America's new millionaire class: Plumbers and HVAC entrepreneurs

My dad bought a failing HVAC business 30+ years ago, then made it profitable over the years and sold it back to his employees last year. He had the option to take a few highly lucrative PE deals, but it was clear they would squeeze the life out of the employees and customers he had worked hard to support over many years. I can’t imagine how low quality this kind of trade work will become if PE owns them all. It will be similar to vet, dentist, and dermatology clinics which now feel like factories that don’t care about the humans on the other end - often employing fear tactics and sales quotas to incentivize upsells.

> often employing fear tactics and sales quotas to incentivize upsells

This already happens. The most common AC repair needed is a new capacitor. It's a $20 part.

Call your dad's business, you probably get a quote for $100-ish and it's fixed in ten minutes.

Call a PE owned shop and they are likely to tell you that your entire system needs replaced. Quote $5-$8k.

Reports like this are already common place, and the roll-ups of former small-businesses in industry like HVAC that the PE people celebrate will only make this worse for customers.

Try $250 for a capacitor here in Texas - they know you can’t afford to take a few days to shop around due to the heat. What I’ve found works over the years: get the phone number of a few HVAC guys as you encounter them and offer them $50 to come when you need them. They’ll never pull the “you should cal l my employer” because most are contractors who need to buy their own equipment.

> What I’ve found works over the years:

Going to Ferguson.com and ordering a replacement capacitor to have on hand for $30 works even better.

It’s literally just turning off the power to the compressor, using a screwdriver to open the panel, unplugging the old capacitor, and plugging a new one in.

You forgot to discharge the capacitor, the most important step. This is why people who don’t understand what they're doing should not touch an A/C start or run capacitor (or any electrical equipment, really) for any reason.

Please don’t give out dangerous advice, if you want to risk electrocution, that’s your choice. Don’t encourage others to perform work unsafely.

Good catch, but the point remains that it’s a simple repair most can be prepared for and not have to wait for someone else to come fix it for you.

Maybe print the instructions and leave it with capacitor or watch a couple YouTube videos first.