Flat rate blew up on me last month with a crawlspace job

I switched from hourly to flat rate for HVAC installs because customers liked knowing the price upfront. But I quoted a crawlspace heat pump swap at $2,800 and hit a broken duct that took 4 extra hours to fix, killed my profit margin. Anyone else had a flat rate job go sideways because of something you couldn't see from the start?

3 comments

3 Comments

xena_hernandez982h ago

And I thought I was the only one who could turn a quick buck into a whole day of unpaid digging.

shane17021h ago

HOLY crap, $2,800 for a crawlspace swap sounds WAY too low to start with. That's basically asking for trouble on a job you can't fully see.

shane_morgan19h ago

Man, I totally get what you're saying. I had a similar job last year on a rental property and I made the mistake of going with the cheapest quote, about $3,200. Turned out they didn't seal the new vapor barrier right and I ended up with mold and a $1,400 fix three months later. Learned my lesson the hard way. For something like crawlspace work where you can't even see half of what they're doing, you gotta pay for someone who'll stand by their work. Cheap bids usually mean they're cutting corners on materials or just rushing through it.