I just did an 18K BTU mini split in my garage myself with no HVAC background for around $1K and $300 in tools. For a little more capacity this guy paid 30-40x the price.

This article is a perfect example of why I moved out of NYC. Contractors there are more likely to be dishonest, less skilled and more expensive and have insane leverage over rich apartment dwellers who might own a screwdriver but basically have no ability (or permission) to do anything themselves.

Smart, productive people thus have large parts of their lives eaten up dealing with things that are trivial in a large majority of the country because of the density. I decided I’d rather spend my time pursuing my own goals not basic daily comfort.

I had to read that line three times to convince myself there was not an extra zero in that 40k figure. It's insane.

Somewhere in Staten Island or NJ some guy with a beat up old van and an HVAC license is shopping for speed boats off this.

If all of the trades were there on the same day and each could begin their work immediately after the prior specialist had finished it might have taken a day or a few, but it sounds like much of that month was simply waiting. If you're handy and in a part of the world where you can just do all of this work yourself at your own pace its no surprise you can be much faster.

NYC is a famously difficult place to have work like this done, especially in a shared-ownership building like a condo. You need your neighbors to agree its okay to do, your board/management company needs to review and be satisfied with the insurance your contractors carry, the city has requirements for electrical that always require permits and often require a master electrician to do the work, and even once the work starts the walls and spaces you're working in aren't exclusively yours and your contractors will be discovering things along the way... plumbing for that spigot you didn't know your neighbor had on their terrace, roof drains, etc.

The process of just getting approval to do work can vary from "chill but time consuming" in small buildings to "impenetrable bureaucracy so don't bother if you're not using the approved vendors" in large co-ops. Once it starts, that master electrician you hired to run the 220v service isn't gonna waste his time repairing drywall, a cheaper subcontractor will do that, and the latency just cranks up from there

I love city living and understand that most of these rules and regulations exist because bad things happened when they didn't - frankly I wouldn't trust most of my neighbors in buildings I've lived in to do their own electrical work or pierce the building's envelope for any reason - but also sort of understand where the outsider's perception that city homeowner life is hard and expensive comes from. It very often is, by comparison.

There is a way around this, but it is board driven: a group buy is arranged and the entire building is done at once. The board or a GC they hire subs out the work and coordinates order of operations, and uses known good contractors from references. It’s for sure a coordination challenge, but it can be done if the will is there and residents are friendly to collaboration. Otherwise, it’s just pain (having coordinated electrification refits for ~50 unit buildings).