Our housing industry has slowed tremendously to the point that one of our largest builders cut to two subcontractors per trade. We did have some layoffs recently. These were installers.

To ease the pain from the slowdown, we branched out and now do plumbing and electric, in addition to HVAC. This has helped. The plumbers and electricians don’t keep their phones on like they’re supposed to. I have done more plumbing repair in the last month than I did before I relocated. Most of this was older construction.

As far as HVAC goes, our company hired installers as subcontractors. Many of them were hacks. Several have since been fired. The three of us in the service department spent lots of time getting their stuff to code. Instead of these installers using the installation instructions, they just did whatever they wanted. It’s job security for us.

In my area, there are also many spec houses and condos. These are built and sold later. We had some less than stellar service techs. We go in and check the systems before the house is moved into. Two techs (since fired) screwed up a bunch of stuff (overcharged AC’s, incorrectly wired low voltage, stuff missed that can cause a service call later.

Our lead service tech quit suddenly and abruptly. As far as winter goes, indications are that I will be safe from layoff. Regardless of economy, furnaces will still break down. End of boring stuff.