12/05/2025
So for those of you who don’t know, this is a propane tank gauge for an underground propane tank. There is a lot of neighborhoods in communities around that have these that are not natural gas neighborhoods.
These things have to be filled on the regular to ensure that you’re whole house has hot water ability to use gas stove, HVAC if you have a gas, fire, furnace, pull gas lantern, etc.
I typically don’t make post about these kinds of things, but I’ve been getting this more and more other than the last couple years
Today I went to a clients house they were quoted by preferred home services To change out three tankless water heaters that were throwing a code 11. When I spoke with client on the phone, I asked them have they checked their propane because I knew that their community was on propane.
The estimate for the three tankless water heaters, which was a very easy job that would maybe take four hours to six hours, depending on the skill of the technician let’s emphasize skill of technician
Anyhow, the estimate for these three tankless water heaters was around $28,000
That’s right 28K….. not 2800. WTF.
First off, let’s talk about his price. These units cost roughly $14-$1600. And we’re looking at call at eight hours of labor for one person.
Virtually no material seeing is this beautiful whole entire million dollar home has already been set up with a well designed system. Meaning very easy and rapping. Change out if you need to change the unit.
$28,000 the client said no and paid them $99 to go about their business
They called me for a second opinion we ended up getting their propane tank filled about two hours later with some connections that I have
most of the times it takes a day or two.
Point being is have the client spent $28,000. This technician would have went to start the new units up and they would have thrown an error code 11.
These big box brand companies that will get there within an hour or two
Have extreme overhead. They must pay their investors, which makes their prices much higher.
Their turnover rate is disgusting
They turned over it is actually so bad that they can’t fully train technicians to diagnose the simplest of issues
They only trained to sell sell sell sell
Maximize the call if you can make $800 an hour revenue for the company six hours a day you are going to be one of their best technicians
Support support local family own business businesses with low overhead
