America's new millionaire class: Plumbers and HVAC entrepreneurs
wsj.com
wsj.com
Of course one of the problems with PE is they hoover up _all_ the businesses in an area so you don't have a choice.
There really needs to be regulation in this area preventing a single beneficial entity/controlling entity from buying/owning more than a few percent of a certain type of business in an area.
PE already has a pretty bad press, so they know that customers are calling only because PE is a red flag.
They could just serve some meaningless half-truth and try to confuse you.
Literally what kind of question would you ask on the phone?
I find it fascinating which industries are vulnerable and which aren’t. PE has been more successful with morticians because they can more effectively own an area and people only deal with so many funerals. Vets on the other hand seem to be easily taken over despite regular visits and skilled workers, presumably regulatory bodies play a major role? No really sure.
It isn't really about economies of scale so much as using local monopolies to set prices. They have a good moat because regulatory bodies have not regulated monopolies for 30 years, and professional organizations limit entry to each field.
It's not exactly gradually. I would call it "aggressively". At least for vets.
The secondary incentive is usually to sabotage every aspect of the work that the boss isn't paying attention to because 'hidden dirt' is the only way for an employee to gain leverage over their employer.
Unlike in communism, labor is not associated with any higher social ideals. There is literally zero reason for anyone to do things right.
This is why we have enshitification. The system needs goodwill in order to function well. Without goodwill, we get piles upon piles of hidden dirt which accumulate. We end up with products and experiences which seem great superficially, but only so long as you don't do anything unexpected like peeking under the carpet.
This already happens. The most common AC repair needed is a new capacitor. It's a $20 part.
Call your dad's business, you probably get a quote for $100-ish and it's fixed in ten minutes.
Call a PE owned shop and they are likely to tell you that your entire system needs replaced. Quote $5-$8k.
Reports like this are already common place, and the roll-ups of former small-businesses in industry like HVAC that the PE people celebrate will only make this worse for customers.
Going to Ferguson.com and ordering a replacement capacitor to have on hand for $30 works even better.
It’s literally just turning off the power to the compressor, using a screwdriver to open the panel, unplugging the old capacitor, and plugging a new one in.
Regardless .. discharge the cap, blown or not.
Clear the chamber, even if you removed the magazine and checked it yesterday.
etc.
The general principles of health and safety are intended to be largely overkill and mostly not strictly required, they're in place for that one time that kills or injures.
Please don’t give out dangerous advice, if you want to risk electrocution, that’s your choice. Don’t encourage others to perform work unsafely.
Maybe print the instructions and leave it with capacitor or watch a couple YouTube videos first.
The UX to make this consumer replaceable looks more like
1. Add a bleed resistor to the capacitor (its default state when unplugged should be discharged)
2. Use a modern consumer grade connector (ie sealed molex or deutsche)
If you really don't want to run the risk of being electrocuted, it might just be worth the 250 dollars to have someone who does this sort of thing all day to come and do the repair.
Still worse, a brazen attempt to service an older R-22 system with R-410A, which would have completely destroyed a heat pump that I ended up getting an additional 5 years of serviceable life out of (after dismissing that clown on the spot).
Other ridiculous mistakes I've had to deal with are incorrect wiring of air handler emergency heat source during initial installation that prevented system from cooling; and on that same heat pump system less than a year later, discovering an improperly secured lug within exterior disconnect box that eventually created enough heat to fry ~6 inches of insulation before failing open and killing power to compressor (in retrospect, city inspector not only should have caught this, but should have required the contractor to replace the disconnect box altogether to remain in compliance with prevailing residential building code).
The grift has gotten so bad over the years that a few friends---a professional ME and electrician---have gone out of their way to earn § 608 tech certs[1] to legally purchase refrigerant and have sufficiently tooled themselves up to handle common failure modes.
[1] https://www.epa.gov/section608/section-608-technician-certif...
Tldr hot weather is hard on them. They have a finite lifetime and suffer most when you need the AC the most.
In HVAC world, the practical differences between a motor start cap and a motor run cap are price, physical size, and longevity.
A start cap is cheaper, but is meant only for intermittent duty and is unsuitable for use as a run cap.
Meanwhile, a run cap costs more but can serve as a run cap or a start cap.
All things (except for outliers like the McLaren F1) are built down to a price.
They tend to cost more, and tend to be larger than their polarized kins. They're not advantageous in circuits that always have some DC bias, so they only get used where it is necessary.
Think of them like a car starter motor or transmission (for old ICE vehicles).
Assuming we’re talking motor start capacitors anyway. For most of them, every time the compressor starts they see a dead short at 240v for a couple milliseconds, typically in the 10,000+ amps range.
And most people use their AC the most when it’s hot and nasty out. Which doesn’t help.
I guess from before the days of Unicode?
µF == the same thing, but tends to be the ‘more correct’ modifier used in electronics and engineering, rather than industrial parts supplier catalogs.
They just don't make things like they used to. :)
The channel https://www.youtube.com/@WordofAdviceTV/videos has saved me a lot of money.
On a complete tangent on the topic of “home maintenance you should know”, hot water tanks should be purged yearly (to get rid of the debris collecting on the bottom), and have a sacrificial anode rod to stop corrosion and should be replaced every ~3 years (magnesium) or ~5 years (aluminum)
Note that this is only the case if you have been doing this already from when it was new. It isn't necessarily a great idea to try to purge on an older water tank since the valve can start to leak if you open it and it hasn't been used in a long time.
They looked at it for 5 minutes, told me it's too old and needs to be replaced.
It needed a $5 sensor which I replaced myself after doing some basic testing. There are so many grifters in the trades. It is so hard someone honest, that is going to show up on time and do the job.
I almost want to start or buy a construction business.
Did the plumbers getting rich meme start with Joe the Plumber? My cynical hypothesis is that it’s a movement to steer people away from college fearing a hollowing out of the working class and higher wages if everyone’s university educated. Are there other reasons this talking point keeps circling? Googling multiple sources shows plumbers making an average of $60k/year which is lower than the average teacher salary in the US. Neither of those classes is getting rich and both are feeling the squeeze of inflation, no doubt being contributed to by private equity.
If you believe nothing happened before the year 2008, yes.
Otherwise, no, of course not. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0582490/ aired 14 years before that.
What does this sitcom episode demonstrate, exactly? Haven’t seen it, but from the description the title’s pun is based on the relationship of the characters, and not income or education. Is there a relevant storyline not described in the notes?
My friend, the sailboat owner, replied "yeah, cause they're the ones with money."
So no, it's far from a recent concept.
Easily. PE bad is trendy at the moment. And plumber becomes millionaire plays into the “anyone can become rich” narrative
Edit: and there are no "open source" tools. You have to buy them, and good ones are not cheap.
I should add that all the people I know who are earning really good money in the trades put in some years, established a solid personal reputation in the area, and then started their own businesses.
Many people are hired onto rough framing crews with no experience. That's what defines it as entry-level work, IMO. You're saying that people without experience make errors in rough carpentry, which makes it not entry-level. (I would say that makes it "not unskilled" but still "entry-level" [because you can be hired with no experience].)
Also, in the US (at least west appalachia, but it might be all of north america), it seems that the logging/milling industry has incestuous relationships with the building industry, and it seems to be pretty hard to find cheap wood from clearcuts if you're an independant. The person who hosted me and my familly for two weeks in WV used wood he logged himself for his home and dependencies (he was 70 btw), but even for a contract he got he couldn't use the wood from the nearby mill and imported it from Ohio/Canada. And it was in 2018 so there weren't as many pressure on wood availability as post-covid or right now.
In EU aa lot of in-built furniture is made out of "furniture board", it's particle board with some veneer. There are a lot of local companies selling that board, you can order already cnc cut and drilled pieces, you just need to specify drilled holes positions and sizes and you can offer custom furniture. Buy some off-the shelf fasteners and you're ready to go. Made a small library shelf this way for myself and it was 2x cheaper than anything ready made, but looks perfectly profeessional. My local carpenter friend orders at the same company, made me a kitchen much cheaper than anything available at big retailers.
The originating buyer wants quality work, probably as a one-off, but doesn't know or want to know how to find someone like that. Everyone is high risk.
A matchmaker company in the middle has ongoing relationships with the end contractor, knows their work is decent, and provides a framework / legal liability / insurance on top. The contractors they know are lower risk.
So the matchmaker can charge {full cost of high risk - slight discount} while knowing they're actually only taking on {lower risk}.
Where it seems to go pear-shaped is when the matchmaker gets too large and can no longer individually vouch for their contractors (e.g. IBM Services and globally integrated service companies).
I don't doubt that someone who is running a business is earning more, this article in the WSJ says:
"At the time that they sold the company, it had 18 employees and was bringing in about $3 million in revenue a year. "
This was a plumbing business with two founders, founded in 2012. The article goes on to say that PE buys smaller businesses like the one above for:
"smaller outfits (such as Rice’s), which Redwood says it buys outright for an average of $1 million..."
The Occupational Outlook handbook says:
"The median annual wage for electricians was $61,590 in May 2023. The median wage is the wage at which half the workers in an occupation earned more than that amount and half earned less. The lowest 10 percent earned less than $38,470, and the highest 10 percent earned more than $104,180." The mean annual wage for all occupations in that resource is $65,470.
It's really a fantastic deal. He does exquisitely good work at a reasonable price. Not the cheapest electrician, but the price/quality is great.
Talking to them the common threads are:
- Cash based jobs. e.g. I charge my materials to the business (tax expense) and give the customer a small discount (say 10%) if they pay in cash. Assuming a 30% tax rate it means I can make for tax purposes my income less and my expenses more. In the end however I'm significantly ahead - any savings I've given to the customer are more than offset by tax savings.
- Income splitting: Wife "does the books" after hours, I split the income two ways. This way I don't pay as much tax in a regressive tax system as I can push myself to a lower tax band. If you want a single income family, better to own a trade business than be a professional. NOTE: Some countries/places support this more than others, if a country has good income splitting laws this diminishes this advantage.
- Favors: A lot of money is earned by mutual favors rather than monetary transfers especially in renovations/etc. e.g. I will do the plumbing for your house, and mine, you can do the concrete slab for both houses and we will call it square. Trades people typically know other trades people and a lot of the property can be built that way. No money exchanged, no tax paid. But the capital gains from renovations can be substantial - and tax of them can be deferred till sale. I've seen people earn millions this way, completely dwarfing their business income. Capital gains in most countries is also taxed at a lower rate and there's a lot of exemptions (i.e. if you live in it, etc). The benefits of this over many renovations can add to millions in extra wealth, none of it reported as income and under taxed.
- Asset Depreciation/Write Off: Want that big pick up truck? But want to pay the same after tax price as a small hatch? Claim it on your business, write it off, and expense it. May not apply as strongly in the US, but I've seen workers with very expensive cars here for the same after tax price as I could buy a simple sedan for. This applies to other things like tools for the house, etc.
All of the above reduces the official statistics substantially as under reporting, and makes blue collar a lot more appealing than it may seem on the surface. I would argue a self employed blue collar worker on say $120k would be as good as a white collar worker on $200k where I live, maybe even more. If you have a family and are a single income earner in some countries it makes sense to jump straight into blue collar.
> A lot of money is earned by mutual favors rather than monetary transfers especially in renovations/etc. e.g. I will do the plumbing for your house, and mine, you can do the concrete slab for both houses and we will call it square. Trades people typically know other trades people and a lot of the property can be built that way. No money exchanged, no tax paid.
Indeed, cheating on your taxes can leave you with extra after- (instead-of-?) tax cash in your pocket.
Some of the above is either not really taxable (friends doing favors), actually encouraged/legal (e.g business writeoffs), or really hard to prove especially if it is the odd job (cash). While I'm not based in the US, I imagine some/all of the above points equally apply to many countries.
The point is not one of approval/disapproval. It is one of saying that the "official statistics" are not really that useful often when it comes to blue collar work as anecdotally most blue collar workers do at least some of the above.
I do pay my wife part of my income so it hits a lower tax rate (this is fine), and she does do my books (she's a CPA, so that tracks).
But there's a staggering amount of expenses I'd normally be paying out of pocket with my post-tax dollars that are now being paid by "the company". Anything the company pays for I end up paying $0 in tax on that money. Like probably 20% of the stuff _I would be paying for anyway_ is paid for by the company and I pay 0% tax instead of 50% tax. Like, what might have been $30k/yr in expenses before now costs me $15k/yr and lets me put $7.5k in my pocket out of what's left.
Health expenses? Yeah, why not establish a self-funded company health plan and pay those out of untaxed dollars too!
It's especially stark in things like "home office" expenses... if I claim it on my personal taxes (whether from my company or working for someone else), I can't claim any mortgage interest as an expense. If I claim it as my company's place of business though I can claim that and much more.
It costs me like $60/yr to keep renewing the corporation, and if I wasn't married to a CPA probably another $600-800 for tax filing. It easily puts 10x that back in my pocket.
And I mean, yeah, it's definitely way easier to cheat on your taxes if you're so inclined. And from what I've seen of the filings my wife has done over the years for accounting firms, bending the rules is pretty much the norm. Many an argument has been had over "no, that's not the letter of the rules I'm not letting you file that" and "okay but you're throwing money away because literally everyone else does that because there's no way to catch it".
IOW, as long as you color within the lines, they really don't care. My tax guy is pretty good at telling me what might trigger an audit vs what IRS thinks of as perfectly normal.
Typically, the workers fly out from a capital city to work/live at a remote mine site for several weeks, then they fly back for a couple of weeks rest, repeat.
Not uncommon in Canada either.
The point was probably to meaningfully contribute to the conversation about trades and typical earnings.
It was a useful comment .. unlike, for example, yours.
Looking at BLS wage statistics for tradesmen really won't tell you anything about the financial well-being of private small business entrepreneurs; you need to be looking at their company's financial statements---which is quite privileged data---for a meaningful idea.
Climbing ladders isn't a lot of fun when you reach 40.
That's because high earning tradespeople are typically not wage earners. They operate their own companies.
Before that he was a tiling contractor. He said you could make $1m a year if you wanted to. But it was physically super demanding (that lead to his transition to telecom)
While private equity may be making some local business owners rich, they’re ruining the customer experience.
It’s quite a lot cheaper to rewire the car for the more common and cheaper Xenon HID headlight (it’s only £300 2nd hand) but a fairly big job with ZERO support from BMW for the conversion.
How long are Teslas sitting in shops waiting for parts, these days?
People complained a ton about those and how they made cars look ugly.
UN Regulation 155 and ISO/SAE 21434 are going to require that intra-car communications require some sort of authentication system between computers. It's regulations attempting to get ahead of potential hacks for Vehicle to Everything (V2X) infrastructure.
Unfortunately this likely also means the ability to replace failed ECU's on a car will be only limited to car manufacturers willingness to explicitly authorize a part to be installed into a car, even genuinely OEM parts straight from the manufacturer. Don't know when it comes into force but it's on the way.
For recent remodeling though it turned out my housekeeper’s husband is a carpenter and I just coordinated a number of things myself.
If you are the business then you have incentive to do a good job. I have more faith in getting a quality job done by someone like that.
I used to have an HVAC guy like this. I currently have a plumber and a car repair shop like this. I can DIY the smaller things but I know my limits so it’s frustrating when finding good help is difficult.
I have nothing but speculation and wonder if some of this is due to how much we look down on trade jobs in America. The general attitude has been that a kid who goes to a trade school is a failure compared to a kid who goes to college.
Finding a company that grew organically and is not PE owned is noticeably different, I can tell which ones they are and they often refer to each other.
A possible alternative path is to take over management of a business from its current owner, and eventually buy it out. Also, just a little bit of seed money might make the difference, e.g., buying a van full of basic tools is expensive, but it's not SpaceX expensive.
I've hired workmen who turned out to be "a couple guys with chainsaws and a pickup truck." So it might be possible to ease your way into a business by starting with smaller jobs.
It seems to cost about $10 to 50k to acquire the tools, vehicle and licenses to start a plumbing business. Is there something else that’s substantial beyond the normal attention to detail and savvy that every small businessperson must have?
So at least sometimes, it is life or death.
And now that I say it: hospitals need electricians too. Electricity goes out in a hospital for too long, lots of people die.
And actually a third point: electricity -going out- is not the only thing that could kill a client, it's not too hard to start a fire.
How naive. PE does not enter a market in order to make existing workers into millionaires, but to create a monopoly/monopsony where they can gouge both customers and employees, to extract maximum profit. Quite often, the goal is not even to run the market sustainably, but just to produce optical profits for a quick resale.
A few local contractors may get bought out and become millionaires, but everyone else will be impoverished.
We can probably even predict some next steps. They will recommend and lobby for various 'safety' regulations or certifications that would be difficult for smaller shops to meet, and then pressure commercial landlords, housing associations, etc to require those certifications.
No one can start a new plumbing/HVAC small business. Your only option is to go work for Walmart (metaphorically speaking).
This isn't true at all, I know several people who have done it.
I wonder how it is in various states, but at least where I live the actual plumbers get licensed, not the plumbing company. So what can they do to stop it? NDAs? Non-Competes? The state also takes a dim view on such things until you are paying someone a significant amount of W-2 money.
SEO? Brand recognition?
Well anyway, a few months ago I shared a table at a restaurant with someone that worked at a family office, and was buying up landscaping companies. I asked some questions in a polite and friendly manner; nothing too pointed or invasive. But came away with the idea that there is a lot of money out there looking for something to do, and not a lot of good ideas.
Which then leads to plumbing shops were the licensed plumber doesn't even work there and just rents out the license to the business so it can operate. Plumbing certs are a complete pyramid scheme.
So in 5 years or so, we suddenly see laws everywhere that require expensive certifications, new kinds of insurances, audit requirements, and so on in the name of “safety” no one can start a new small business in those industries without a team of consultants, lawyers, big auditing firms, and so forth.
I'm not a professional, though. I may need a table saw for some projects, but the projects I undertake that require a table saw are few and are far between. My use won't wear out the saw in my lifetime.
Usage of a table saw in my own shop will be at least a couple of orders of magnitude less -- averaging perhaps a few hours per year. Furthermore, without an angry boss-man looming over me to maximize production, I can spend as much time as is necessary to optimize every operation in a safety-first fashion.
If we assume that it is just two orders of magnitude of difference, then: Spending an extra $700 for a sawstop-equipped saw is rather unlikely to ever pay for itself in my shop at home.
(Now, that's not to say that I wouldn't want this kind of safety feature in my own shop. The idea of losing even part of a finger forever is much scarier to me than spending an extra $700 one time: After all, I can make more money but I can't grow new fingers. It's just not such a financially-obvious choice as it is for professionally-used saws.)
But I remember in that thread a few had said that as part of this, SawStop will be forced to license their patent to competitors.
Maybe that'll drive up the cost of table saws, but to be honest, people like me (at best, a wannabe weekend woodworker, not a pro) have stayed away from Table saws because of a concern for safety, but things like Sawstop being more ubiquitous might result in people like me buying them, and expanding the market, possibly bringing prices down.
Sure, Sawstop does nothing to prevent the big issue with table saws (kickback) but still, having a riving knife + sawstop probably makes a huge difference in the overall safety of using a table saw, and that seems worth it.
(I like the idea of using propane as a refrigerant. Surprisingly efficient. Very cheap. And I don’t think there’s enough to be more dangerous than a grill?)
The joke is usually some play on government being in bed with the chemical industry lobbyists and banning things as soon as the 3rd world starts being able to make them cheaply.
Any young tradespeople: form a coop and buy your bosses business. Better to be a 10% owner than 0%.
I would expect those same PE companies to lobby for legislation to make it harder for new start up competitors to start.
We are stupid if we let this happen.
Another example of the previous generation pulling up the ladder once they've reached the top. Sell the business to Private Equity (who will squeeze both employees and customers), flip everyone the bird, and parachute off to Florida to suck down Pina Coladas for the rest of your life.
They'll be fine with selling for much less to a "worthy" buyer though, such as a private equity firm.
And when was that? Because that's how it used to be, a business would go to the children or a child of the owner, or go to the employees. But that trend has changed and that's why we're reading this article. More small/medium business owners send their kids to study for different careers, and the relationship between owners and employees aren't the same as they might have been in the past. The owner generally feel a lot of resentment towards his employees because they are mere workers and not as successful as him, and partly because their salaries are an expense that he doesn't feel it is fair that he has to pay. The current generation of old people are quite different from previous.
But the heart of this is that somehow we brainwashed kids into thinking that they had to be "scientists" or "executives" if they wanted a fulfilling life and a comfortable salary and that just isn't true. If you're unable to find a 'tech job' consider learning how to hang drywall or wire up an outlet and overhead light. There is both work that can be done right now that needs those skills and it can be more rewarding than writing some dark pattern web site that helps a schmuck trick seniors out their money. /endrant
I had a very memorable experience at Intel when I came to the Bay Area just as the "semiconductor recession" hit. A friend of mine there was a process engineer and getting laid off. He was super depressed and wailing about how there were no jobs for "people like him" any more and how he was going to end up homeless. Two weeks into his job search I asked him, "Why do you have to have a process engineering job?" and he said it was what he studied for, what he knew, so he felt the only thing he was qualified for. We talked about it some more and I suggested he had lots of skills that were transferable to lots of jobs. He spent the next 6 months as a math coach for AP calculus students and then got a job at an early ISP as an installer. He prospered in that job and from then on 'job flexibility' was more of his mantra than 'I'm a <can do this one thing> person.'
So my advice to people in tech with Google and Meta on their CV who are struggling to find employment again is to ask themselves if they are defining themselves by the job or by what they can do? I find asking them if they have considered the trades has two positive effects, one it pulls them waaaay outside their self defined box, and it gets them to actually think about how they define themselves.
- Well-defined career path.
- High pay as you keep going ahead.
- Union pay and benefits. Incredible stability. Incredible healthcare.
- No outsourcing.
- Lots of paid leave. None of that unlimited PTO scam.
- Lot of camaraderie. None of the corporate nonsense where execs take it all at the expense of people.
- Opportunity to start your own business at a certain point.
- No large student loan to get started.
While not all kids articulate all these points well, but they can tell how their seniors in college are grinding too much for little return - while trades people are working hard, taking vacations, raising families - and buying homes.
The average tradesperson in a HCOL is a millionaire by age 40 simply because they could buy a house earlier in their lives. And they are able to start families and live a very stable life. Kids are picking up on this.
- competition from non-Union labor
- broken body by 50
- fewer jobs than programming (there are multiple times as many programming jobs than plumbing, for instance)
- working conditions (no office work, expect hot/cold environments potentially far away from family)
Very little. Because non-union workers join the union as soon as they see the benefits.
> broken body by 50
As opposed to broken minds by 50 for toxic corporate jobs.
> fewer jobs than programming (there are multiple times as many programming jobs than plumbing, for instance)
This is true. But that's because software development is considered one large blob while trades is broken into HVAC, plumbing, electrical etc.
> working conditions (no office work, expect hot/cold environments potentially far away from family)
And yet, they can pick and choose their work for the most part. No badging in for 5 day RTO BS.
This isn't true and sounds like union propaganda. It's very easy to find non-union trade workers in big cities, even very liberal ones that are supportive of unions.
>As opposed to broken minds by 50 for toxic corporate jobs.
People don't have broken minds from corporate jobs. Physical damage from labor is real and extremely common. Every tradesman 40+ will tell you this. People retiring from corporate jobs do not consistently warn people that your mind will be broken.
>And yet, they can pick and choose their work for the most part. No badging in for 5 day RTO BS.
Are you joking? RTO isn't a thing because the trades were never allowed to work from home in the first place.
I would say that there's good/bad from both sides of the coin. It's a personal choice and not everyone is the same.
I would just like to say I wholeheartedly disagree.
A LOT of the much older people I know are struggling really, really bad. I'm talking conspiracies, abject misery, downright delusion. The trouble with "broken minds" is that you can't see it. If you could, your mind wouldn't be broken!
Every blue collar worker I know would counter that with "AI". i.e, "at least my industry doesn't shoot itself in the foot"
I am related to a journeyman electrician and journeyman welder.
They would give it up to work remote in a second.
This is a pretty bold claim that I'd like to dig into. Do you have a reference or source for this? What HCOL are you referring to?
I'm quite interested in this whole topic of earnings and wealth in the trades. I am quite skeptical that any non-business-owner trades person is going to have a significant net worth (or earnings) above the general average locally, but maybe you can point me at a specific HCOL where the trades are more heavily unionized or something that would tell a more interesting story.
Remember that BLS data leans on the lower side. BLS data for software also leans lower.
The reason they are millionaires by age 40 is because of the value of their houses. They bought early in life.
If we dig into the BLS numbers for the people doing the work in what HN tends to talk about as trade workers:
Plumber - median $61,550 per year [1]
HVAC tech - median $57,300 per year [2]
Electrician - median $61,590 per year [3]
Framer(Carpenter) - median $56,350 per year [4]
Bricklayer(Mason) - median $53,010 per year[5]
Software engineer - median $130,160 per year [6]
It isn't immediately obvious to me what data source could give us a good answer to net worth by age for any of these careers. That is why I asked if you had a reference for it. It's even murkier when looking for data on when someone in the trades buys a house on average.
My intuition (and I definitely don't mind being proved wrong) is that high earning, high-ish net worth trade workers is a story we want very much want to be true. But I just don't think it is, especially if we are talking about the average case.
[1] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/plumbers-pipefitters-and-steamfitters.htm
[2] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/installation-maintenance-and-repair/heating-air-conditioning-and-refrigeration-mechanics-and-installers.htm
[3] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/electricians.htm
[4] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/carpenters.htm
[5] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/brickmasons-blockmasons-and-stonemasons.htm
[6] https://www.bls.gov/ooh/computer-and-information-technology/software-developers.htmFor example - master electrician vs journeyman electrician are very different - journeyman require supervision (ie are not allowed to work without it), master's don't.
(I actually wonder if "first line supervisors ..." above includes master electricians, since they are required to supervise journeyman).
And they is from the cheaper companies that don’t advertise on the radio!
So he bid an outrageous amount. If you had said yes, he covers his overhead. If you reject it, he does something more profitable with his time.
Not to mention there's the possible, "I don't like you," fee.
Nor does it entail the same amount of liability in case something goes wrong. The failure mode for running a cable is...there's no cable connecting the 2 points.
The other issue was in most jurisdictions homeowners get exceptions on licensure requirements for small jobs done in their own home, a pro has to cover this cost. Also I’m guessing you didn’t need to pull a permit for the low voltage line, very possible one was not required but not necessarily.
In my state, a plumbing license from the state costs $139 and lasts three years. That's not exactly onerous.
> Also I’m guessing you didn’t need to pull a permit for the low voltage line, very possible one was not required but not necessarily.
I'm yet to meet a contractor who doesn't pass permitting costs on to the customer.
Thermostat: your system isn't wired for two stage.
Me: ?!?
Look under thermostat, nope, previous wiring. Call installer company (one of the biggest in the area). "We'll come out and have a look tomorrow." They do, and give me a similar quote, maybe $500ish.
Uh, no. I paid for the installation of a two stage system. That installation should include the wiring to run the system as a two stage system.
Another call and it was no charge, but I shouldn't have had to make either call.
And then of course, being the "cynic" I am, I wonder how many people with this company that have brand new two stage systems happily running on single stage.
This is after I was told if I waited for the off-season, there was a 15% discount. But the AC died at the start of summer, so I said, I'll take it ASAP. I made a down payment, duly waited... and then was told - the night before the install - that they wouldn't be there, because they had no stock of the air conditioner (what, you just discovered that now?). No big deal, my furnace was working fine. I'll wait. Six-eight months. Which, fine, it got installed before next summer. But if I'd known that you had no supply, and were never going to be able to honor the installation window, I'd have opted for the "off-season" install.
High-efficiency, dual stage furnace. There were cheaper options, but I didn't want the cheapest option.
I fixed it myself on two different occasions when I'd woken up to a super-cold house in the middle of the night, with both fixes relating to condensation building up where it shouldn't. (One of these was a manufacturing fault that was corrected by slightly shortening a rubber hose, and the other was an installation fault relating to the drain plumbing.)
Sure, I could have called the next day and maybe they'd have shown up eventually to fix it (maybe for "free"), but meh: I got it sorted, my fixes were cromulent and safe, and I had a warm house sooner instead of later. The installation manual contained enough theory of operation that it wasn't too bad for me to get a solid understanding of the concepts at play and to proceed with good confidence.
It was a scorching hot day in July before they showed up to charge the aircon so that it could be used, and they never did come back to set it up for two-stage operation despite promising to do so (so I paid extra for nothing).
4/10, at least they managed to graft on the new duct work with good transitions and reasonable tightness, and it was somehow reasonably well-balanced by default.
(I'd have configured the dual-stage bits myself, too, but I didn't have the right tools. It's been a rather long ago now, but IIRC I needed two digital thermometers to make sure the heat rise was correct and a manometer to correctly set the first-stage blower speed. Buying these tools would have been cheaper than paying for a service call with another company and was kind of a no-brainer to me, but another flood came by before I had the chance and forever changed our perspective on living in that location.)
Lots of contrast between doctors and similar who spent all their income on expensive houses, cars, club memberships etc and people who owned blue collar businesses who bought in similar/more income but lived modestly.
Here in Norway, the owners of such shops have always been "asset rich", because they pretty much own every asset in their company. That means vehicles, tools, shop, parts and products inventory, and what have you.
Prior to enrolling college, I was an (electrician) apprentice. I ditched that for a degree in electrical engineering. During college I took on a variety of part time jobs to support myself - a bunch of them were temp trade jobs. Roofing, construction, and what have you.
I'll tell you this though: I've never, ever met a shop owner that didn't work from 7 in the morning to 9 in the evening, minimum 6 days a week.
Some of these guys practically grew up in their fathers shop, and have been ingrained with such a hardcore work ethic, that work is all they know. They could liquidate or sell their shop, and retire - but I've yet to meet anyone that does that. I've seen more shop owners die before they retire, due to the lifestyle choices around this kind of work. And those that "retire" will anyway keep hanging around the shop.
This usually leads to what we just called "voluntary involuntary" overtime. Basically the shop owners will assume that everyone loves work as much as them, and will assume everyone wants to work overtime 6 hours a day.
- I think the keyword here in the title is "entrepreneur", not "plumbers & HVAC"
Same as anything else, the real money is in getting a slice of the value of a bunch of other people’s labor. A tradesman who’s quite good at their trade, but no good at management or sales, has a much lower cap on earnings because this route’s not available.
Basically means you're about to be hit with a $500-5000 bill for what is likely a $50 part + 30 mins labour.
Gross margins don't grow, but they are monsterous.
There are few things I like less than PE acquiring home services. Now instead of being served by qualified person for a reasonable price they send you an imbecile and charge few times as much. Spoken from a personal experience.
FUCK YOU PE.
I’m being partially sarcastic, but partially honest in that tech workers are often ludicrously blind to how good they have it.
A lot of people just aren’t ready for that kind of work.
I have little respect for when people complain that just coming into an office will affect their mental health outcomes.
Not quite the same level of hands on, but I spent some time working in chemical plants.
The safety training includes “you will die” many times. What do you do if you hear an alarm? What do you do if a cloud of ammonia comes your way? Where are the escape bags? Which way does the wind sock show the wind blowing?
Stories about people being shredded, falling, poisoned, dying, etc.
Reverting to snapshot when a maintenance goes poorly is just not the same kind of stressful.
Quick edit: I do, however, find office life stressful. I’ve never been happier overall than when working from home. Those stresses are real too, but different.
I have shovelled many tons of chicken shit. I have also felt the stress of my screw-up jeopardizing a multi-million dollar contract the company depends on.
There are many many advantages to a tech job. But shovelling chicken shit is better for your mental health.
I’m talking about people offended just by needing to show up and function in a normal office.
If someone is offering me $120K; I’ll physically show up in a suit if you want.
I guess the workers doing the work and creating the wealth are lucky that Steve Jobs, Eric Schmidt etc. illegally conspired to do wage-fixing so that they and the heirs they work for could get more of the wealth that others created.
The real barrier is it's a hard job, and other work is more tempting for a lot of folks.
Tech for trades either looks like a centralized dispatch service that takes 10-30% of the fees and results in a new person showing up for every job (no thanks! Once I find a plumber I like, for non emergency use, I prefer to work with the same one) or maybe something per company that helps organize appointments, scheduling, billing, and notifications about arrival times. This may reduce / eliminate office managers / answering services for busy firms, and could help improve communications for owners that have no employees; but I think it already exists.