[antonymoose]

One question I would have is how distorted is your area, economically?

I live in the Appalachian mountains, so one would think it should be reasonable labor rates for an area with a middle-low cost of living.

Except that we have a lake the next town over which is entirely covered in millionaire lake houses, so anyone working a trade here can and will charge obscene rates to local, normal people because they can command that rate from a rich transplant that is price insensitive.

You can occasionally find a good, reasonable guy or company still, but you’ll be calling around for days to find them.

Having previously spent a decade in a hot-market (Charleston, SC) you’ll find similar stories, there are plenty of workers in the area, but they’re almost always expecting to charge rates to wealthy price-insensitive transplants.

[stavros]

You've kind of exposed me, I'm not in the US, my question was in the first person but it was more that I'm curious as to the causes of what the commenters report. You may be right about the area just being HCoL, though.

[danielsju6]

Not in a HCoL area, quite the opposite in fact. Rural Maine.

Heat pumps are still a luxury product here that you only see on new homes or well financed gut remodels, which I think is the problem. As market is largely price insensitive individuals here, there’s no downward pressure.

[CalRobert]

Note that in some places (the EU for instance) self-installation is illegal since you need an F-gas certified installer. Of course, this may result in higher emissions than letting people DIY it, since it discourages switching away from gas....

[coffeebeqn]

If they’re really charging $10-20k then just fly someone in from a cheaper area with a reasonable hourly rate lol. It’s about 3-6h of not very intense labor