Plumbing business question

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drew53813

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This may be one of the stupidest questions asked on this site, but i'm curious. Are there plumbing companies out there that just do basic stuff? i.e. toilet repair, snaking drains, cleaning out traps? I am curious if there are people out there who make a living without having to go in crawl spaces and dig trenches all day long. Thanks
 

Terry

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We confine our work to within the foundation. We no longer do water service replacements. And there are some crawls that we don't do.

When I broke into plumbing, there seemed to be two camps.
Rough-In Plumbers
Trim Plumbers

They seemed to aproach plumbing very differently. I could swing both ways with ease, but not everybody does.
Some rough guys like parking their framing axe in a wall while they are think of their next move. Doesn't work real well in a finished home.
Some finish plumbers are lost when it comes to layout.
At some point, you pick what best fits your talents. I do miss doing new construction at times. I loved layout, the sweet smell of fir as I was drilling it. The race against the clock and competing with the other crews.
 

FullySprinklered

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Yes, you can choose, especially in a good economy where you can turn down the crap that you really don't want to do, and there's enough clean work going on to allow you to make a living just from that. Locally, we have a new baseball stadium under construction which will require the talents of thirty licensed plumbers for the next couple of years. Also, all the pipe farms left sitting there by the current depression which started in 2009, they're being finished out as we speak, all over metro Atlanta. Several of the larger plumbing outfits are offering a 2k dollar sign-on bonus for qualified people.
You can pick and choose, but not in small town America. You got to go where the work is sometimes.
I'm scratching stuff off the list more and more as I get older; that being rooting drainpipes, dragging cast iron bathtubs up flights of stairs, and numerous other unpleasantries. Sewage injector pumps are next. I hope.
 
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hj

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When I started there were three specialties, rough in, finish, and service/repair. As stated not everyone could, or wanted, to do more than one phase. I did all three, and still did up to a few years ago when I decided to drop the "new construction", although I do an occasional tenant improvement.
 
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