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Comment by onion2k | Hacker News Reader

I imagine there's an opportunity for a startup that let's someone who wants to do a simple job themselves Facetime with a plumber to talk them through the work. No idea if there's any profit in it though.

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"Now grab a 3ft section of copper tubing, cut it to length with your pipe cutter, bend it with your copper bending tool, and flare it with your flare clamp... what, you don't have any of those? Wellll.."

Great! There’s an opportunity for same day rental delivery here too

And in the end you'll have spent more than you would have with a regular plumber, you'll have a bunch of tools you won't need for another 10 years, and the job will look terrible.

Source: had to retile a bit of a floor, too small to interest a real tiler. Guess how it looks now?

I'm not a professional but I cracked a tile on my kitchen counter and replaced it and you can't tell. Likely difference between you and me? My uncle is a tile man and he walked me through the whole process (remotely), from finding a matching replacement tile and grout to what kind of tile glue works best for this kind of tile to grouting and cleaning.

> And in the end you'll have spent more than you would have with a regular plumber, you'll have a bunch of tools you won't need for another 10 years, and the job will look terrible.

That part of the business model worked well for Home Depot.

As someone who does as much as I can around the home myself, this attitude baffles me. I consider my tools and knowledge a financial investment: most are used at least monthly, some weekly. I'd never be able to afford living in my home if I paid a contractor to come out every time my toilet leaked. Likewise, my car ownership costs would increase substantially if I paid a mechanic $100 to change the oil or $1000 to service the brakes.

Also, most light everyday home maintenance work like laying tile, building a fence, framing a wall, installing plumbing, etc. is not rocket science. You don't have to be Bob Vila or go to trade school for years to learn how to do it.

Based on a fair bit of experience in these types of things (unskilled individual doing skilled trade work around various homes/rentals etc), anyone who's capable of doing these types of things while supervised via facetime is probably just as capable of and willing to do them with a youtube or web tutorial.

Sometimes you have to sink a lot of time into finding the youtube videos that have useful information in them. I am always annoyed at the extremely high volume of low quality self help content on youtube. I think some kind of guarantee that you were going to get useful advice or it's free would go a long way.

The return delivery costs are as much as the cost of the tools themselves.

I always tell people wanting to do a job themselves that the first time your costs are the same as hiring a pro, but the second time you own the tools and it is just time.

Unless, of course, I'm so incompetent that I accidentally cut a hole in a load-bearing wall, broke the tools, and had to call a pro in to fix it all.

Been there done that.

By the time you'd planned for all the tools and materials you'd need, loaded it into a kit, and shipped it off to the customer, you or the plumber probably could have just sent your business to someone more local.

liability insurance also

1. Tele-inspection of the job. 2. Ship parts required. Tools can come in the same box which then needs to be returned after the job. 3. Tele-supervise the job

Sounds like harbor freight tools and YouTube, possibly followed by a call to a real plumber to fix the damage...

I'm not allowed to cut a tree in my backyard because it's close to power lines, only licensed arborist. I CAN do it but not allowed, so it's just a legislation not an issue of knowledge.

Trimming trees near power lines is extremely dangerous and can lead to deadly electric shocks even simply operating near power lines. Metal ladders and tools can draw current from lines to ground and to a great deal of damage. Arborists have special training and tools to prevent deadly electric shocks when trimming trees near power lines.

My dad helped me disassemble a lawnmower to fix a carburetor float once via Facetime, and I felt like a living Apple commercial when it started back up on the first pull, especially considering I didn't know what a carburetor was beforehand.

Microsoft did a marketing demo of that (Skype Hololens):

https://bfgblog-a.akamaihd.net/uploads/2015/01/hololens-plum...

(it was faked, the remote guy was drawing with a tablet, but somehow it worked in 3d like tilt brush..)

A substantial factor in licensed tradespersons' ability to collect the wages they get is that many situations require the work be done by a license holder. For example electrical or plumbing repairs done to satisfy a building code violation are often expected to have permit paperwork documenting the repair. License = ability to pull permit.

What, can't a tradesman certify that a job was done to code remotely? We allow people to get degrees online.

Of course, some things (is the screw really tight?) can't be verified by video only, but possibly one could devise smarter tools like pressure gauges and some such that can be shown over a video call.

I'd be curious what the cost savings in the end were regardless.

An untrained hand takes so much longer to complete a task that a professional is used to regardless of the understanding. Do you want to slog along a journeyman in video conference for 8 hours or hire him for 2? What's your cost going to be with either?

Beyond that a lot of physical tasks can be done blind, does he "see" that you've threaded the hose properly or applied the compound properly when you're doing it by feel as your eyes can't reach behind whatever you're working at?

I like the idea but I always relate back to my own real world experiences and think about how inefficient it is to remotely task with someone. Ever try helping your parents navigate their computer over the phone? Imagine doing that with a professional @ $100/hr or whatever to replace your faucet or wire new fixtures and run cabling to a breaker panel

The licenses tradesmen carry also tend to be paired with some sort of insurance or bond to back up the fitness of their work. Were it my plumber's license and liability coverage, for example, I'd be hesitate to approve a sweated pipe weld just from video footage. And the market for cheap sonar/magnetic gadgetry or whatever for laypersons to inspect the welds on bathroom plumbing probably just isn't there.

With shark bite you hardly need to weld anymore.

It varies somewhat by city, but it's pretty universal that if it's for your residence you don't need a license to pull a permit.

That would be pretty funny, but plumbing can be pretty damned complex work.

I could see some potential in apprenticeships taking place remotely, though. At least in the latter years of one. And maybe compliance tests, journeyman tests, etc — depending on the nature of the work. And in that case, less Skype, and more AR.

The risk is pretty high, too. Instead of a $300 p-trap replacement, you can do it yourself, but if you do it wrong, you can have 4-5 figures of accidental water damage to the house.

Absolutely! And that's just in your bathroom wear-and-tear maintenance.

Never mind commercial plumbing! Small business owners trying to sort out a commercial block backup caused by a grease-trap failure could start to turn out a few issues...

Plumbers deserve higher regard than they're given (all great plumber jokes aside).

That said if the tech could be used to improve the training of specialists in remote areas/ areas that might be short a few journeymen or master tradespersons, or aid in especially complex problems, it could be a huge boon and reduction in cost (eg - travel costs).

I tried to fix numerous issues with my car and in my apartment by following very clear and detailed YouTube videos.

Unfortunately, it's the little things that usually push me to give up and hire a pro - wrong tools, don't know the tricks to get a tight screw loose, etc.

It's not dissimilar to how many non-technical PHBs watch developers typing away, and figure they can just get a random worker for half-price to copy the same code from a book or website. In reality, it's not the actual code - many times which can just be copied - that makes a good developer worthwhile, it's the years of experience to know what to do when something goes wrong.

I worked at a startup doing exactly this last year[1], [2], [3]. Unfortunately, the parent company shut us down after we ran out of runway but it was starting to gain traction. One issue we had was ultimately a lot of people wanted someone to come out anyway and to make sure we had the right quality (and so gain customer/brand trust) we had to do this in-house - i.e. hire actual plumbers and handymen to be on call as well as building logistics software to support all of this entirely outside of the video call aspect.

It was more than a bit depressing the parent company pulled the plug because it really did feel like it was about take off. Maybe we could've instead integrated into a set of preferred suppliers cross country as a lead gen service. Though if you read the TrustPilot reviews it was the fact we were the whole package that customers loved.

We started by first charging for calls but in order to grow switched that to free calls with the assumption that people would then book a home visit if needs be. Nobody wanted to pay £10 on a call and find out they needed a plumber to come out. It felt like something that with Uber-style levels of investment (i.e. tons) could be pretty profitable if you owned the sector. To expand on our offerings we would do things like allow people to simply book a handyman for an hour to do whatever - put up a curtain rail, fix that loose light fitting and so on.

People were using the video aspect as a precursor to someone actually coming to do the work so the video bit was never the end of the transaction. As soon as you start needing a team of people to field customer calls, do support and manage your countrywide team of tradesmen it gets expensive.

[1] https://uk.trustpilot.com/review/dad.co?page=2

[2] http://www.eu-startups.com/2016/05/london-based-dad-secures-...

[3] https://s3.amazonaws.com/poly-screenshots.angel.co/enhanced_...

Well, having someone over video sounds like it would have value :) (even though eventually you get a house visit), I'd love that service.

I have some exterior window blinds that need fixing, I'd love for someone to see it over a video call and get a quote before them coming.

That startup sounded great, I'm sad it failed :(

It definitely did have a lot of value and customers, once they used it, loved it. From perhaps an emergency "this has stopped working" first call out you would have people then asking about exactly the sort of thing you mention with window blinds and become a repeat customer.

One thing we were looking to do was to offer it to companies as an employee perk - so the company would buy a certain amount of hours that could be used. Then staff could have a face to face call with the relevant tradesperson to discuss anything they like. It was too near the end though to get going :(

If you ever revive it, I worked for an insurance company that loves giving those kind of services as add-ons to their homeowners insurance (they're usually little-used and serve as great promotional copy).

Alas Homeserve, the massive insurance company who were the primary investors, took over all the IP and I think they just killed it. They bought CheckATrade [1] around the time we shutdown, so maybe it will see the light of day as part of that someday.

[1] https://www.ft.com/content/784ae4b6-e9f2-11e6-967b-c88452263...

What's the business model there?

If the job would take a plumber 30 minutes, it'll take me an hour - so instead of paying a plumber for 30 minutes of work, I'd need to pay him for an hour of supervision; so I'd be paying more for the privilege of doing it myself.

Presumably a single plumber could handle multiple clients, plus you are already paying for his commute, which you probably don’t need to do (in your own house)

I could see some combo of youtube, tool rental, and a live helpline with trained blue collar workers as a fallback.

I imagine lots of this:

   "Lefty loosey, righty tighty... no no your other left"

"...and now your house is flooding at 3 GPM"

DIY always breaks down when you need to purchase an expensive tool that you only use once.

I wouldn't say always. I usually ask my friends if they have the tool and borrow it, or buy it knowing someone will likely borrow it in the future.

Fortunately most of the tools you don't use once. The few you do tend to be the types of tools a pro would rent as well.

Tool libraries are a pretty neat solution to this. Some local book libraries are getting into it as a way to expand services.

Define expensive. 200$? That's the cost of the plumber's time, and now I've got that tool forever. That and I've gained knowledge and know how to fix or build something that I didn't before which is something I take pride in.

In my experience, there's been very few things where it makes more sense long term to just pay someone else to do it so long as you're willing to do a little bit of learning.

You'd have to pay a plumber -more- to wait for you to do it, because you're going to be less efficient

I was thinking more like having someone assess the job, point out potential tricky bits, advise on different approaches, etc before you start. Like I said, I have no idea if there's a profitable business there, I was just suggesting a way a plumber could actually work remotely.

Love it! But, in many countries regulation/ warranty might kill such an idea.

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