BYOE: Bring Your Own Equipment

At my parents’ house, my mom is the general contractor. She manages all the home projects, from kitchen remodels to new light fixtures or a fresh coat of paint. Recently, she had a new faucet installed in the kitchen. Now, my mom is an expert gardener, but when it comes to plumbing, she’s out of her element.

However, instead of simply calling a plumber and having them install a replacement faucet, she chose a solution in the middle. She bought a faucet herself and called a plumber out to install it, thinking it would save her some money.

Instead of picking out a faucet she really liked, she settled for an off-brand model from Amazon because it was the least expensive option she could find with a satin nickel finish. It wasn’t the style she wanted, but she figured it was good enough. As a homeowner without much knowledge in plumbing, she didn’t know that the flimsy faucet she bought had non-standard valve cartridges and would be nearly impossible to repair down the road. The plumber even warned her about it, suggesting he could source a better faucet from his own suppliers. But she’d already bought it, and told him to go ahead and install it. In the end, she spent $200 in labor to install a $40 faucet that she wasn’t even excited about.

This is something I see all the time. Many homeowners, like my mom, believe that supplying their own materials will save them money on home improvement projects. And it happens in heat pump installation projects too. As I discussed in my earlier post on price transparency in heat pump quotes, homeowners can easily order HVAC equipment online, at a fraction of the total installed price from the contractor. So they’ll order equipment online and look for a contractor to install it.

But in my experience, this approach often leads to more problems than solutions. Here’s why.

Warranty Nightmares

When you hire a contractor and they supply the equipment, everything is straightforward. The equipment comes with a manufacturer’s warranty, and the contractor often layers a labor warranty on top of that. If something goes wrong, you know who’s responsible.

But when you supply your own materials, things get complicated. Even brand new equipment can arrive defective. If it takes the contractor an extra four hours of troubleshooting, who’s paying for that? What if they need to order replacement parts and come back another day? And if there’s shipping damage or the wrong piece of equipment was ordered, who handles the exchanges?

Even if everything goes smoothly, what happens if there’s an issue six months down the line? Assuming the contractor even agreed to provide a warranty (many won’t), who’s responsible for sourcing the replacement part and troubleshooting the issue? If it’s unclear whether it’s an installation or equipment problem, who foots the bill?

A Bigger Risk: Liability

Warranty disputes can be inconvenient and costly, but there are other issues that arise here too. What happens if there is an internal short in the customer supplied equipment, and it burns down the house?

Who is liable in that case? Which insurance policy will pick up the tab?

Not Every Brand Is The Same

Homeowners often buy equipment from lesser-known brands that professionals avoid for a reason.

Contractors build deep relationships with the manufacturers whose equipment they install, and become familiar with this equipment through training and experience. They’ve installed them before, they know the quirks, and they understand how to troubleshoot them. At my contracting company, I had the manufacturer’s reps for common equipment on speed dial, to help walk through any installation questions as they happened.

When a homeowner supplies an unfamiliar brand, it increases the chances of installation errors. Heat pumps can have many brand-specific settings and configurations. From dip switch positions to jumper wires that sometimes need to be cut, each system can be different. A contractor who’s not familiar with your equipment may miss something critical, leading to future service issues.

Take for example this mini-split system from Costway, a relatively unknown brand that also sells everything from baby bassinets to trampolines. It’s the 4th result in my Amazon search, with a 4 star rating from over 800 reviews.

In fact, this Costway unit was one of the first in the US with R-32 refrigerant, long before most contractors were even thinking about the upcoming refrigerant change. In my recent post on new heat pump refrigerants, I highlighted that there is a risk for installation errors and mixing of incompatible refrigerants as we transition away from the current industry standard R-410A. A year ago, most contractors weren’t even thinking about alternate refrigerants, and they were difficult to source from suppliers. It’s quite possible that if a customer had supplied their contractor with one of these units, it may have been charged with the wrong refrigerant.

Certifications and Product Testing

Marketplaces like Amazon have a history of selling uncertified items that falsely claim to have approvals or certification when they actually don’t, or simply lack required certifications altogether .

A few certifications that are relevant for heat pump equipment are AHRI certification, which verifies the performance of the equipment, and UL or ETL testing which confirm product safety.

From a quick search on Amazon, I found a few heat pump units that didn’t reference AHRI, UL, or ETL anywhere in the product description. I searched the AHRI database and was not able to find either manufacturer, JustSmart or Mollie, listed as a manufacturer.

It’s possible that both of these heat pump units do have the required certifications, and are simply listed under a different brand name. However, if they are truly uncertified, customers are at risk of installing a heat pump system that might not meet the claimed efficiency numbers, might not be eligible for rebates and incentives, and simply might be unsafe.

Some customers take the cost-saving creativity a step further, importing heat pump equipment over the southern border from Mexico. Often, these systems don’t comply with minimum efficiency standards in the US imposed by the Department of Energy (DOE), and are illegal to bring across the border and install. Installers can be fined for installing equipment that isn’t compliant with DOE requirements.

Imaginary Cost Savings

Ultimately, the most common reason that homeowners try to supply their own equipment is to save money. They believe this cuts out the contractor’s markup and lowers project costs.

It isn’t so straightforward though, since contractors typically get preferred pricing from their suppliers. Even if you think you’re getting a deal, you’re probably paying more than your contractor would have.

As I’ve outlined before, contractors have margin targets that they aim to hit for each project. If you supply the equipment, they’ll likely adjust labor rates to compensate. So now you’ve paid more for the equipment and are getting charged a higher labor rate. In the end, you might spend more than if you’d let the contractor handle everything from the start.

Cheap Labor Costs More

Many established HVAC companies won’t agree to install customer-supplied equipment. They’ve learned from experience that these projects tend to have more issues and aren’t worth the headache. That leaves smaller, less experienced contractors or handymen who may not have the necessary HVAC expertise.

When a customer uses a handyman to install a heat pump system, it opens a world of potential problems. First of all, the project is likely not permitted, as most handymen don’t have the correct licensing classifications to install HVAC equipment. This makes it more likely that corners are cut (either to save costs and time, or purely out of ignorance).

Here are just a few things that an inexperienced installer might do when installing a heat pump system:

• Not vacuuming the system prior to releasing refrigerant, causing acids to form and damage to sensitive components

• Skip using nitrogen to purge refrigerant lines while brazing, causing soot and debris to form and clog small orifices

• Not installing the required electrical service disconnect or recommended surge protection

• Improperly route condensate lines, causing water backups and potential flooding

• Not cut refrigerant lines to length, leaving a long spool that is unsightly and can trap refrigerant oils

These aren’t just hypotheticals - I’ve seen them all happen in real life. And there’s plenty of other important steps that are often skipped.

Choosing to supply your own equipment might not be the best idea

I get it - heat pumps aren’t cheap. But trying to save money with customer-supplied equipment rarely works out. In my opinion, it’s a well intentioned but misguided path to better priced heat pump systems.

I think this video sums it up perfectly - would you bring eggs to a restaurant to make your omelette cheaper?

That doesn’t mean that there aren’t ways for homeowners to manage the cost of their installation and save money. Here are a few simple ideas that work:

1. Prioritize equipment from a value brand over a “flagship” brand - as I discussed in my recent newsletter on HVAC brands, installation quality often matters much more than manufacturer.

2. Be flexible on your installation window or schedule a few months in advance to help manage their capacity and forecast revenue. Ask them if that’s a possibility.

3. Review the add-ons and upsells the contractor is proposing. Do you really need the UV light or whole-home humidifier system?

4. Maximize all available incentives and work with a contractor that helps you process them (we’ll dive into this deeper on a future post)

5. Leverage green financing programs, which allow financing heat pump systems at rates that are better than market. It might make sense to not pay for the whole system upfront.

6. Be nice to your contractor, and don’t be too picky on how everything is laid out. This might sound strange, but contractors like working with easy customers who give them latitude to install a project by their professional judgement. Picky customers can lead to projects taking longer, reworks, poor reviews, and they know that, often passing on these perceived costs in their quote.

tl;dr

Supplying your own heat pump equipment sounds like a great way to save money, but it usually leads to higher costs, more risk, and a lot of frustration. There are smarter ways to save money that align the needs of both homeowners and contractors.

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