are we getting hosed on axial air movers

[Desk Jockey]

Steve
Isn't that just like a customer asking why you aren't as cheap as your lower priced competitor?

 

[steve g]

Steve
Isn't that just like a customer asking why you aren't as cheap as your lower priced competitor?

no actually, a manufacturer just like I do should tell the customer why they are worth the money. that is the question I have posed, we do know bill bruders frequents the website, I posed the question about why the units are 84% more money, when the basic parts are all the same, but the difference is just how they are configured. I am willing to listen and learn, heck even john from mytee pretty much agrees and makes the units. there is alot of competition in the snail fan arena, maybe that is why they are cheaper.

 

[John LaBarbera]

so lets see even the guy who owns mytee all but agrees the other guys are too much money, so bill bruders, whomever from phoenix, and jon don's driair, if you are reading this. why are the axial units 84% $$$ more than a snail fan

Like I said I have no beef with these other competitors. They are all very good companies. We just go to market different. It simply comes down to choices. Mytee is a family owned business, I don't need to make the returns that public and companies own by investment groups need to make. There is room for all of us. And you guy's get to decide where you spend your money. It's all good.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Steve you are relentless on this. LOL

I would say if you are serious about getting a response you'd be much more likely to get one with a PM than calling out a manufacturer, any manufacturer on a BB.

Of course a title like this thread isn't going to welcome many to respond.

 

[Lee Stockwell]

Economics 101. What the market will bear.

You don't get what you de$erve, you get what you negotiate.

 

[Greg Cole]

Economics 101. What the market will bear.

You don't get what you de$erve, you get what you negotiate.

Hmmm- so should we collectively boycott all the other companies and refuse to buy until they lower the price?

 

[John LaBarbera]

Economics 101. What the market will bear.

You don't get what you de$erve, you get what you negotiate.

Hmmm- so should we collectively boycott all the other companies and refuse to buy until they lower the price?

I love that Idea. I wish I had thought of it. It's a great way to get your monies worth.

 

[Greg Cole]

[quote="Lee Stockwell":1s1coyhy]Economics 101. What the market will bear.

You don't get what you de$erve, you get what you negotiate.

Hmmm- so should we collectively boycott all the other companies and refuse to buy until they lower the price?

I love that Idea. I wish I had thought of it. It's a great way to get your monies worth.[/quote:1s1coyhy]

I see John's new marketing campaign - 2 tradewinds for the price of one competitors!

 

[John LaBarbera]

I love that Idea. I wish I had thought of it. It's a great way to get your monies worth.[/quote]

I see John's new marketing campaign - 2 tradewinds for the price of one competitors![/quote]



Along with a sincere thank you very much! What great way to force prices down.

 

[topnotchman]

I'll have to email Claude Blackburn and ask him how he started out on pricing the snail movers and the axial later on.
Should be interesting. Probably why they created the "Rebel" air mover to compete with the cheaper guys on the snail air movers. But that would be nice if they created a "Rebel" for an axial also maybe take a few bells and whistles off of it and call it good.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Jared
You're right the Rebel was for the lower end of the market, but it didn't do as well as they would have liked.

You know how people are, they want the budget end airmover but then begin to ask for lower amp draw and the extras that moves them up to a regular priced unit.

My guess would be it would end up just like the Rebel, eroding into their regular sales and at a lower margin.

If you contact Claude, tell your uncle I said hello!

 

[Lee Stockwell]

Wish we could get Lloyd Weaver ( lloydsinc.com ) into the discussion. He was deep into this before Claude ever started.

 

[Desk Jockey]

I use to own 35-of Lloyd's air movers and 15 of his dehumidifiers. He had the foresight to see that carpet didn't need to be removed from the home to be dried and figured out a way to do it.

Sharp guy and I credit him with getting us into WDR before there was even a restoration industry.

However his equipment was a far cry from what Drieaz produced once Claude began to build his units.

We bought fiberglass covered furnace fans, then as time moved on they were vinyl, pop riveted together. The dehumidifiers we vinyl wrapped and modified with a drip tray and a hygrometer/thermometer screwed to the back.

It was the best we had in the late 70's but you could be accused of malpractice if you used any of that equipment now. :wink:

Lloyd was brilliant but too busy with his own business to manufacture equipment that would compete with Drieaz.

He did create this industry and well all owe him a lot. Later his son designed and built a lot of specialty tools for the Air Duct cleaning industry.

 

[Greenie]

Jay, I know you are cheap, so I will help.

Once a year, Mytee has a 2200 cfm fan sale, they offer Pallet discounts to distys, so that discount will pass on to you if you plan accordingly.

I have seen Mytees as low as $149.

I'm not buying a "patton" fan when i can buy a rotomolded air mover for the price of a few Xactimate rentals.

After you make your first $25,000 Then go buy some $300 snail fans and feel like you are rollin' with the big boys.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Jared's uncle is Claude Blackburn, even though he sold Drieaz, I doubt he would buy any other brand. :wink:

 

[Lee Stockwell]

http://www.google.com/products/catalog? ... ps-sellers

 

[Desk Jockey]

 

[steve g]

I'll have to email Claude Blackburn and ask him how he started out on pricing the snail movers and the axial later on.
Should be interesting. Probably why they created the "Rebel" air mover to compete with the cheaper guys on the snail air movers. But that would be nice if they created a "Rebel" for an axial also maybe take a few bells and whistles off of it and call it good.

do please do that, infact invite him to respond to this post,

speaking of rebels, I still have a few rebels that I bought when I first started the biz in '02, I started out with 5, good lord I can't imagine doing that now, anyways of the 5 rebels, 3 of them are still in good working shape, 2 of them the motors went out on, used the housing of one and it now runs santana SX internals, which is basically a 2 speed motor and switch. these units were non stacking, however you can stack santanas on top of them. I think back in the day the rebels where about 160 ish, for another $50 bucks you could get the santana which was 2 speeds stackable and had a fold out kickstand, its debatable if an extra $50 bucks was worth it, but at least you got something extra you could see.

as for the rebel style axials, ie a no frills axial unit, viking and hydroforce do sell those, they don't have the daisy chain or the hour meter, however they are about $30 bucks less than the unit with the bells in whistles,. this is actually the unit I will probably buy, however I think whats keeping these priced high is that viking does not wanna undercut phoenix which is selling the exact same thing, viking actually makes it.

viking is offering some low amp axials that look pretty interesting, I think by nature a snail type unit will be more durable just by design, however I don't like having the motor hang out the side of the air mover, it makes them prone to tipping over easier, it also means stuff is banging into that metal protrusion more often. the most durable air movers I have ever used where the sahara pro's they had a 3 speed switch on the handle up front, second was the old school drieaz that had a barn door handle bolted to the top.

 

[John LaBarbera]

Viking does not make the Phoenix axial air mover. Actually, Phoenix makes the no frills axial fan for Viking I believe. Viking used to make the snail type for Phoenix. They must have lost that business. The new Phoenix looks like an import. Viking bought Mytee's old tooling over 5 years ago. We have newer upgraded tooling. Mytee also makes the hot air high pressure units for $269.00 from your dist. Great buy.

 

[Desk Jockey]

Mytee also makes the hot air high pressure units for $269.00 from your dist. Great buy.

John is that the wall drying unit?

 

[topnotchman]

I asked about the increase of price of the axial air movers. This is what Claude wrote back to me:

from: Claude Blackburn
to me


I'm not sure I know the true answer to this question Jared because I don't remember the individual component costs. However my guess is that it is because of volume, costs drop dramatically as manufacturing volume increases. Far fewer Ace's are being produced and so the tooling must be amortized over fewer units and component manufactuers have little motive to sharpen prices.

 

[Jay D]

I have no pattons for water damage just airmovers. :roll: (3 pattons for drying carpet) :wink:

 

[John LaBarbera]

Mytee also makes the hot air high pressure units for $269.00 from your dist. Great buy.

John is that the wall drying unit?

Yes. It's call the Whisper Dry 2300 on my website.

 

[steve g]

Mytee also makes the hot air high pressure units for $269.00 from your dist. Great buy.

John is that the wall drying unit?

Yes. It's call the Whisper Dry 2300 on my website.

that is an interesting unit, and one I had no idea you offered. john what would really make that unit the shiznizzle is if you could hook a vacuum hose up to the intake and use it to hook up the wood floor drying panels, make like some sort of hatch that would flip open on the front of the snout to not restrict the exhaust back pressure. or maybe it would escape just fine through the nozzles you have already on the snout. your unit may already be capable of this who knows, its a matter if the vac motor could be used in such a matter, if this could be done, I could easily see paying twice as much for the unit and it would still be a steal.

if you need any equipment testers I volunteer myself, LOL. I am an owner operator that still actually personally goes out and does alot of the work, so I use the stuff with my own hands.

on edit another thought john, what if you added a barbed 1.5" fitting on the top of the snout that a vac hose could hook too and had caps that fit over those nozzles, then you could hook up an entire wall injection system, check out the drieaz driforce, your unit could replace would a driforce does and be way more versatile, with very little changes, the wheels in my mind are turning.

 

[Greenie]

So you want to make a blower a sucker?

Do you think a single 146" water lift 3 stage vac motor would pull enough to power your concept?

Just another use for the Mytee vac booster.

Personally, I am of the opinion the hose barbs on the snout manifold could be a bit larger to accommodate 1.5" vac hose, I have a theory it would be more efficient no matter how you sliced it.

 

[alazo1]

http://www.google.com/products/catalog? ... ps-sellers

Thanks Lee, just ordered one. I like the light fans for cc and this one looks better then the metal cage one I use along with a few other snail ones.

Someone said snails are not all the same. So true, I have a light one that does ok, I like it because it's portable and light. The other one is I think one of dry ease hydro (or something like that). The hydro can probably tip the other one over. I use to do a restaurant that had close to 75 feet isles and can feel it at the other end. It's in the garage and only use it on a few commercials though, too heavy to carry around most jobs.

This thread is more about water damage though so carry on

Albert