Reprinted from July 17. 2008 issue
Hard Times
Everyone needs a plumber at some time or another, right? That may be true in principle, but the reality of the situation is that many service, repair and remodeling plumbing contractors are suffering through a downturn in the economy, just like the average Joe and Jane trying to make it from paycheck to paycheck. Couple a lack of dollars being spent on repair and remodeling projects with the rapidly rising cost of the fuel needed to field service and repair vehicles and contractors’ 2008 bottom line projections may be looking a little bleak.
    Harry Jacobson of Jacobson Plumbing in Cave Creek, Ariz., assessed the situation this way: “New construction in the area has been completely wiped out, remodeling has dropped off and there haven’t been many tenant improvements, and with repair work people seem to be waiting longer than usual unless it’s an emergency. It’s been like this for the past five or six months.”
    A downturn on the residential front during 2008 was, indeed, predicted months ago. The 2007 Reeves Journal Western Trends Survey, published in the January, 2008 issue, revealed contractors in the West were beginning to become nervous about the residential sector, with 49 percent of responding contractors saying residential work in their areas had slowed during 2007 compared to the year-before period, and fully 82 percent respondents predicting residential construction would either stay the same or decrease during the 2008 calendar year.
    Jacobson owns a small firm of two plumbers and believes that, because people are hurting for money, they’re being much more frugal in spending what dollars they have left in their pockets.
    “Foreclosures in this area have been enormous, which has put a financial strain on people,” Jacobson said. “The slowdown in new construction has affected most plumbers around here, but fortunately I wasn’t heavily into it because I was selective about who I worked for.”
    Jacobson Plumbing performs service, repair, tenant improvement and remodeling plumbing services in the Cave Creek region.
    “Remodeling is the first thing that’s been put off by homeowners,” Jacobson said. “That new kitchen or bathroom will be delayed as long as possible. And other folks will try to fix faucet drips themselves or wait until they have two or three problems and then call the plumber to do them all at once.”
    Jacobson said the most common type of remodel he sees are kitchens, which tend to be more trendy and can be done relatively inexpensively for the impact they have on a house. On the other hand, he noted, bathrooms tend to get very expensive very quickly.