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Question - Electrician starting out in fire alarm business
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Ken
We are starting a fire alarm division, hoping to grow recurring revenue. What will we need?
anon
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Answer
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Electricians are integration businesses, not recurring revenue businesses. You'll need to adjust to that. The exposure to liability is also going to be a different concern because you'll be held responsible not just for your mistakes but the mistakes of others that cause a loss the alarm was intended to detect.
The Fire All in One contract will cover most if not all of the services you will be offering. It's definitely the best start for your fire alarm division.
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Question - Re: collections
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Ken
I use your contract. If I do a takeover, spend less than an hour programming and testing, use no parts and the customer decides to break the five year contract after one year. Will I still win in court ? I did not suffer any financial loss since the account was profitable from day one. I was even paid to program the account to my office when I signed up the account.
Stephen Goldberg
ALERT SECURITY SYSTEMS INC
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Answer
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Not if you testify like that. In fact, with that mindset I am surprised you would even consider suing. You think you're getting money for nothing.... How about if you have 100 take overs at $20 a month monitoring; that's $2000 a month RMR. You go to a central station, agree to maintain that level of accounts and get a discount on pricing; or those 100 accounts push :you into a higher premium for your insurance for the year; or you hire one more full time service tech to cover the new accounts; or you lease a new car anticipating the revenue stream. The minute you sign up a new monitoring account for $20 a month the value of your business increases by at least $600.00. As you can see you suffered plenty of "financial loss" when your subscriber breaches the contract. Now to convince the judge. Yes, you should win. The Standard Form Contracts are designed to provide maximum potential for prevailing in court. The contracts are drafted by a litigator, not a just a transactional lawyer, so both making the deal and enforcing it have been considered.
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Question - Re: Thermostat installation
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Ken,
With remote thermostat control becoming more and more popular, i was wondering what my liability would be if i replace a customers existing thermostat with a zwave one. Or Should i simply hire a licensed HVAC company to do the work? Customer wants to control their thermostats remotely, to do so i need to install a zwave thermostat that will connect to my alarm system and allow them the remote
access. I know how to change a thermostat, it is low voltage wiring, but i am not a
licensed HVAC tech. So they question is do i expose my company to any liability by
installing the thermostat myself, or is it best to hire a sub
Greg
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Answer
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The Commercial All in One should cover you for any alarm systems and services except fire [for that you need the Fire All in One, and if you install and service supression systems the Fire Supression system contracts]. I don't think you need to sub out the alarm work.