Is plumbing still a trade?
- Thread starter mark vincent
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I agree but then again he's an American, sorry i'm being i 'm being sarcastic again.
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Having looked through the replies to my post i seem to have upset some people, that was not my intention i just throught advances in technology which made life easier for everyone was maybe a good thing. I would also like to state that no third world orphans were beaten in the making of this post thankyou.
S
Sylvan Tieger
Sometimes technology is not always useful such as the "state of the art radiant heating systems" that failed miserably and consumers and the installers took the beating.
Also how does one dispose of the toxic PVC piping?
Copper has been used by mankind for over 5,000 years of proven quality service Cast Iron is quiet does not promote toxic fumes in case of a fire and can be recycled over and over and over.
The problem is unscrupulous home builders telling moron plumbers they have to work faster and cheaper and dummies got into the price war of who can work the cheapest and the low ball bidder usually gets the job and has to find people with limited skill levels to do the actual installations.
Most plastic piping fill this need of having limited skill to do the actual installations as a 5 year old can be taught to use primer then solvent and then give a 1/4 turn and presto your now a lead mechanic on a senseless job.
If the industry would have stood their ground stating the facts instead of submitting to greed and pressure the prices demanded by highly skilled craftsmen could still be high.
Educate the accounts by stating known facts
When a contract comes up for a new home or an alteration by pass the contractor and speak directly to the home owner and give them the facts of life
1- Cast Iron has proven longevity and is QUIET and in case of fire a plastic system may kill people by the toxic fumes long before the fire ever reached them
2- Copper like cast iron and steel and lead is recyclable.
3- Plastic piping out doors exposed to the direct sun light can deteriorate from the UV rays.
4- Because PVC is fast and the contractor is looking for cheap (labour is expensive compared to materials) plastic installers are known to cut corners such as not enough supports on horizontal runs and this causes dips /bellies and future stoppages.
5- In 1999 I posted many articles about the dangers of PVC and finally it is coming to light that plastic leaching into water supply or PVC used to hold beverages could be responsible for birth defects and some types of cancers.
6- Explain to the owner his building /home etc is an investment and cheap is not always the best way to go as many folks do buy Mercedes and Rolls Royce's and Bentley's although there are cars costing several hundred thousands less.
7- There is no substitute for skilled licensed professionals as the licenses protect the consumer .
I pay a mechanic $45 per hr and th helpers when needed $25 per hr another plumber less then 2 miles away only hires so called mechanics for $12 - $16 per hr.
I feel you can judge the success of a contractor by how well he / she compensates his /her employees.
If your using bottom line required skill level then of course your paying for what you get.
Shame on the contractors fall for the "see how cheap I can work" pitfall as they work longer hours making less then some civil servant based on hours spent working.
The contractor who works near me works 6 days a week 9 -12 hour days
I work a 20-25 hour work week netting the same money.
Look at lawyers some work for the government making peanuts and the cream of the crop can demand higher wages.
The skilled contractor who works cheap is a thief as he is robbing his family of a better life and he works 40 hours a week rather then spending more quality time with his family.
What some consider "easier" is actually causing more people to work longer hours.
Cell phones were supposed to make life easier yet I see morons in a restaurant when they are out with their families answering a business call
Before we had the burst of technology a man was able to not only feed his family buy a home he had a wife that stayed home full time taking care of the rug rats NOW people seem to need two incomes to survive.
Some where along the line people became lax and decided to take the easy way out and then it hit them they had cut their own throats by settling for less skills of employees and the big corporations said Lets take most manufacturing to friendly places like China and high tech to India.
One of the business owners who used to manufacture furniture in England and the USA is now located in China just like most sneaker manufactures.
An employee I had from Ireland I was able to pay him $70 PER HR because I had him on a job that I would normally be on installing sheet lead and his skill level was second to none.. a true artist in lead burning and wiping as he installed lead coated copper flashing without ruining the finish and using non acid flux.
Could they have used a different material YES, would it have lasted as long as copper protected by lead NO WAY.
Once the incentive is taken away to learn the skills of a real plumber then the compensation also goes by the way side.
Thankfully most people have the brains to be scared to work with gas, gas fitters will still be higher up on the food chain as plumbers sell themselves out working cheaper and cheaper.
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You have made some very good points in your post, especially as regards the safety of pvc, i prefer the taste of coca cola from a tin rather than from a plastic bottle because you can taste the plastic in the coke, so there must be some leaching of chemicals into the drink.
S
Sylvan Tieger
Thank you Tosser, I honestly feel sorry for the infants drinking this crap through plastic bottles.. birth defects are going out of control in the civilized world it would appear
I have just installed a new sink basin without any experience of plumbing at all but I love DIY so I wanted to have a go.
I simply chopped of the existing plumbing, fitted the tap to the basin, fitted two flexihoses, then used push fit connectors and a standard u bend for the drainage. It was a days work but the end result looks very very neat and professional. It is as good what a proper plumber would do (apart from the use of push fit connectors maybe).
However I would not dream of touching a central heating system, just looking at the pipework and the design of ours makes me realise how much skill is involved. Then there is joining copper to lead, again a lot of skill involved.
So it seems replacing like for like dosn't involve much skill but anything more than is highly skillful.
Plumbers charge a lot yes but there is a lot they have to learn for the trade etc.
I simply chopped of the existing plumbing, fitted the tap to the basin, fitted two flexihoses, then used push fit connectors and a standard u bend for the drainage. It was a days work but the end result looks very very neat and professional. It is as good what a proper plumber would do (apart from the use of push fit connectors maybe).
However I would not dream of touching a central heating system, just looking at the pipework and the design of ours makes me realise how much skill is involved. Then there is joining copper to lead, again a lot of skill involved.
So it seems replacing like for like dosn't involve much skill but anything more than is highly skillful.
Plumbers charge a lot yes but there is a lot they have to learn for the trade etc.
S
Sylvan Tieger
However I would not dream of touching a central heating system, just looking at the pipework and the design of ours makes me realise how much skill is involved. Then there is joining copper to lead, again a lot of skill involved.
Sir, The key issue is not actually installing piping as ANYONE can even a child can solder copper if they have the mental capacty of a 5 year old
( I know I taught a child once on a bet)
Even putting any compression plastic fitting together requires no actual mechanical skill and can be learned by trial and error quite easily.
Soldering, gluing plastic fittings or the use of compression type plumbing systems could quite easily be installed by children if it was not for labour laws.
The real skill in plumbing is know how to properly size the piping waste ,vent water supply ,storm and gas piping.
Anyone can see a pipe even take a picture of it go to any home center and say give me one of these I want to replace all in this picture.
Replacing in kind ( plastic /copper) is really childs play. Actually I had a 73 old lady send me an E mail with a picture of her toilet tank internal parts and drew an arrow on the parts she wanted to replace and asked if she really needed a "plumber" to install it
I contacted her and asked the following
1- Can you bend at your knees comfortably
2- can you shut off the water supply to the toilet tank
3- Do you have any type of spanner (pipe wrench)
4- CAN YOU FOLLOW directions either verbal or written
She answered yes to all I told her what parts to buy
She installed the toilet fill valve with a built in vacuum breaker in less then an hour and no leaks.
Today with plastic piping and compression and other user friendly piping going into homes ANYONE can make repairs by replacing in kind.
If the installer used quiet,safe, quality, cast iron then that would need a professional to connect to it properly most of the systems today are geared for the non skilled to do the actual installations.
There are many,many books on the market about adding heating zone and heat loss calculations and pressure requirements and safety .relief devices it just depends on which web site your looking at.
Hot water heating (hydronics) is possibly the best all around heating system as it is very ,very forgiving unlike steam systems that do require a certain amount of skill in design
Hot water systems can get highly techinical in design like indoor outdoor reset, high and low flame, loop systems ( simple design) two pipe hot water piping, monoflow tee designs
Most systems because there are very few crafmen in the field use a one pipe easy to install plastic system that works with lower temperatures.
Good luck
Sir, The key issue is not actually installing piping as ANYONE can even a child can solder copper if they have the mental capacty of a 5 year old
( I know I taught a child once on a bet)
Even putting any compression plastic fitting together requires no actual mechanical skill and can be learned by trial and error quite easily.
Soldering, gluing plastic fittings or the use of compression type plumbing systems could quite easily be installed by children if it was not for labour laws.
The real skill in plumbing is know how to properly size the piping waste ,vent water supply ,storm and gas piping.
Anyone can see a pipe even take a picture of it go to any home center and say give me one of these I want to replace all in this picture.
Replacing in kind ( plastic /copper) is really childs play. Actually I had a 73 old lady send me an E mail with a picture of her toilet tank internal parts and drew an arrow on the parts she wanted to replace and asked if she really needed a "plumber" to install it
I contacted her and asked the following
1- Can you bend at your knees comfortably
2- can you shut off the water supply to the toilet tank
3- Do you have any type of spanner (pipe wrench)
4- CAN YOU FOLLOW directions either verbal or written
She answered yes to all I told her what parts to buy
She installed the toilet fill valve with a built in vacuum breaker in less then an hour and no leaks.
Today with plastic piping and compression and other user friendly piping going into homes ANYONE can make repairs by replacing in kind.
If the installer used quiet,safe, quality, cast iron then that would need a professional to connect to it properly most of the systems today are geared for the non skilled to do the actual installations.
There are many,many books on the market about adding heating zone and heat loss calculations and pressure requirements and safety .relief devices it just depends on which web site your looking at.
Hot water heating (hydronics) is possibly the best all around heating system as it is very ,very forgiving unlike steam systems that do require a certain amount of skill in design
Hot water systems can get highly techinical in design like indoor outdoor reset, high and low flame, loop systems ( simple design) two pipe hot water piping, monoflow tee designs
Most systems because there are very few crafmen in the field use a one pipe easy to install plastic system that works with lower temperatures.
Good luck
I know the pipe work is easy. However it is knowing all the regulations etc, I would not know where to begin on the regulations regarding where I can put pipes, all I know is that diaganal pipes are a no no for obvious reasons.
The big problem I have is that because plumbing is not a regulated trade (apart from gas) how do you know if a plumber is a real skilled plumber or just somebody like me that knows how to replace a tap?
The big problem I have is that because plumbing is not a regulated trade (apart from gas) how do you know if a plumber is a real skilled plumber or just somebody like me that knows how to replace a tap?
You might think that it's as good, but you took about three times as long as a professional would have done.
That's just b*llocks, based on pretty much no knowledge at all.
Plumbers actually don't charge a lot.
S
Sylvan Tieger
To find out if your plumber is indeed a master plumber or some low life dabbling in the field with no knowledge is simple ask "Let me see your masters license" Even a place like Oz has Master plumbers of Queensland.
The license is for your protection not the license holder.
Just like a drivers license most legitimate Masters carry a license
Get a grip, freakshow, this is the UK.
So come on did the waste leak as it would if not assembled by a person with "experience"? even after I've shown and told most newbies to the trade get this element wrong.
S
Sylvan Tieger
Paul, the reason Newbies have leaks is they take things for granted a DIY will not think to take short cuts as they would follow directions to the letter.
Many morons after they glue a few joints think they are plastic specialists and forgo the primmer and figure "its good enough with just cement"
With the fittings I saw being used in England ANYONE can make a drainage connection with the junk I seen posted as short cuts.
Push to fit fittings I am sure requires the same IQ as possibly a rock.
Plumbing as I see being posted here is NOT even to be considered a trade Home centers should do amazingly well there
R i see you r not in England.
All the basin wastes supplied to theuk leak if not assembled by someone with trade knowledge.
The apprentices don't listen tow hat they have been told. you have sussed them out exactement.
If I want a piperun to a particular place and touch the spot with my finger when I comeback the apprentice will have put it 2 ft away.
Soi actually mark the wall and he still can't manageit.
The last lad i had was actually good as they go bye the way. At least he didn't steal from me like all the rest.
You may not realise it but we do have some skills and knowledge not in the public domain. We are sick of carrying apprentices on our backs and sharing our bread with them.
So quite soon plumbing shall not be a trade. We will just keep buying Chinease tat which is designed to consume the remainder of the earth's precious resources again and again because it is made to fail and be replaced.
Until they have consumed all the resources and we are all living offthelitter heapsmade by their tat.
All the basin wastes supplied to theuk leak if not assembled by someone with trade knowledge.
The apprentices don't listen tow hat they have been told. you have sussed them out exactement.
If I want a piperun to a particular place and touch the spot with my finger when I comeback the apprentice will have put it 2 ft away.
Soi actually mark the wall and he still can't manageit.
The last lad i had was actually good as they go bye the way. At least he didn't steal from me like all the rest.
You may not realise it but we do have some skills and knowledge not in the public domain. We are sick of carrying apprentices on our backs and sharing our bread with them.
So quite soon plumbing shall not be a trade. We will just keep buying Chinease tat which is designed to consume the remainder of the earth's precious resources again and again because it is made to fail and be replaced.
Until they have consumed all the resources and we are all living offthelitter heapsmade by their tat.
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