Do electricians install aircon?

Adding aircon to your resume, may be good for business. Here’s what you need to know before taking the leap.

With summers getting hotter, air-con can be a lucrative caper for sparkies.

Not to mention the solar panels adorning the roofs of more Aussie homes, which make for less scary air-con running costs over the long term. Plus the need for chilly air to keep offices, shopping centres and other big buildings cool over the warmer months.

But it isn’t all about the money.

For some electricians, getting into air-con is a lifestyle choice.

And for others, it’s an industry to avoid like the proverbial.

IT TAKES TWO

Josh Hane and his business partner, who run Pure Electrical & Air in Perth and employ five electricians, saw a gap in the market for split system installations.

“We’re getting these super hot and super humid summers here in Perth, and everyone’s already jumping on it super early, even before the summer,” he says.

“And for winter, what we’ve noticed is everyone is stepping away from using gas heaters and is moving to electric.”

The team upskilled with a Certificate II in Split Air-conditioning and Heat Pump Systems, a nationally accredited course that allows them to install, commission and decommission a single-head, split air- conditioning and heat pump system with a maximum plant capacity of 18kW.

“Anything residential is well under that for a ducted or a split system,” says Hane, who’s a regular at CNW Electrical Wholesalers across Perth.

He says there were some challenges learning all the rules and regs for a new trade, but the benefits for the business have been significant.

“For us it’s now a split of about 60 per cent air-conditioning and 40 per cent electrical work,” Hane says.

“In particular, winter used to be super quiet in the sense of installing air conditioners for heating, but now that side’s ramped right up.”

And having the two business streams allows each to prop up the other.

“If someone calls us in for an air-con, and then they find out we’re electricians, we often score lighting work in the house, and vice versa for electrical work – the next thing you know, we’re quoting them for air-con,” Hane says.

“Without air-con, I daresay we’d be half as quiet as we are, and it would be harder to employ all the staff that we do.”

GOING YOUR OWN WAY

For Anthony Castle, who runs Rook Air in NSW, the decision to specialise in air-conditioning was driven by a desire to become self-employed and spend more time with his young family.

With 15 years’ experience working in air-conditioning as an electrician, Castle says he decided to do a Certificate III in Air- conditioning and Refrigeration to make it easier to get jobs as he got older.

“Because I was doing it as a second trade and I’d worked for air-conditioning companies for over four years, I was eligible to do a journeyman’s course,” he says.

“I did it so I can do what I’m doing now, which is work for myself and install air-conditioning units in people’s houses and do the electrical work. The best thing is I’m not on the clock anymore.”

He subcontracts to a large company doing maintenance on air-conditioners at a university and gets a lot of work through word of mouth.

For Castle, having two trades is better than one.

“If I’m doing air-conditioning, I tell the client that I’m an electrician as well, and they always call me back to do more work.”

But air-con isn’t for everyone.

Victoria- based Tom says he used to do air-con “before it got deregulated many years ago” but no longer offers it because “a lot of cost-cutting and shoddy jobs are getting done”.

He says random inspections, instead of the regulators auditing every job, mean “it’s like a lottery and guys are just rolling the dice”.

“If they get checked, they get checked, and they get caught, but the chances are limited. That’s why it’s so bad. It’s hard to make money out of something that’s been undercut.”

But air-con isn’t for everyone.

Victoria- based Tom says he used to do air-con “before it got deregulated many years ago” but no longer offers it because “a lot of cost-cutting and shoddy jobs are getting done”.

He says random inspections, instead of the regulators auditing every job, mean “it’s like a lottery and guys are just rolling the dice”.

“If they get checked, they get checked, and they get caught, but the chances are limited. That’s why it’s so bad. It’s hard to make money out of something that’s been undercut.”