What is it with plumbers?

An now everyone knows why I don't do residential work. Homeowners are the worst people to work for. 

I charge $125 an hour from the time the truck cranks up to go to the job, until the job is complete. That includes parts running if it's something I can get locally. All time spent on the repair is billable. 

I have a 1.5 hour minimum. If I'm there 5 minutes because someone didn't turn the door on, the bill is still 1.5 hours. After hours is time and a half and a 4 hour minimum. So that's $750 minimum. If it wasn't that high we would end up working 7 days a week and most nights. 

If your business is out of town, you pay travel both ways. 

When it comes to service, you get what you pay for. The guy charging so much doesn't want to deal with customers that will nickle and dime him to death over every little thing. He wants to deal with people that don't mind paying for quality work so he prices jobs accordingly using professional quality parts. I do the same thing to encourage people that want cheap to call someone else. 

I also make a killing coming in behind fly by night outfits and redoing their shoddy work. At that point, cost is suddenly less important and I charge extra to redo work done on the cheap. 

As a homeowner I'm probably the worst to work for. I don't mind paying for the quality, but when they show up to my house they damn well be prepared to provide it. And having been in the construction and service industry for almost 40 years I know what I want to see. 

Those prices are ridiculous, but I can give you an idea what is going on.  There is far more work out there right now than there are skilled trades men.  My note book is literally 3 pages deep of people waiting on me.  I will be working thru the weekend again.  4 people were waiting on water heaters.  Banged out two of them today, so now only two people waiting with leaky water heaters.  Made $300 and $450 respectively over the cost of parts, and was home by 1:30 to meet a prior obligation.  Many plumbers are throwing out F off prices rather than just saying I can't get there.  Not saying its right, just saying whats going on right now.  If you call a plumbing company as opposed to an individual plumber, you are going to get some ridiculous over the phone quotes, because that is what they do.  They have crazy over head, just running trucks, payroll, and other obligations.  I am so busy with work from customers I have worked for before, that I don't advertise, I don't letter my truck, and I tell my customers not to give my name out unless they are close personal friends.  I only take new customers if they have a referral.  Mike Rowe is absolutely correct.  Skilled trade is where is at.  If I had a son college age right now, there is no way I would pay to send him to college unless he wants to be a doctor or some other high paying profession that requires a degree.  I know of a couple of late 20 something plumbers/heating contractors that are already millionaires, with a toy collection that anybody on this board would be envious of.  There are HVAC companies around here that are telling customers they can't get there for new installs until October.  Imagine telling people they are 4 months out.  Thats like booking an appointment with a specialist doctor.  My buddy's kid got his girlfriend pregnant his senior year of high school class of 2014.  He was planning on going to college.  She was a college sophomore at the time.  They had the kid, got married, moved into her parents basement.  He went to work for his dad while still in high school as soon as he found out he was going to be a father.  6.5 years later he, his wife, and his 2 kids live in a house they bought for $400K last year, and has zero college debt.  He will be 25 later this fall.

In reply to pheller :

My customers pay me to go shopping for stuff for their houses.  My time isn't free.  Your house needs stuff to repair it that isn't sitting there waiting for me so I'm not taking my truck (and sometimes trailer) to (insert store or supplier here) to get that widget and charging you only the cost of the widget.  You would probably hate my minimum charge.  It's a good bit more than toyman's.  Someone is either willing to pay for my skill and experience, or they can roll the dice with the guy that showed up to home depot or lowes and claims he's an X, Y, or Z so they give him work.  Here's a hint, the guy getting $80 from home depot to throw on your storm door isn't going to take the same care with your home as someone like me will

I wouldn't say I have a buddy that can do it cheaper when I'm calling Home Depot and using their professional installers to do the job.  That's something anyone can do.  I don't expect all the craftsmen to have the same pricing but to be 300% more is ridiculous.

docwyte said:

I wouldn't say I have a buddy that can do it cheaper when I'm calling Home Depot and using their professional installers to do the job.  That's something anyone can do.  I don't expect all the craftsmen to have the same pricing but to be 300% more is ridiculous.

the problem is they're not always sending "professional installers"

i know guys who have gone to lowe's and home depot and claimed they're career window installers, when in reality they had never done it before and just lost a 9-5 job, and were given work immediately based on their claims.  it's hit and miss who you get, sounds like you've been lucky but i've gone in after plenty of people who have not been.  a friend of mine does carpet, he's amazing and would pick up jobs at home depot on slow days.  if you got him, you were getting way more than your money's worth.  then there were the home depot guys who started taking someone's door out, realized they were in over their heads, put the new door in the garage and bailed.  i got to put that one in.

In reply to Patrick (Forum Supporter) :

Not sure if Home Depot is sending out Joe Blow for a plumbing job that requires a licensed plumber.  Here in Colorado for a water heater install a permit needs to be pulled and the end result inspected by the City.  I know the guys that came out for that were licensed plumbers, as was the garbage disposal installer yesterday at my office.

My beef is that the price difference for the same work was insane and it wasn't coming from the install/labor side, it was from the parts mark up.  The water heater install price from the plumber that initially came out was basically the same as Home Depot but the cost of the water heater itself was 300% more than Home Depot. 

These guys were already on site at my house and office, I wasn't asking for quotes over the phone.  I'm more than willing to pay for quality but the quotes I got were trying to take advantage of me.

NOHOME said:

I guess people with skills are trying to make as good a living as they can. Does your lawyer, dentist or stockbroker need to rationalize their invoices?

 

Yes, they do. If a dentist told me it was going to cost $5000 to fix a cavity, you bet your ass I'd want to know why. They might have skills I don't but that doesn't mean I don't want to know what I'm paying for and why, either.

Don't get me wrong- I don't mind paying somebody to use their skills, but taking advantage of somebody is bad business in the long run. 

In reply to docwyte :

If the labor is the same and you only make about a real rate for the company that's a pittance to the amount charged, how else can or should a business make money? It's either beat the "book" or estimated time or increase part cost. Easy button?

I'll relate this tidbit. Dealership I worked for at one time would double, yes double, their part price for the FLAPS part. Labor stayed the same for the job but parts were double and mostly more than regular retail. Still had plenty of customers paying the bills.

EDIT- did you try to negotiate a better part price or no?

Brett_Murphy (Forum Patrón) said:

NOHOME said:

I guess people with skills are trying to make as good a living as they can. Does your lawyer, dentist or stockbroker need to rationalize their invoices?

 

Yes, they do. If a dentist told me it was going to cost $5000 to fix a cavity, you bet your ass I'd want to know why. They might have skills I don't but that doesn't mean I don't want to know what I'm paying for and why, either.

Don't get me wrong- I don't mind paying somebody to use their skills, but taking advantage of somebody is bad business in the long run. 

 

I noticed that the amount of "must be done or...." dental work I needed dropped way off when I no longer had dental benefits.

Somehow I went from always having a cavity that needed to be filled to only needing a cleaning. 

The new dentist I found after a couple of my teeth that had been filled by the last guy fell apart was bitching about the shoddy work that she was having to fix.

Yes, there's d-students in every profession.

I know, right?  It seems like they could keep their pants up a little higher.  I mean, who wants to see that?

What I've learned from this thread:

1.  My accountant is correct, I'm not charging near enough.

2.  When I'm gone Mrs Frog is going to going into shock when she has to pay for all the stuff i do on our cars and buildings.  

Mechanics are stupid expensive too. 

My only time I had to hire a plumber after I couldn't unclog my main drain with the rented pipe snake from Home Depot went like this... 

Plumber: "Well looks like that'll be around $650 to do a main drain cleaning."

Me: "odd everyone else I called gave me a quote of about half that. I have $350 cash, and you're already here. Do you want to do it or not?"

Plumber: "I'll go get the stuff out the truck."

He was done in about 30 min. 

Small local plumber we use at our sites is pretty reasonable. Has maybe 5 trucks. $150 minimum call. Jetted our whole building main drains (U-shaped with 3 seperate runs) for $600 or so. I've gotten quotes from places like Roto-Rooter that were literally 5x as much as they ended up doing it for, and they do good work too.

Our HVAC contractor that our corporate office makes us use is insane... Charged us $20k for $10k worth of hot water tanks (2x AO Smith 100gal gas with computerized controls). Competing local HVAC company would've only charged us $15k and that's without a contract, but the higher-ups didn't care.

Don't even get me started on elevator repairs....

Another thing to consider.... an independent plumber's price will be directly proportional to how much work they have.  Most contractors (of any flavor) around here are swamped, especially because of COVID now that everyone is actually using their homes.

I got a quote for a new driveway paving at the beginning of June and they can't even think about doing it until the last week of July.

Fortunately... I'm in no rush like having a bad water heater.

Another thing to note.  The price for the water heater you see at HD is not always the price the plumber would pay.  When I was doing this type of work, I would never buy an appliance at a box store.  They aren't awful, but you'll find that most of the brass and iron is replaced with plastic.  That doesn't account for the price differences you're seeing, but they are different.  Box stores really put the pressure on brand names to make things that fit into their profit margins.  The same Delta faucet you would pay $200 for at a plumbing supply might be $150 at HD, but it is far from the same.  The stainless base and neck becomes plastic with a stainless finish, and the brass valve becomes plastic with cheap o-rings.

Basically, HD and Lowes force them to make it as cheaply as they can before Delta says "sorry, that's too crappy for our reputation."  Many of the brand names you see on the shelf at box stores are the absolute bare minimum of quality that the brand is willing to put their name on.  If you want (for instance) the quality of a Rheem water heater, get a real Rheem water heater... that is to say, get one that Rheem builds with pride and sells at a plumber supply, not the one that they cheapened up to line HD's pockets.

In reply to Ranger50 :

So charging 300% mark up over Home Depot is ok?  Yes, on the water heater I showed the plumber the cost of the water heater from Home Depot, that got me nowhere.  On the garbage disposal I declined his initial $700 price and then declined the $550 price he followed up with.

Parts and labor for that job cost me $250, so almost a third of what the initial quote was.  Water heater was half the price of the initial quote.  I don't care about a few hundred here or there but I'm definitely going to not overpay by several thousand! 

My cash prices for my work aren't the cheapest in town but they're also nowhere near the most expensive.  I expect the same respect from other craftsmen,

It's not a 300% markup, it's more like 150%.... but still robbery.  If he quoted you $3600 for a water heater that you can buy at HD for $1500, you're looking at apples and oranges.  He quoted you $3600 for a water heater that costs him $2400 and LOOKS like the one you can get at HD.

But, in answer to your question, the answer is yes.  If you roll over and sign the estimate, he can charge whatever he wants.

I ran into this all the time when I managed repair shops.  People would complain about parts being expensive.  I charged about 20% more for parts than I paid.  They would complain about a $200 alternator (that I paid $170 for) that they could get at Auto Zone for $70.  That's cool, dude.  If you want a used alternator that someone threw in a cleaning tank and put a new Chinese rectifier in it, your choice.  I quoted you the job, you signed the work order.  Pay up.

I'd bet that if he were in a non-GRMer's house in a ritzy neighborhood, they would have signed more often than not.

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

That's very possible.  However the warranty on them is basically the same and it'd take me 3 of the Home Depot ones to equate one of his.  So unless his is gonna last 3 times as long.... 

That's me with my I'm not a plumber, dumb consumer hat on.  With my business guy hat on I get that they're two different pieces of equipment with different quality levels/pricing.  However the price of their water heater made the job almost as much as going tankless, which makes no sense...

He shot way too high, I agree.  But you were smart and he didn't get the job.  He was either super busy or super hungry... or both.  Or, who knows, maybe he was just hoping for a sucker today because his wife's car needs to be fixed.  Either way, he bid poorly and lost the job.

Almost everyone in construction is slammed. To put this into perspective....I don't advertise, I'm not in the phone book, and I haven't got the right number on cards at this moment......and not only am I busy, but people are tracking me down to ask if I can do a job.

Literally, I have people chasing me down in grocery stores because I've got a company t shirt on. The last guy asked if I had any room in my 2021 schedule. 

I picked a hell of a year to try to slow down and work less

Question...

Would you rather install 20 water heaters per year for $5000 each, or make the same amount of money and get to install 67 water heaters per year at $1500??

Even if he loses 50% of the jobs he bids on, he is still way ahead of the game.

I think the guy is pretty smart.  

SVreX (Forum Supporter) said:

Question...

Would you rather install 20 water heaters per year for $5000 each, or make the same amount of money and get to install 67 water heaters per year at $1500??

Even if he loses 50% of the jobs he bids on, he is still way ahead of the game.

I think the guy is pretty smart.  

Also.....this.

If you do construction long enough you realize you'd rather have less jobs that pay more than be always hustling and have no life

Doc:

Please don't take offense.  I'd like to share something my dentist once told me...

He said, "My business is not competing for healthcare dollars.  My competition is the place that sells big screen TVs".

His point was that dental work is not a necessity.  Its disposable income.  People choose whether they want to spend their money to fix their teeth, or buy a TV.  (His opinion, not mine)

In a consumer's eye, a plumber is not disposable.  Take enough cold showers, or watch your toilet overflow E36 M3 across your wife's grandmother's oriental rug, and see if you call the plumber or get your teeth fixed.  I know that sucks, but that's the way people think.

And for what it's worth, even as a large General Contractor we generally see plumber's prices closer to the top of the scale in this discussion than the bottom.  It's not price gouging- its the going rate.

docwyte said:

In reply to Ranger50 :

So charging 300% mark up over Home Depot is ok?  Yes, on the water heater I showed the plumber the cost of the water heater from Home Depot, that got me nowhere.  On the garbage disposal I declined his initial $700 price and then declined the $550 price he followed up with.

Parts and labor for that job cost me $250, so almost a third of what the initial quote was.  Water heater was half the price of the initial quote.  I don't care about a few hundred here or there but I'm definitely going to not overpay by several thousand! 

My cash prices for my work aren't the cheapest in town but they're also nowhere near the most expensive.  I expect the same respect from other craftsmen,

Given I've been the mechanic in the middle quoting out jobs to line my pockets, I'm surprised he even talked to you after it much less punched you in the face.

My story here is that I've done enough Dodge BR body axle joints, that you always lose your ass on because of flat rate horseE36 M3. But given that most of your time is trying to save the absolute E36 M3tiest hubs on the planet, I would quote out new OE hubs at $350/each. Am I in the wrong for attempting to save myself time and effort? 9 times out of 10 I had to argue with the customer face to face for being a cheapass for more time than a good advisor should allow.

In reply to SVreX (Forum Supporter) :

No offense taken.  Can't tell you how many times a patient will have just told me about their month long trip to Europe, new 6 figure kitchen etc only to say they couldn't afford treatment.

Its priorities and people would rather pay for a new toy vs taking care of their health.  Something I've dealt with for the past 20 years, just part of the job