Condo Tenants...Grrr. And Ted Saves Us $500 on Furnace Repair

Well, the temporary fix on the furnace at the condo failed. On Sunday. The tenants called to let us know today. Wednesday. WTF? We had stressed that the service guy's fix might only be temporary, and that it would take a few days to get the new part, but that they were to call us ASAP with any problems so we could get it up and running, even if it's only another temporary fix. I don't get it.

Ted did do the permanent furnace repair himself. Midwest Appliance Parts of Chicago had the piece we needed for $105, and he spent a grand total of 15 minutes swapping it out. AAA Heating and Cooling of Chicago wanted to charge us $685, including labor.

We'll probably do this kind of thing again in the future, i.e., pay for the service call to diagnose the problem (in this case $95) and then buy the necessary parts ourselves. With a savings of nearly five hundred bucks, it was worth a little extra leg work.

But isn't it frustrating when contractors jack up prices to this extent?