When getting bids for
your HVAC Cleaning Project you can be quite shocked
as to the difference in prices.
People say "Oh they are "low ballers" or "you don't
need them, they are the Cadillac company", but
what's really going on!
Most duct cleaning companies charge the same per
amount of time spent cleaning your HVAC system.
If that's the case, "Why such the wide margin in
price for the same project?".
Simply, one company is going to spend more time
cleaning your HVAC system than another.
Yes, you say, but each HVAC Cleaning Company has to
follow the same scope of work, the time should be
the same!
Arr, yes but:
One can clean 30 feet of duct in 20 minutes or 5
minutes.
One can have different opinions as to whether liner
should be replaced or not.
One can clean evaporator coils in 40 minutes or 10
minutes.
Well, who's to say how long these things take?
The Duct Cleaner.
The correct estimation of effort by your duct
cleaner is critical to your budget, longevity of
equipment and complaining tenants.
(Hopefully
they spent 5 minutes cleaning a third of
this duct! -
NOT our work!)
Indicators of incorrect estimation of effort: * System needs to be cleaned again in 6 months to 2
years. (This varies massively. A production plant may need
HVAC Cleaning yearly even when the system was
cleaned correctly. A typical system lasts 3 - 7
years depending on it's geographic location, regular
maintenance and environmental factors)
* Dirt blowing out after HVAC cleaning has been
completed. (This is an indicator that restrictions in the
system have been relieved, air flow has increase and
all the dirt they missed is now blowing out over the
whole building. There are situations where dirt will
blow out even if cleaned correctly. This is when an
excessively dirty system has built up dirt in the
joints of the system. The cleaning is done,
obviously, when the system is off. When the system
is turned on after cleaning, the system "bulges"
revealing dirt that was not accessible during
cleaning and it blows out. Your Duct Cleaner should
have spotted that this might happen in your system
(not a very common situation) and resolve it WITHOUT
CHARGING YOU MORE.)
* Lack of improvement in energy efficiency.
* Lack of improvement of indoor air quality
Many Duct Cleaners do what's call "Drive by's".
This is estimating the amount of effort to restore
your HVAC system efficiency and hygienic state by
figuring the price on square footage.
This is the principle of "all HVAC system are
created equally" and is complete Russian Roulette
with your budget and tenants.
Another method is to figure out "what price will win
the bid ", then divide the bid amount to see how
many man hours he can afford for his service
technicians to be on site and do what he can in
those hours. Also, if you push them to follow the
scope, they try and submit "change request orders"
to get more money (hours) to do a better job.
This make the odds of Russian Roulette
worse. Six bullets in a six shooter and hoping one
of them won't go off.
Of course the correct way is to break the system down into
parts,
observe as much of
the system as possible,
put together how many man hours it will take
to clean the system and base your price off that.
Kinda obvious.
OK, great! How do I know which bid to go with?
Call around!
Find out from someone you trust which duct cleaner
is creating havoc with tenants or engineers and
which duct cleaner is giving the best value for
money.
And then:
Have someone check the quality of work as the duct
cleaner cleans the system - inspect it for yourself
- make them stick to the scope.
The decision is always, "What's the biggest bang for
my buck!".
May your HVAC System be Clean, Healthy and
Efficient!
