Unlicensed Handyman KILLS 4 Month Old Girl.

Grumpyplumber

I keep bringing up the Holmes on homes thing.
I forget his numbers, but if I recall he states the vast majority of GC's simply don't have enough experience or knowledge to be running jobs.
I have had bad experiences with newer GC's, usually they underestimate scope of work overall and then it comes off the price any way they can...either browbeating or skipping licensed subs, cheap stock, or both.
If I were to guess, I'd wager anywhere from 60-70% of contractors are newer, the "here today, gone tomorrow" type.
We all reap the benefits of either competing with them, or losing work to them.
They flood the market with inexperience & underbids.
This forum has a high caliber of tradesmen, generally the longtime members.
There are also the newly joined members that ask the obvious questions that tip us off as to their motives, newer members asking how to price full remodels or asking how to wire/plumb bathrooms, kitchens.
Bottom line, you can't just decide one day that you'd like to become a GC without having experience.
I know my point is universal, you experienced guys go through this...it's NOT about plumbers vs GC's, never was.

rescraft

After readiing the original news story, I was wondering if there might be more to the story.
It said that it was a wall heater that was removed and gas line was not capped. Wall heaters were generally installed in older homes, at least around here and were original equipment. Hopefully it was installed by a licensed plumber and if so, shouldn't there have been a shut-off valve installed ahead of the heater? Are they hard plumbed? Don't know.
Granted, the handyman could have removed the valve if there was one and no doubt he would have been pretty stupid. Would be interesting to know the exact circumstances.
Reminds me of many years ago when our landord's father-in-law "fixed" our water heater. My wife went to turn up the temp and it flamed out in her face! Burned all her eyebrows. We moved shortly thereafter.
Tragedy none the less........

essrmo

you are so right. why didn't one of the plumbers think of that?

Grumpyplumber

Thats like asking a school teacher whether there are desks in the classroom.
It's a given.
For that matter, no mention was made whether there was a valve or not, he obviously left it on if there was.
Even if there were no shut-off, this hack should NEVER have walked away with nothing capping that line, I'd wager money he just didn't have anything in stock to cap it or put on a valve, maybe he decided the $25 he charged wasn't enough to pay for a trip to a hardware store.

Bill

Thats some of the problem, a lot of people lowball and find themselves in a situation where they do need to cut corners. My thing is even if I underbid something, take your time and do it right. Cost so much more to hurry and forget than to slow down and remember.

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Cache

Agreed. At least in my state it takes atleast 4 years to become a GC, and two of the four have to be supervisory. There aren't any aspects of building houses that are rocket science. That said, I still hire out ALL plumbing, electric, and HVAC. I do enjoy working along side the plumbers though. If I've got time, there isn't any reason I should be paying the plumber to drill holes in my floors.

Handymen are a whole different ballgame here. They can't do work for more than $1000 including materials, and under no terms should they ever do plumbing, electrical, or HVAC. Gas lines usually fall under HVAC here. Most plumbers don't work with them. I always found that odd, since plumbers are technically better equipped to work on gas lines than HVAC guys are, as gas lines aren't a whole lot different than water lines. But I guess since the HVAC guys are installing furnace, dryer, fireplace, etc...

Ron The Plumber

This is a first, a builder that knows plumbing is for plumbers.

Cache

I just agree with the statement by the guy who founded Dyson vacuums. In his commercials he says, "I just think things should work properly."

I like DWV systems that don't clog or make my houses smell funny. I like showers that don't lose pressure and/or scald the owners when the toilet is flushed. I don't expect that my clients will appreciate freezing in one room while sweating like a pig in another. I don't think that my lights should dim when someone starts the hair dryer.

Do I think that I could successfully install most plumbing, HVAC, and electrical? Sure, but what are the chances that a detail might be forgotten or go unnoticed? For example, on my last house, the first upstream manhole happened to be about 6" above my basement floor. What are the chances that I would've remembered back water valves? I can always tell myself that I would've remembered before the slab was poured, but who knows. I might've only remembered when there was a blockage in the public sewer system that filled the basement with raw sewage.

Anyway, I prefer my method for cutting cost on plumbing/HVAC/electric. I realized long ago that the labor for these trades far outweighs the materials cost. I simply asked myself whether any aspects of my trade overlap theirs. It turned out that with a little extra planning, my guys can cut their labor in half. There's no reason I should pay a plumber to drill holes, chip out a footer, or dig trenches when I have a grunt that will do it for $8.00/hr. Now I'm effectively paying the professionals half price and it is absolutely worth it to pay them rather than do it myself.

Herk

If you offered to help me at a reduced rate, it would be the last time you ever saw me on the job. Bragging that you're paying pros half price makes me think you're just trying to stir up trouble here.

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22rifle

Hey man, I don't know. I don't like digging ditches or busting concrete that good. If someone asks me how much if I dig the ditch I am all ears. No sense in them paying premium rates for shovel work.

On the other hand, I have a rule. The ditch WILL be dug to my specs, no shortcuts, or I charge the original price.

KillerToiletSpider

He's paying the price, he is just altering the scope of work, I work with a lot of GC's that will do the laborer work to cut costs.

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Ron The Plumber

You scare the hell out of me, I drill my own holes, for you have no idea where I plan on roughing in my pipes, this is not a builders job.

Herk

When you dig it yourself, you get what you need rather than what someone else thinks you need. And even if you don't want to dig the ditch or drill the holes in concrete or whatever, you can hire someone or subcontract the work out. Once the feeding frenzy starts with cutting the bid in half because you lose half the work, it will never stop.

When I first started in business about 32 years ago, it was not legal for backhoe operators to install the pipes from the street to the house. They were there to dig. But the law changed and I began to see some of the most horrific things installed. These guys would put in a screwed-up mess and then cover it up so the inspector couldn't see it. And they got away with it by pretending they didn't know they shouldn't cover it up. They got cut slack that plumbers wouldn't get.

Part of the plumbing trade is, or should be, a dedication to the job and the quality of work that I simply don't see in the other trades very often. "That's good enough" becomes the watchword. There are builders who do beautiful work and then there are builders who care about nothing but how much they can take from the people down the food chain to keep in their own larder. If you work for them, expect to find your own prosperity begin to dwindle.

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paintr56

Must be a difference in gas companies or states but when nicor turns on the gas they light the pilots and check for leaks. turns on the gas. At least they did ten years ago the last time I had gas turned on. I take it this is not common practice all over.

Jim

Cache

I never said reduced rate. I'm paying them the normal hourly rate. I'm just not paying them to do unskilled labor. It comes in around half the price because they aren't spending hours upon hours digging trenches, or busting up concrete. It's also nothing for my guys to frame things in a bit differently so that the plumber isn't constantly running into obstacles. Open web floor trusses, 2x6 walls in appropriate places, plenums, etc... These all reduce the number of skilled labor hours for the plumber. Not to mention keeping the plumber in mind when designing the house in the first place.

It takes my plumber about 20 minutes to throw down paint lines for the ground plumbing and tell me how deep he wants them. Depending on the soil characteristics, it might take him 4-6 hours to dig the trenches and bust the edges off the footings. Even if he has one of his grunts do the digging he still charges me his regular rate. My grunt only gets $8/hr.

Essentially what I'm getting at is that there is nothing special about the trench. Nobody deserves $60/hr to dig a trench by hand. Same thing goes for many of the holes that need to be cut in the framing. It only takes my plumber a minute to mark where he wants a hole.

The same thing applies to electric and other skilled jobs. There are aspects to every job that don't take any skill and the professional doesn't really like doing it in the first place. I know a lot of electricians who don't like to pull wire; many will gladly let you do it so that it's ready for them the next day. I'm paying them for their expertise in their field. Any idiot can drill a hole and pull a 12 guage wire through it.

Cache

I'm not saying every hole or cut. Say we are running a PEX home-run system in a two story house with a full basement; 2 laundry rooms, 4-5 bathrooms, 2 kitchens, etc... Especially if we built with TJI floors there's gonna be a lot of drilling. Placement and drilling of those holes isn't rocket science. It's right on par with pulling wire.

Cache

I'm glad you take pride in your work and I'm sure it is fine work too. My opinions and stances on this come from years of experience in process engineering and business/financial consulting. It is natural and necessary for things to become more efficient, allowing for the same quality at a lower cost. Paying a master plumber his normal wage to dig a trench breaks almost every rule of efficient/profitable business.

My plumber is incredibly busy even during this housing slump. He does good work and he works hard and people know it. He doesn't need to bid out my job because he isn't marking up materials and he bills those out seperately. I pay him a fair hourly rate for a professional plumber in this area. While I'm getting trenches dug he is free to go work another job and make more money. He works the same number of hours in a day regardless of whether he works for one person or two, but working for two people allows him to double his market share and exposure. He also doesn't have to spend his time in the dirt with a jackhammer and shovel.

I had the plumbing on my last job bid by another plumber just to see where others were coming in at. The bid was about $15K. I asked him what he would charge for hourly work and he was right about what I pay my regular plumber. When the job was done, the bill from my plumber was about $8K. When comparing the two, there were two big differences. The first was that materials from my plumber were 20% cheaper as the other plumber was charging me retail prices and pocketing the difference. The second was that my plumber only charged me for time spent doing skilled labor, as I had my grunt do the garbage work. The other plumber didn't look at my plans and realize the time savings in the framing methods. He probably just bid it out per fixture or something. But, the way I framed it resulted in a 50% time savings on the DWV and water line install. In the end, I paid a fair wage for the work done.