am Andrew. I worked the sheet metal trade for about four years and I have not taken a side job in fifteen.
These days I manage projects for a general contractor in Salt Lake City. I still watch duct go in most weeks, just from the other side of the table now. I read drawings instead of carrying snips.
Part of my job is the paperwork that decides whether a sub gets paid. I review subcontractor pay applications every month, and I review change orders every week. I also write the agreed labor, material and equipment unit rates into our contracts. When a post on this site tells you how a GC reads your change order or your pay app, that is the desk it comes from.
Before the sheet metal I framed for a year, and worked a summer for my uncle in high school. Through college I did finish millwork, concrete, framing, gyp board install and building cleaning (yes, that is a trade). More than twenty years in construction all told, four of them in tin.
That matters more than it sounds like it should. When a duct run has to dodge somebody else’s work, I know the impact to other trades because I have been the other trade.
I carry an OSHA 30, a MEWP certification and a BEMT certification.
What this site is
Everything here comes from doing the work or from watching it get done. Tools I carried. Numbers I see on real bids. Mistakes I made, including the ones that cost me a day.
There is no team and no content mill behind it. When a post says I have never done something, that is true as well. I would rather tell you where my experience runs out than pretend it does not.
Why I built it
Most of what gets written about this trade is written by people selling something to it. Supply houses, software companies, marketing departments at contractor shops. Very little of it comes from somebody who has actually stood on the ladder.
That gap is the whole reason this site exists.
I also built Quick Draw Invoice, a free estimate and invoice tool for tradespeople. No signup, no subscription: quickdrawinvoice.com
Where to start
If you hang duct: the tools I would carry and how to connect rectangular ductwork.
If you are reading a set: how to read HVAC drawings.
If you are placing a thermostat: how high a thermostat should be mounted.
If you price changes: how I price an HVAC change order, what a change order really costs and unit price change orders.
If something here is wrong
Tell me. I would rather it be right than be mine. Every technical claim on this site gets checked before it goes up, and the ones that turned out wrong got fixed.