Starting a business doing leak detection.

[PlumbSolve]

I have been a plumber for thirty years now.My business is not doing well mainly because I run it poorly.
I would like to try another line of work similar to what I already do so the learning curve is not too great.
I am too soft in business ,cant delegate and forget to write out invoices.
I cannot do enough work in a day with my own two hands and its a fine balance of enough work and enough staff.
At the moment I am the plumber and have two helpers who are in training They have no drivers licences so getting to jobs means they rely on me.
I am thinking of doing something else more in a niche market as such.
My thinking is I could get another team going and teach one of my guys to drive so I have two teams, one to do plumbing and one to find leaks.
I used the services of a special leak finding company the other day. I was quite impressed.The first question was How am I going to pay and they gave me the rates before they started.
They had some fancy equipment of which I only briefly saw as I got there after the leak was found.
My question is would this be a good idea and does anyone here do this for a living who could give me some guide lines as to what equipment is needed.

 

[CountryBumkin]

If your a poor business man, changing business models is not going to solve your problem. You either need to hire, or partner with, an office/business manger, or just go to work for someone else and let them deal with the business side (then you just handle the technical/trades side).

Addling "leak detection" to your "plumbing" business offerings would help expand your business opportunities - but I wouldn't rely on it alone. IMO.

 

[Sponsor]

 

[Master Plumber Mark]

I wonder what kind of morons you have working for you that they need rides to jobs??
You would probably make more money just being on your own rather than baby sit a bunch
of idiots who you have to chauffeur around..

And to top it off you are plumbing in South Africa and you forget to write down invoices ect ect??
I have not got a clue as to how things work over there, but I would be willing to bet
it has to be total chaos compared to the States..

 

[PlumbSolve]

I wonder what kind of morons you have working for you that they need rides to jobs??
You would probably make more money just being on your own rather than baby sit a bunch
of idiots who you have to chauffeur around..

And to top it off you are plumbing in South Africa and you forget to write down invoices ect ect??
I have not got a clue as to how things work over there, but I would be willing to bet
it has to be total chaos compared to the States..

Do you have anything constructive to say. The market is very different here in S Africa. Yes you have no idea whats going on. I am unemployable as I have never worked for a company except for during my apprenticeship. The reality is plumbing is a poorly paying trade .If I was employed I wouldnt be able to pay the bills.
There is alot of competition in my area .There is also a 26 percent unemployment in my area. The Morons I work with live in shacks. They catch taxis to come to work from far away. The taxi costs about 10 percent of their daily earnings.Some dont even have electricity.There are no government training programmes and so if I can teach a man to feed himself it is a good thing. This is Africa ,it is sometimes very third world.But the area I live in is very first world.
My thinking is if I do a niche market plumbing service my existing plumbing experience will shorten my learning curve and because the equipment is expensive it will be difficult to enter the market in this field.
I will wait and hopefully get some answers.

 

[Terry]

Having traveled some I appreciate your issues there. Unless you have traveled, it's hard to understand that poverty lives right next to riches. And the rich, being rich, don't like sharing. They have gotten used to be "taken care of". A friend of mine from Malowi, refers to them as "The Help". He said that no matter how hard he worked in the US, he could never get to the point of being able to live with the same luxury that he had grown up with. He wound up going back to Africa and back to the family business of running a luxury resort.
You have your very rich, and your very poor. Not much middle class like we have in the US.

We have leak locators here too, and once you have the equipment and the knowledge to use it, it's pretty good money. And...........that's all they do, locate. How sweet is that? Mark the ground where you think the leak is, get your money and leave. If you choose to look into that, I wish you success.
I would love to see pictures of the type of things you do too.

You might consider hiring a manager to take calls, dispatch, and make sure the invoices are completed. I'm thinking that the office manger would earn less than you, and that would free you up to work with your plumbers.

I took this picture in India.

 

[Master Plumber Mark]

Do you have anything constructive to say. The market is very different here in S Africa. Yes you have no idea whats going on. I am unemployable as I have never worked for a company except for during my apprenticeship. The reality is plumbing is a poorly paying trade .If I was employed I wouldnt be able to pay the bills.



You are not making a lot of sense here...
From what I am reading here you do not have the plumbing experience or valid lisc yourself...
and you claim that you have been doing the for 30 years??
and you are attempting to help others pull themselves out of poverty.
this sounds like what we see here with illegals doing plumbing...

You claim that you yourself are un-employable, for what ever reason that is I do not know.
and you also claim that you have been doing this for 30 years???

perhaps you should be doing whatever it takes to make
yourself employable first and get your own liscense first
perhaps that goal is impossible for you due to racial, or political issues
within your country.....I thought a lot that was resolved a long
time ago in SA with Mandala...

..... but I do not know .....perhaps things never really change


good luck

 

[PlumbSolve]

Do you have anything constructive to say. The market is very different here in S Africa. Yes you have no idea whats going on. I am unemployable as I have never worked for a company except for during my apprenticeship. The reality is plumbing is a poorly paying trade .If I was employed I wouldnt be able to pay the bills.



You are not making a lot of sense here...
From what I am reading here you do not have the plumbing experience or valid lisc yourself...
and you claim that you have been doing the for 30 years??
and you are attempting to help others pull themselves out of poverty.
this sounds like what we see here with illegals doing plumbing...

You claim that you yourself are un-employable, for what ever reason that is I do not know.
and you also claim that you have been doing this for 30 years???

perhaps you should be doing whatever it takes to make
yourself employable first and get your own liscense first
perhaps that goal is impossible for you due to racial, or political issues
within your country.....I thought a lot that was resolved a long
time ago in SA with Mandala...

..... but I do not know .....perhaps things never really change


good luck

I am unemployable because I am 53 years old and never worked for anyone.I dont want to get into politics but there is alot of problems in my country at the moment.I am trying to get answers to leak finding . Do you have any answers.?I am metro registered which means i have to have a level of tertiary education of at least N3 which is way below any degree and I have to have a trade test done by the government which I did in 1988..
As to the type of plumbing I do ,I do mainly maintainence,a house or two.I am doing a factory at the moment and a big house. I also make obsolete components for the plumbing industry and solve plumbing problems. For example if a plumber has installed a grohe shower mixer upside down in a shower I can turn the cartridge the right way without him having to chop the walls up. I also manufacture adapters for aerators and make adapters if taps want to be changed from heavy pattern to light pattern.In my country almost every shower and bath is bricked in. I make adapters that allow faucets to be changed from one make to another without any chopping involved. Another example is at one stage many baths had two seperate faucets coming out of the bath. But to change the faucets you would have to break a hole under the bath to install a bath mixer. I can change those two faucets without having to remove the faucet.If you have an old faucet that is not made anymore I can make it from scratch.I am just okay at this type of work as have had no formal training at doing it. Im kinda self taught.

 

[Terry]

Plumbsolve, I don't know of any plumbers in the US that can do the things that you do now. I applaud the fact that you have learned to manage with the resources that you have and I'm quite impressed. And now knowing the types of things you do it would be really cool to see some of those pictures. It would be interesting to see the type of work that South Africa has. Most of what we do is pretty much cookie-cutter stuff that is dumbed down for the average guy.

 

[PlumbSolve]

Having traveled some I appreciate your issues there. Unless you have traveled, it's hard to understand that poverty lives right next to riches. And the rich, being rich, don't like sharing. They have gotten used to be "taken care of". A friend of mine from Malowi, refers to them as "The Help". He said that no matter how hard he worked in the US, he could never get to the point of being able to live with the same luxury that he had grown up with. He wound up going back to Africa and back to the family business of running a luxury resort.
You have your very rich, and your very poor. Not much middle class like we have in the US.

We have leak locators here too, and once you have the equipment and the knowledge to use it, it's pretty good money. And...........that's all they do, locate. How sweet is that? Mark the ground where you think the leak is, get your money and leave. If you choose to look into that, I wish you success.
I would love to see pictures of the type of things you do too.

You might consider hiring a manager to take calls, dispatch, and make sure the invoices are completed. I'm thinking that the office manger would earn less than you, and that would free you up to work with your plumbers.

I took this picture in India.

Terry I am in the middle class bracket. You have the rich from old money and you have the new rich who have become stinking rich in a very short time. These are the politically connected and corruption is rife. And then you get the poor. The poor unfortunately have very little skill set compounded by the lack of any government will to sort the problem out.
I have worked with Malawians. I had three running my farm. I lived 600 miles from the farm. It is said that a third of Malawis population live in S Africa. Very hard working and pleasant. So are the Zimbabwians. My whole team at one stage where Zimbabwians but then we had a bad time of zenophobia where foreigners were being beaten up and killed. They left and I use local labour now.
I am weak on the internet thing so I will try get some photos . This is a photo of some stuff I helped install. Its a test bench for a plumbing manufacturer. The guy who did this was my mentor and was the technical director for Cobra which is the biggest brassware manufacturer in S Africa.We installed these benches in all the major cities in S Africa . They can test any valve flushmaster vacuum breaker etc. Unfortunately he closed up but a bit of his knowledge rubbed off on me. Just not enough though because he was a guru and a fantastic machinest as well.

 

[PlumbSolve]

This is a cartridge and retaining nut I made for a plumbing company that pump epoxy into the copper pipes to fix a burst pipe without having to replace the pipes. Remember all pipes are chased in the brick walls. I also had to machine a threading tap to make the thread. These guys also fix sewer pipes with this epoxy method. Its actually an american invention.

 

[Terry]

That bench setup looks way more complicated than anything I've worked on. Africa sounds like it could be a nice place to visit.
Durban, if that's where you're from looks amazing.
http://www.tourist-destinations.net/2013/09/durban-south-africa.html

 

[Susan in Minneapolis]

I have been a plumber for thirty years now.My business is not doing well mainly because I run it poorly.
I would like to try another line of work similar to what I already do so the learning curve is not too great.
I am too soft in business ,cant delegate and forget to write out invoices.
I cannot do enough work in a day with my own two hands and its a fine balance of enough work and enough staff.

Hi Plumbsolve, You can do it!! After reading your post, I think you know exactly what you need to do: you could try work that is tangent to what you already do. However, your problem isn't that you're not a good plumber and you need to try something else. You're an excellent plumber who needs to start managing your business properly, right?
I think you already know that buying new equipment is not the answer. I don't know where you live (I just joined this site 10 min ago) but I know there are places near you that offer free introductory business classes. I'm in a similar situation and have found free business/entrepreneur classes online and through local nonprofits. Here's a course you might like on entrepreneurship. Anyway, that's my perspective on your message.
I joined this site 10 min ago because my basement is flooding -- again. One good thing is that I know it is from the shower/bathtub in an upstairs bathroom. At least for now, there's no sewage. I have had this happen before - about a year ago - and the guy who cleaned it out with a snake that had lots of cutting blades, said that I get roots growing in my old pipes that go from the house to the city line. He showed me some video of it and it isn't very thick; they looked like grass roots--very white and thin. Here is my question: To fix the problem (temporarily of course) would it be best to buy a snake or to use the RootEx stuff? Can I pour the RootEx in while it is flooded?
Well, all the best to you Plumbsolve. And, thanks for any advice you can provide.
-Susan

 

[Reach4]

Here is my question: To fix the problem (temporarily of course) would it be best to buy a snake or to use the RootEx stuff? Can I pour the RootEx in while it is flooded?

The best short term thing is to get a water alarm, and to get the guy back with the cutter every year. Put the alarm at your lowest drain. Root-x may be worthwhile, but the sewer guy is not all that expensive. Search for "root-x" above. It seems to be the most respected of the chemicals.

If your basement ever floods due to rains causing sewer backups, a different solution is needed. But you made it clear this was only a stoppage, and you were only getting your own sewage.

The long term solution is to replace the sewer tiles with PVC. At that time they will add an outside cleanout that would make rodding/cutting in the future easier. You will not have a root problem with the stuff replaced with PVC. The PVC is not always added the whole way to the city sewer, which may involve digging up the street.

 

[PlumbSolve]

Hi Plumbsolve, You can do it!! After reading your post, I think you know exactly what you need to do: you could try work that is tangent to what you already do. However, your problem isn't that you're not a good plumber and you need to try something else. You're an excellent plumber who needs to start managing your business properly, right?
I think you already know that buying new equipment is not the answer. I don't know where you live (I just joined this site 10 min ago) but I know there are places near you that offer free introductory business classes. I'm in a similar situation and have found free business/entrepreneur classes online and through local nonprofits. Here's a course you might like on entrepreneurship. Anyway, that's my perspective on your message.
I joined this site 10 min ago because my basement is flooding -- again. One good thing is that I know it is from the shower/bathtub in an upstairs bathroom. At least for now, there's no sewage. I have had this happen before - about a year ago - and the guy who cleaned it out with a snake that had lots of cutting blades, said that I get roots growing in my old pipes that go from the house to the city line. He showed me some video of it and it isn't very thick; they looked like grass roots--very white and thin. Here is my question: To fix the problem (temporarily of course) would it be best to buy a snake or to use the RootEx stuff? Can I pour the RootEx in while it is flooded?
Well, all the best to you Plumbsolve. And, thanks for any advice you can provide.
-Susan

Susan I am probably ill equipped to give you advice as there are no basements in our homes in S Africa.Our by laws insist on a gully at the lowest point of the sewer so it prevents problems like you are experiencing.I suppose it depends what your sewer pipes are constructed of. If they are pvc then I suspect a fitting has been compromised possibly due to poor installation and perhaps an o ring has gone allowing root ingress.

I have no idea what your older pipes are made of.Here we have earthenware pipes and cast iron and of course pvc.I presume rootex is a chemical ,perhaps copper sulphate based.

Most plumbers here use drain rods with a plunger. The hydraulic action usually gets rid of the majority of blockages in minutes. Rods are inexpensive . A snake if I understand correctly is like a long spring some of which are petrol or electrically operated.These are uncommon in S Africa.
If we have problems which are not sorted with drain rods we normally resort to a high pressure jetting system.A camera can be inserted in the pipes to determine where the damage is to prevent too much digging.I think reach4 has covered it.
Susan welcome to the site. From your avatar it looks like you enjoy keeping your hands and mind busy and creative.

 

[ALtsMagent]

I agree finding a good plumber is very difficult. Young people do not want to master this profession. Nowadays, everyone is chasing prestigious specialties and wants quiet work in the office at their computers, not physical activity and responsibility of severe projects. My son is also taking courses of AAMS qualification now. He always had a thirst for finance. So, despite the specialty of a mechanic, he decided to go on a different path. He does not want to work in the service and deal with physical labor. I think such specialties will soon remain completely without specialists.

 

[Fitter30]

Don't write out a invoice when your still on the job you have to missing writing down all the materials, all the small items and hours. Should have a soldering charge to pay for the sand cloth, solder,flux and gas for the torch.

 

[Jeff H Young]

I agree finding a good plumber is very difficult. Young people do not want to master this profession. Nowadays, everyone is chasing prestigious specialties and wants quiet work in the office at their computers, not physical activity and responsibility of severe projects. My son is also taking courses of AAMS qualification now. He always had a thirst for finance. So, despite the specialty of a mechanic, he decided to go on a different path. He does not want to work in the service and deal with physical labor. I think such specialties will soon remain completely without specialists.

I wouldn't say everyone is chasing prestigious careers oh far from it , some do and that's fine but most many are simply lazy , and spoiled parents don't want their babies to work and support themselves. What I think is missing in construction trades at least one of the missing keys is to have a good mechanic that can't run a business , has no education , no total understanding of the trade , how to market , use a computer etc.
Too many young people aimlessly go to college , with out a real thirst for learning or any ambition. of course there are always some awesome examples of achievement and fulfilling careers. I think a gut that goes through an apprenticeship and likes the work and goes on to a college degree whether business or something toward the technical aspect is going to win!
As for plumbsolve, I think he should take Master Marks comments a second look. I think your business past sounds pretty bad, perhaps read your own post again. comments a bit harsh but sound constructive to me. I think you need serious adjustments company sounds total 3rd world but I guess it is 3rd world there so maybe stuff like driving cars is foreign and chauffeuring Skilled tradesmen around is the norm