Comment by codelikeawolf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by codelikeawolf | Hacker News Reader

I feel like shoddy construction/craftsmanship isn't limited to new home construction. My wife and I just wrapped up a 6 month renovation of a >100 year old house. I used to work in industrial maintenance, so I knew how to do a lot of stuff already (electric, natural gas lines, drain lines, etc.) We had to farm out a couple of jobs to contractors we didn't have time to do ourselves. With the exception of one guy, they all did horrible work. I actually had to redo some of the work the plumber did. I was so disheartened with the quality that I decided I was going to just do everything myself from now on. I realized even if I read a book about how to do it and watched a few YouTube videos, I could do better.

I really don't think it's a skill issue, because these people knew what they were doing. It just feels like nobody gives a sh*t. If I bend a piece of conduit that's in a visible part of my basement and it's crooked or off, I'll take it down and re-bend it. If I install a piece of base trim and there's a huge gap between pieces, I'll cut a new piece. There's no attention to detail, and I am _willing to pay extra_ for that. Charge me for the extra conduit or base trim.

I've actually entertained the idea of starting my own electrical contractor company and hiring/training ex-software engineers. I feel like we as a profession generally don't like sloppiness and most of us are nitpicky enough (myself included) to produce quality work. I can't be the only one out there that's happy to pay a little extra if they know they're not getting garbage.

> I can't be the only one out there that's happy to pay a little extra if they know they're not getting garbage.

Not the only one, but there is just not a large market for it. And it likely would not be a “little” extra either.

I’ve tried to find local contractors who will just take pride in their work and get it done right (or overkill I suppose by my standards) the first time. Even old mainstays that are regularly double the cost of everyone else have been slipping lately. Companies I used to single bid for jobs knowing I was overpaying but didn’t care since I didn’t have to come behind them to audit or fix anything. They have all devolved.

There is a market at the very high end for ultra wealthy folks at something like 4-8x regular contractor rates. I’ve seen a few friends engage such folks. Most of that is in overpaying for a GC to manage their network of above average contractors and have the budget to make things right if one messes up.

Such companies seem to have zero interest in jobs not in the low 7 figures.

I would pay at least double “market” rate if I could find an electric contractor willing to take on my “crazy” home solar and battery backup project. The problem is the market for people willing to overpay for commercial quality work that will never have a dream of paying their costs back in solar savings is effectively zero. So goes for everything these days.

That said I just had my floors refinished and the contractors we lucked into finding for that 2 week job went above and beyond even my level of attention to detail. They were not any more expensive than competing bids. So who knows. It’s a crapshoot.

> That said I just had my floors refinished and the contractors we lucked into finding for that 2 week job went above and beyond even my level of attention to detail.

It's funny you mention this, because I also have generally had good luck with flooring contractors.

> I’ve tried to find local contractors who will just take pride in their work and get it done right (or overkill I suppose by my standards) the first time. Even old mainstays that are regularly double the cost of everyone else have been slipping lately. Companies I used to single bid for jobs knowing I was overpaying but didn’t care since I didn’t have to come behind them to audit or fix anything. They have all devolved.

You nailed it. I think most of the higher bid folks these days are deliberately quoting an inflated price because they either don't want to do the job or are trying to charge commercial rates. I'm sure the commercial jobs are much more lucrative and you won't get people complaining about a crooked pipe. They generally don't care, as long as everything works

Its a race to the bottom in a lot of trade jobs and why a lot of people who are skilled and attention detailed left trades if they can't get into a union. It is hard to compete doing a good job when they guys who do a crappy job out number them and will bid on the same jobs making the same claims that they are skilled and good. But only after the money is spent do people find out whether the guy they hired can back those claims up. And even if they do more have money to fix it later with a different guy, the botch job made the fix even harder and they usually have less money to spend to fix it.

Yeah this is a totally fair point. I suppose it's indicative of a greater trend I've been noticing as the years have gone by: standards have lowered because the highest quality work has become prohibitively expensive. But the thing that bothers me with the trades is that it doesn't actually _cost_ that much more to do a better job. I don't really know what the solution is, because it seems like this is societal. When I was an industrial electrician, the quality of my work was unaffected by my hourly rate. I took pride in what I did, I wanted to be good at it, and I strived for quality because it made me feel good to do a good job. I still feel that way about what I do. I guess I'm a little bummed out that it's hard to find people like that, especially since I'm willing to compensate them appropriately.

It is like consulting/offshoring business: one competent person, with 10 underlings who can add 80 billable hours a day. That's what happened to trades too: one really competent with many underlings.

> I feel like we as a profession generally don't like sloppiness

Thanks for that, needed a deep guttural laugh.

He was referring to software engineers, not vibe coders.

I was speaking from my own experience. I feel like we are generally required to _accept_ sloppiness given certain circumstances, but I have never worked with an engineer that actually _likes_ sloppiness. How cool would it be if you were given the freedom to do your highest quality work?

I’ve renovated many parts of my house myself. I hired out 1 time to a contractor and regretted doing so. Similar to your sentiment, I feel contractors don’t have the same care as I do. I’ve come to the realization that no one else will put in the same care as I would nor care about the small details as I would.

Also similar to you, I feel I could become a licensed electrician and start that as my fallback career.

If you ever decide to switch careers, please reach out! We're living in weird times and it's nice to know there's other folks out there exploring similar options.

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