A lot of HVAC companies have gone corporate now. Smaller companies are bought out and consolidated, higher paid and experienced personnel are let go, cheaper replacements are brought in that don't have much of a clue how to deal with older established systems, but they will definitely tell you if something is broke after you told them it was broke and offer to sell you a brand new system install that they don't have to troubleshoot with the skills and experience they lack and has a much higher margin than replacing a simple rollout switch or swap a new transformer or control board.
Installing new systems sure. But diagnosing and repairing problems is far from it. You are mixing gas fired devices, compressors and refrigerants, pressurized water systems, electrical systems, and mechanical systems tieing all together. And just junking all those systems because a $5 part wore out as expected and the owners of the system are lied to that it is unfixable is a colossal waste of money and human labor. All just so corporate owners have more money to scrape off the larger margins of a full install of a new system which are going to break down just the same in a few years again.
4 years to get a license in my state. 2 nights to get the EPA 608 cert which is the only real education you get, the rest is slave labor to get the sign-off for the license. The whole regulatory apparatus was co-opted by current industry to stop 'disruptions', you're going to have to go through the ol boy club to even get a seat at the table and even then they will just regulate your edge away.
This is the thing 'disruptors' don't get about the trades. It's heads I win, tails you lose. They just coopt the laws to ensure the fundamentals don't change.
