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A 78 year old client in Mesa made me stop calling every zone a 'must fix'
Last Tuesday I was at this little house in Mesa doing a panel swap on a 20 year old system, and the owner, a retired man named Walt, watched me test every zone with a clipboard. I flagged his back bedroom window sensor as bad, contact gap was wide, and I started writing up a quote to replace it, about $85 parts and labor. He asked me to hand him the magnet and just moved it a quarter inch closer to the reed switch himself. The zone closed clean, no new part needed, and he said his old installer never once did that. I had been in the habit of swapping anything that read open because it is faster and I do not get callbacks, but standing there I realized I was selling replacements for stuff a 30 second adjustment fixes. Now I spend the extra minute on gap and magnet alignment first, and I quote replacement only when the switch is truly dead. Any of you run into techs who just swap instead of adjusting, and how do you bring it up without sounding like a jerk?
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robinson.matthew9d ago
Walt sounds like my dad, who once fixed a "bad" zone on his own house with a piece of foam tape and a Bic pen cap. I count myself lucky if I catch the gap issue before the quote prints, honestly. I had a two year run where my callback rate was near zero and my parts truck looked like a swap meet, so I know that habit well. Now I keep a magnet in my pouch and test the easy fix first, saves me money too.
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