Air con Servicing

Today I received a call in Cantonese:

Operator: Hi Mr Choong, would you like to service your air con?

Me: How much will that cost?

Operator: RM40 for 'normal wash', RM100 for 'chemical wash'.

Me: (Inside my heart... Wah... F&$(!*(&@!!)

Calmly I said: Wah, so expensive la, one of my neighbors also wash air con woh.

Operator: (Paused a second) So Mr. Choong, would you like us to wash it for you or you prefer your neighbor to do the job?

Me: Economy is not good now. Both I also don't want la!

Operator: Ok, never mind, thank you ya!

Last year, I received the same call from this company, and I let them service the air con for me, because they told me that they might revise the price later due to the petrol price increase. We have 5 air con at home and that actually cost me more than Rm200 even for a normal cleaning. Reason? You need to top up the gas and that will cost you extra. When it comes to those bigger horse power air con, it will cost you more to wash it.

Ok, now let's do the math... next time if they call me again, I will have to ask them to revise their pricing structure.

Let say they call me again next year, here is what I will tell them:

Operator: Hi Mr. Choong, would you like to service your air con.

Me: How much?

Operator: Rm40 for normal wash, RM100 for chemical wash....

Me: Let me ask you, can you tell me how much is the market rate for a 1 horse power air con?

Operator: I think around RM800?

Me: So if I do 8 times of chemical wash, I could have buy a new air con right?

Operator: Errr...Servicing air con will prolong the life of your air con mah, sir.

Me: By then if my air con died, I just go and install a new air con, why bother servicing it since it is so expensive? I can just do my manual filter wash. The money I save on service will allow me to buy a new air con unit after 8-10 years. I got new feature on my new air con at that time, it comes with latest technology, more power efficient and more powerful ionizer or may be with purifier, etc. Now can you tell me, how does it worth my RM40 on servicing the air con?

I think the pricing structure you guys are charging is not right and it is outdated. Many years ago, air con is a luxury item, I remember at that time, only the master bedroom in my house got air con, sometimes I sleep inside my dad's room because that is the only room with air con. At that time, one 1.5hp air con can cost up to RM2-3k if I am not mistaken, might be a month or two of a executive's salary at that time. Now the air con prices has dropped significantly after 'Made in China' came into picture, so please don't charge ppl RM40 on servicing air con. I think this will gradually turn away more people like me, who prefer to buy a new air con after 8 yrs when the air con broke or doesn't feel cooling anymore. I am not good in math, but this kind of simple calculation I think I can handle it!

Operator: Ok lor, thank you sir.

(you see, I have seen them done a RM40 job before, basically is nothing special, just that you need to know how to open the air con unit and take out the roller, cleaning is a no brainer work, perhaps after cleaning it, you can spray some stuff on it and after you clean it, just put the roller back. You see, I supply the water for them to clean the roller but I don't get a rebate on supplying energy cost. Such a job only takes twenty minutes to thirty minutes max for a newbie. The fair value for this kind of work I would say is RM20. Damn, if I can make Rm80 per hour cleaning air con, I can quit my job now and be a full time air con service agent.

Anyway, I am a person that believes in maintenance, I will still service my air con but I won't do it that frequent.)