buddy with a mini-excavator to do.
It was a bit of a PITA, but mostly because I didn't finally make up my mind to do it until October and had to have it constructed by Dec 31st to take advantage of the expiring tax credit. If I'd given myself 6 months, it would have still been a big project, but way less stressful.
My neighbor's paid the same price to a contractor for a 11kw system.
Even at 46°N, and with relatively cheap electricity, my system should pay for itself in 6-8 years.
Do you have a blog or a writeup about this?
What would have been the cost if it was not DIY'd? Is this doable only in a rural/semi-urban settings?
In EU it would be some $3k for inverter, $5k for panels, another $5k for cables, connectors and mounting and that's it if you DIY everything. Prices with VAT included.
Same in the Philippines here, and we're all buying the same Chinese materials at the end of the day so somehow Americans are getting really fleeced hard on this equipment.
Payback time is 2-4 years.
It reminds of healthcare and infrastructure in the US. When you really dig into why both are so expensive, it's literally every step. Every link in the chain between supplier and consumer is some kind of inefficient market, or burdened by regulations, etc.
Americans are just so rich they don't care enough to see these huge margins and undercut the competition, which is what happens here and keeps markets much more efficient.
Being an honorary or actual redneck in an exurban American setting will be the sweet spot for this. Your neighbor's rusting Bobcat is not useless after all. You have the space for ground mounting. I toyed with a rooftop solar DIY project with an electrician handling the AC side, but in my urban context PG&E wanted a six-figure fee for a subterranean transformer upgrade. In 2024 the state regulator established rules that PG&E can't charge for that kind of service upgrade so maybe I should start considering it again.
I am counting on physical, semi technical contract work to pay once SWE opportunities shrink to the point where it’s not worth it anymore.
Now is the time to get handy if not already. Robotics /physical automation will lag info by a good stretch.
It all comes back to insurance- they're used to getting crazy sums of money because nobody questions the rates
The Common Law Theory of Everything
We looked at trying to get some mini-split heat pumps for my mom's place & were getting quotes $30k figures for two modest units (it's a tiny well insulated house). I don't know what the frak is wrong with this nation; this is so fantastically worrying.
Home HVAC is the most obvious current regulatory caused scam in the US. Virginia just added an 'easier' license that 'only' requires two years of experience to receive (and 160 hours of formal training, but that's not the bad part obviously).
Something like a minisplit though can literally be DIYed in under a day. With experience, a DIYer can do it in a couple hours. They're literally designed to be easily installed as a complete system. Even in Japan you can get one installed for under a grand (including the unit). In China it's obviously even cheaper.
Obviously HVAC companies don't want it to be easier to get a license, they make boatloads on entire home systems and maintenace. Being able to just replace a broken unit for $600 would kill their entire business model.
Electrical is a similar scam, though for some reason if you get enough quotes you can usually find one that isn't charging the equivalent of $1k/hr in labor like getting a mini-split from an HVAC company tends to be.
There indeed are plenty of mini-splits you can just buy & install.
I would too. Alas mom lives in a northerly area, and we really would prefer something high efficiency. There's some rebadged 37mpra units about that are 35+ SEER2, which if the number means anything is a colossal leap. The good stuff though doesn't seem to be directly purchaseable. I'd be happy to lay the concrete bed, set it up, drill walls, mount the ductless... Getting help actually vacuuming would be good but I could do it.
But I can't go purchase the system.
It's all deeply infuriating. This is just such a rude awful thing that American society keeps having to put up with such deeply captured deeply absurd base costs everywhere. These tradespeople deserve to make a living, I don't bergrudge them that, but this feels like there has to be so so much more going wrong for these prices to escalate like this.
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HVAC is wildly variable, even more so than other trades in my experience. Get several quotes, there will be five digit differences between the top and bottom.
Try looking up HVAC workers on thumbtack.