Tag Archives: Ontario electricity rates

Skilled Labor is not Cheap & Cheap Labor is not Skilled

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Today’s post is a bit of a rant…

I take pride in what I do and I am a professional… just as much as any physician, executive, CEO, or any other person we hold in high regards.  I do two to three site visits every day. I look at scenarios and problems… and propose solutions.

imagesThe other day, I was at a sales call. My contact at the site visit was a nice enough guy…. but he kept asking me to make the price cheap… I hadn’t even come up with a plan yet… I only had an idea, but had not chosen any equipment, any particular size, and didn’t quite know how I was going to be installing it yet… but he kept saying… “Make the price cheap… please. make it cheap”.

Well this started to bug me (as you may be able to tell from my demeanor as I write this!) You see people like that don’t value what I bring to the table. They don’t value good work, a pristine finished product, and they would rather save $10 than to have a completed installation that they can be proud of.

Between you and I, every time I heard “Make the price cheap”…. the price went up! There’s one thing that I have come to realize after all these years of selling… the people that value me as a professional, value my time, and will re-arrange their schedules to meet me during business hours are the people that are always the happiest when we’re all said and done. These are the homeowners that take pride in their homes, and think long-term. They’re also the same people that refer us to their friends, family and neighbors.
cropped-happy-home-image-300x300.pngThe cheapskates… those “Make it cheap” people… these are the ones that are never happy. Been there done that… and I will never do it again. These are also the same people that will not take time out of their day to meet during normal business hours. I had one of these clients just the other day…

This client called the office about three weeks ago… and talked to someone at the office who booked the client into my shcedule at the end of the day… to start an appointment at 6pm. (I had instructed this person to not book anything past a 3:30pm start time… but with a weak mind, and no backbone, she caved). You may guess… I’m not a fan of this person.

Now some of you may be thinking… “That jerk. Why won’t he do evening appointments?” Because I am professional, and I choose not to. I start my day at 7am every day… so come 5pm, I’ve put in a 10 hour day…. and after that, is my time… my family’s time… and to tell you the truth, I’m still often working at paperwork until 9 or 10pm.

So this guy insisted that I come and visit him at 6pm… and since our office person had already committed me to that time, I was stuck. So I rearranged my schedule, missed my Jijitsu class that night so that I could go and do his quote at 6pm… in my 12th hour of the day. I spent some time with this fellow, came up with a solution and went through the scope with the client.  At the time he asked me for a ballpark quote of what the installation would cost. I hate it when I’m put on the spot…. and in the past I’ve simply told people that I would reserve the pricing until after I’ve been able to go through the entire scope… so that I could do things right… but against my better judgment, I indicated that this particular installation would range between $2,000 and $2,300 before taxes.

The next day I emailed him the proposal. Later that day I received an email back form him… he was telling me that the price was too high… asking me to discount the price because it was much higher than I had indicated at my site visit… FYI… the price that I quoted him was $2,320… now look at those numbers above… you may see that when all was said and done, after I had calculated all the gas piping, line voltage, equipment cost, controls, etc. that I was a mere $20 more than my “ballpark” pricing after being put on the spot… and he wanted a discount!

He was unwilling to compromise on his appointment time and he wants to argue about $20. There’s one more thing that I’ve come to realize… and that is that there will always be someone out there with a cheaper price than me.We can’t do the kind of work that we want to by being the cheapest price on the market.  To be the cheaper price means that we would have to cut corners and be very fast at what we do… and hack through the work. If things don;t go as planned (which happens from time to time), then we would have to hack through the work, and leave a crappy looking finished product.

So if you take pride in your home, and you value good workmanship and doing the job right, the first time around, then give us a call… It keeps holding true… Skilled labor is not cheap… Cheap labor is not skilled. I’ve seen it first hand!

Find us on the web at http://reliablehome.ca/

John Chapin

 

 

It is No Secret… Energy Prices Are Rising… But we can pay less if we want to

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It’s one of those facts in life… death… taxes… and Energy Prices are Rising… every day, every month, every year we’re told about how our electricity rates, our gas rates, and our even our water bills are going up again… and we’re stuck paying those high rates whether we want to or not. That’s our reality.

So we’re stuck paying high rates for energy. But we do have a choice in how much we are going to pay… What exactly do I mean?

Well as many of you regular readers are aware, I am in the business of delivery cooling comfort, among other things…. air conditioners, heat pumps, cooling equipment. It’s May in Ottawa and every day now I am out doing quotes for people for new air conditioners. This happens all the time, so I thought I would share my thoughts on why it is important to install as high efficient an air conditioner as possible.

Air conditioners use electricity to run, and electricity among other energies has one of the fastest increasing price of all the energies. Here in Ontario Canada, electricity rates have been consistently rising over the past 13 years by an average of 10% per year. Prior to 2002, electricity rates increased at an average rate of 8% per year.  What this means, is that with an average increase of 10% per year, electricity rates will effectively double every 10 years.

20141105_105004In Ontario in 2015, we have Time-Of-Use electricity rates. And so not to get into the nitty-gritty of it all… we have an average rate of 18 cents/KwH. (That is what we pay out of pocket, including taxes, delivery, debt retirement, etc). Given the fact that Ontario electricity rates have been increasing at an average of 10% per year for the past 13 years… and given the fact that the Ontario Government has told us that electricity rates will be going up 30% over the next 3 years (again 10%/year)… and because Hydro One (the Ontario Electricity Company) has been so poorly managed for so long and clearly is not getting any better, one can only assume that we will continue to trend at an average of a 10% increase in electricity rates every year from now on… and then some… but for argument sake let’s just assume 10%.

Air conditioners efficiency is rated by a SEER rating. The SEER rating, coupled to the size (example: 3 Ton, 36,000 btuh) will give us hoe much power the given piece of equipment actually draws.

Here in Ontario Canada, electricity rates have been consistently rising over the past 13 years by an average of 10% per year.

A 3 ton 13 SEER air conditioner draws 2.77 KwH. What this means is that at an average electricity rate of $0.18/KwH, you will spend $0.50/hour to run this air conditioner. That doesn’t seem like much does it…. but do the math… $0.50/hour… running on warm days an average of 12 hours/day (super hot days will be more)… okay so that’s only $6/day… but wait that’s $180/month…. or $720 for the cooling season.

A 3 ton 26 SEER air conditioner draws 1.38 KwH. What this means is that at an average electricity rate of $0.18/KwH, you will spend $0.25/hour to run this air conditioner… or $360/cooling season.

So what about when electricity rates double in 10 years. And don’t fool yourself. The air conditioner that you install today will still be running in 10 years, 15 years, and almost certainly 20 years from now.

So… 10 years from now… Take that same 3 Ton air conditioner… When electricity rates are $0.42/KwH… that 13 SEER will cost you $1675 over the cooling season… and the 26 SEER will cost just $837/year.

How about 20 years from now when electricity rates are $0.85/KwH… That 3 Ton system will run you… yes… $3390/year to run… or simply add $847 to your monthly electricity bill.

You get the point. We all have choices. Don’t just think about the bottom line now but think about the future and all the money you could be throwing away, or the money you could be putting back into your pocket… sending your kids through University, or taking an extra vacation. Over the course of 20 years the cheap air conditioner we install now may wind up costing us twice what the more expensive one costs to install.

Do yourself a favor and don’t go with the cheapest price, for the cheapest air conditioner.