$275 per hour

SVreX said:

In reply to stuart in mn :

I have bought perhaps 20 vehicles over the years off this forum.  Very few had properly transferred the title to their name.

What would you like to call that other than tax evasion?

Let's go with 'avoidance'.   Less jail time.  

In reply to nutherjrfan :

Fair enough. 

That started in response to Patrick’s concerns about that plumber being a “criminal”. I guess we could say “avoidance”. 

Although, the truth is I don’t even know that he has committed any crime at all. Perhaps he pays his taxes. 

The "being a FNG" thing is going away as the old farts age out of the business.

I got hazed as an apprentice but not nearly as bad as some of the guys I knew.

Fast forward 20 or so years, the boss and I both dealt with jerks when we were apprentices and that crap doesn't fly in our shop.

We take good care of the guys we train, make sure they know when they've done a good job and challenge them when they're ready for more.

Yes, we do have a little fun but it's never much more than a little "hit it with your purse!" when the apprentice isn't swinging the hammer hard enough.

When you become a plumber this can be your life story https://www.bcbusiness.ca/meet-the-north-van-plumber-who-gave-away-25-million

pheller said:

I think one of the reasons young people aren't thrilled with the trades (outside my other thoughts of male dominated industries with lots of bad attitudes and chest thumping) is that young people don't typically want to do hard/sweaty/dirty/stinky work for little money.  Granted, a 19yr old working in a trade as a helper or apprentice is still making more money than his college peers, but maybe they are making $15-$20/hr, then getting a 1099, then paying a ton of taxes at the end of the year. That 19yr old kid is going to look at a $13/hr job like it's paradise, and maybe even consider an $11/hr job thats easier. 

College is typically sold as "get a degree, then go get an professional job." Obviously, this anything but the truth. Many college grad spend years working up the ranks, and in some cases they are sitting in traffic commuting to and from jobs that aren't satisfying, drinking with friends on the weekends, and in general not earning much money. Not to mention tremendous amounts of debt. 

There is difference though, is that for a college student, there is no "grunt work" period from a labor standpoint. College is all mental stress and deadlines, being social adept and forward thinking. Post-graduate years are all 1) job searching 2) doing menial tasks while working up the chain.

As mentioned elsewhere, I don't think I'm much of a hustler, but I'm a good critical thinker. I'm also very susceptible to heat-related headaches and migraines, so it's hard for to push-push-push in the summer heat. I don't think I was ever a good candidate for being a trade helper, because it's all about "dig holes faster, carry materials faster, climb up there and get that thing, carry that heavy stuff." It's bad enough that I get headaches doing something I love (mountain biking) but it really sucked having to eat ibuprofen all day long to keep the migraines at bay doing grunt work. 

I think the thing that disappointed me about the trades was that as a helper or a "FNG", critical thinking skills, intelligence, social aptitude or the ability to communicate, none of that stuff is important. It's all about the hustle. That's a tough couple of years being viewed as meat. I wasn't cut out for it. 

Meanwhile, in my current industry, while perhaps not as good paying, all of those attributes are seen as valuable, and in the case of most college-degree-requiring jobs, it's similar. Not just that, but there is often the ability to "skip over" the years of being an FNG and be seen as an equal of the tradesmen, because often times they appreciate that you do all the stuff they don't want to. 

Don't get me wrong, I still would love to get into welding and fabrication, so I'm not anti-trade, and I think there is value in every kid getting a taste of trade work at summer jobs, in community college, or prior to college, but to assume that more than 1/10 of those kids would actually enjoy a trade (and being an FNG) and give up college, is a bit of stretch. 

As someone who has done 21 years in the trade i can tell you a few things about your post:

"bad attitudes and chest thumping" is a stupid stupid stereotype and if you think it only happens in the trades....you are very very wrong.

You are counted on for your hustle because you have no other skills yet, its like walking into a company and expecting to be CEO in a week. Never, ever, ever have i let go of creative thinking, in fact if you show a spark of intelligence you are getting promoted pretty fast.

99.9 percent of trade jobs that you start off with will not require a 1099, you will be an actual employee.

I feel you on heat related stuff, same here. The skill i learned from having that situation is to stand up for myself and tell people to berkeley off if they pushed me too hard. Meeting passive aggressive people head on stops problems almost always.

It sounds like you had a terrible job and you didnt stand up for yourself. This is not the experience most people have nor are all construction workers knuckle dragging idiots. I regularly employ a woman who checks off many minority boxes to do concrete. Ive worked with one guy 21 years off and on now, he started as my foreman, now ive hired him and hes doing my cake for the wedding. The other guy i work with is my father. The wages are by and large waaaayyyyy more than i see available and more than my peers of the same age.

SVreX said: The prices I am sharing are the new normal. 

Possibly.  I'm just saying that guy's yearly take home is not the new normal.  Its great, and many people may have the potential to make that kind of $, but I do not for a second believe that the median plumber now is making $140k while only working 1500 hours a year.

In reply to ProDarwin :

You’re right. 

I didn’t mean to imply this was an average. I meant only to say that there is enormous potential, and anyone who wants to optimize their position can do well. 

I billed $1180 last night in 3 hours. That's right a $400 a hour. I'm not a plumber but do work with tools.

I haven't' read the whole thing, just the first couple of pages, but around here (SE Michigan) I'm just not seeing anything close to $275 an hour.  I do all the work at my own house myself, but we own a couple of rentals and that's different.  I've had to call a plumber twice in the last month.  First time was an after hours emergency.  The flat rate for an after hours call out was $350.  They turned up at 10:00pm and a single guy sorted the problem in about an hour so that was over the $275, but it was an emergency call out.  The second one was just last week.  I called the same place, $250 call out and they were there by within a couple of hours.  I met them on my way home from work.  The sewer pipe needed snaking to the road.  The house is on a crawl space so they couldn't get the snake under the house so he called another one of the other guys who was wrapping up a job just 1/2 a mile away.  Both came, one with the machine by the entry to the crawl space and the other by the clean out 20' under the house.  They did the job, tested it then packed up.  The one guy was there for about 1 1/2 hours and the second for 45 mins - an hour.  Total cost was still just the $250 call out.  That's at best just over $100/hour fully fringed and much less that that to the workers.  For $275 an hour I'd take vacation time from my job and do it myself.

In reply to Adrian_Thompson :

So, you’d take the vacation time for $275, but not for $250?

SVreX said:

In reply to Adrian_Thompson :

So, you’d take the vacation time for $275, but not for $250?

I could not have done the job in an hour, it would have taken me all day with help as I'd have had to rent a large snake, swap cars be able to tow my trailer to Home Depot or whatever tool rental place to pick up the snake.  Then I"d have had to find a 'willing' helper to play with literal E36 M3.  $350 hurt but was necessary, $250 was a bargain for the job, the time, the convenience.  If they'd have said $275 an hour for 2+ hours, that would have been at least $550.  For that much, yes I would have played in E36 M3 and done the job myself.

EDIT.  Note, I'm just pointing out I'm not seeing $275 an hour around here for (non emergency) plumbing.  For those rates I'd do it myself.  What I'm seeing is circa $100 an hour fully fringed so probably $50/hr tops to the guys working and I doubt it's even close to that much.  I'm not sure where you are, but plumbing prices are obviously very different there.  It does surprise me as the real estate, building and associated trades are all red hot in SE Michigan right now with a massive housing boom.   

In reply to Adrian_Thompson :

I’m betting you are referring to residential. 

Residential rates and commercial rates are different. Plumbers do both. 

SVreX said:

2- I have never given up critical thinking for a single day in 40+ years in the construction industry.  That’s the part I love.

Yes, construction requires constant critical thinking and creativity. If you aren't capable of that, you won't be very good at it.

SVreX said:

In reply to Adrian_Thompson :

I’m betting you are referring to residential. 

Residential rates and commercial rates are different. Plumbers do both. 

True, but your OP gave no indication you were talking commercial.  

BTW, I'm not trying to argue with you or say you're wrong, just pointing out that in my area, my experience is different from yours on costs.

Just had to put $337 on my credit card because my landlord is out of the country. Leaking shower head. That'll ding the credit for a few weeks. 30-40 minutes of time.

I spent a summer in high school helping a guy that had his own plumbing business. This was in the late 90's and construction was seriously booming. I spent most of that summer roughing in new houses. As far as work goes, it wasn't especially difficult or physically taxing. Maybe I should have stuck with it but I was young and thought being a mechanic would be super cool, so.....

I'm pretty sure I had as much money in tools to be an employee mechanic as I would have to a self employed plumber, plus the $10k+ going to tech school, but that's life. You don't always make the best choices at 18.

I do know this though, in 07 when the economy tanked and people quit building houses for a few years many of those small timers didn't make it through, but cars kept breaking down, so I always had a job. 

But I'm thankful I spent time to learn how to plumb, because so far I haven't had to pay somebody $275/hr to do it for me.

dculberson said:

SVreX said:

2- I have never given up critical thinking for a single day in 40+ years in the construction industry.  That’s the part I love.

Yes, construction requires constant critical thinking and creativity. If you aren't capable of that, you won't be very good at it.

I never said that it didn't. I'm merely referring to the fact that in my experiences (as a new guy) in the trades, they never cared about how good my critical thinking was (as a grunt). In fact, I had one guy who told me to "stop thinking about it and just do it" because I couldn't believe how long this job was going to take and how hard they had made it just because they didn't want to take any time to figure out a better way. 

When you're a grunt, it's all about "get it done" and it's all about how quickly you do something, not necessarily if its the best way. Once you move beyond that stage, yea, you can move up to stuff that requires more critical thinking. 

I'm sure that today, with my ability to actually communicate and demand certain expectation from an employer, I could find a trade job that would fit me better. As a young college student who just needed quick money, I was willing to work with and put up with situations that were not ideal and it jaded me to some aspects of construction jobs. 

In reply to pheller :

You talk about this frequently. 

Every time you do, you sound very critical of the workers and their attitudes in the industry.  You make a point to emphasize instances of misogyny, racism, and various abusive behaviors.

 I am not hearing from you that you are jaded to construction jobs. I am hearing that you are hypercritical and judgemental of construction people. 

Just an observation...

In reply to pheller :

There are some jobs that just plain suck and aren't going to get any better no matter what you do.

I've shoveled enough horse E36 M3 to understand this.

Adrian_Thompson said:

SVreX said:

In reply to Adrian_Thompson :

I’m betting you are referring to residential. 

Residential rates and commercial rates are different. Plumbers do both. 

True, but your OP gave no indication you were talking commercial.

True, but it also gave no indication I was talking residential. Why assume that?

(There actually was an indication- I made the distinction between my home and “my building”, which is a reference to the commercial building I manage. Perhaps not clear)

I worked all of two construction related jobs during college (along with two jobs in auto-shops, a stint in logistics, at a grocery, and catering). Both were temporary labor. Both were not professional environments where the GC generally cared about his labor. 

I didn't have a good experience at all, that doesn't mean those situations don't exist, but to assume that every potential young worker, and every employer are Grade-A perfect fit is just as ridiculous as assuming that about any other industry. 

To be fair, I worked for a catering company who had an shiny happy person for owner as well. It's not like I'm being unnecessarily critical of construction trades, I'm just saying that for as much as construction jobs leave you absolutely exhausted at the end of the day, having a E36 M3ty boss doesn't help the situation of keeping young talent. The catering boss I had wasn't good, but hey, at least I was eating good and had enough energy to work two other jobs. 

I know that as a young person, I didn't really "job search" and I didn't really interview employers for my potential fit with them. I needed money, I needed a job, so I just went with whoever made me an offer. Sometimes that worked, and sometimes it didn't. 

I just wonder how many kids who are great potential candidates for the construction trades write them off for the same reasons I did. They got in with a small general contractor, weren't treated great, and decided working a Starbucks was less stressful. 

I dunno, I think the best situation would be one where you're working with a single tradesman as a true apprentice (not just a laborer/helper/grunt) who generally wants to teach you and wants you to learn, and doesn't see you as a piece of meat who can be easily replaced by a bunch of day laborer migrant workers. 

SVreX said:

In reply to pheller :

You talk about this frequently. 

Every time you do, you sound very critical of the workers and their attitudes in the industry.  You make a point to emphasize instances of misogyny, racism, and various abusive behaviors.

 I am not hearing from you that you are jaded to construction jobs. I am hearing that you are hypercritical and judgemental of construction people. 

Just an observation...

This

FWIW. i work in the North Idaho area, a place not exactly known for its diversity and its nowhere near as bad as hes mentioned in several different posts.

SVreX said:

Adrian_Thompson said:

SVreX said:

In reply to Adrian_Thompson :

I’m betting you are referring to residential. 

Residential rates and commercial rates are different. Plumbers do both. 

True, but your OP gave no indication you were talking commercial.

True, but it also gave no indication I was talking residential. Why assume that?

(There actually was an indication- I made the distinction between my home and “my building”, which is a reference to the commercial building I manage. Perhaps not clear)

Because most people don't have experience hiring a plumber for a commercial job? Much less new construction of commercial properties? 

We mostly have experience with hiring a plumber to work on an existing homes plumbing. 

In reply to z31maniac :

Then ask. 

nutherjrfan said:

Just had to put $337 on my credit card because my landlord is out of the country. Leaking shower head. That'll ding the credit for a few weeks. 30-40 minutes of time.

Those are amazingly easy to fix. Especially for someone who works on cars.   Just sayin...