Ask HN: Should I be a plumber? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Should I be a plumber?

72 pointshippich92 comments

This bothered me for awhile. I consider myself pretty good software architect, with significant abstract thinking abilities. In the same time I am handy enough to fix my cars/bike, make new copper/pvc/whatever piping at home, I can easily mount dry board and figure out how to make a nice texture on the wall. I can replace a bathtub, install gas water heater, read codes to find what are local requirements are, etc.

In my opinion all this stuff I do with hands is way easier than trying to come up with good thought through software/hardware/network system. I understand, that I am sorta "IT plumber" too, but I feel like my skills set is out of reach of most plumbers/handymen out there.

Or put it simply - I can do basic plumbing and I can code, plumbers out there can do plumbing, but have hard time with craigslist.

So... My concern is that when I am asking $100-$125 / hr only very few clients are OK with that (they usually either pass this cost on their client or get way more value out of my work.) On top of this I constantly get "Impostor Syndrome". On the other hand plumber, who need just a bit of common sense and practice (and honesty to get nice feedbacks) charges $100+ an hour without even thinking twice, and everyone pays...

I constantly see in Craigslist's Service section maid service for $25+/hr (if they provide their supplies - it is extra), Handyman charging $50+/hr for simple things like fixing drywall hole. Plumber's help - from $75/hr (it is good deal)

Why is that? Why becoming a plumber actually can be more profitable than trying to solve way harder problems? Either all IT professionals are heavily underpaid, or their work simply brings less value somehow?

Sorry for this rant, but this bothers me for quite a while. Were I grew up plumbing for for people who did not have enough will to pursue college degree. And here in US they somehow charge often more than I can do.

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Plumbing makes good money mostly because people don't want to deal with the sewage side of things and because it tends to ruin your body. Clean work (water lines and such) is easy enough and easy to check, especially with the new generation of water lines. Gas lines come with a lot more responsibilities (and in many places certification requirements), sewage is just simply dirty work. It's also very hard work, crawlspaces are not named aptly, you can't really crawl there. And after a day in a crawlsuit you'll just love sitting behind your desk. There is no such thing as easier money than IT money. Figure a decade or so as a plumber will teach you more about appreciating the ability to do IT work than anything else will ever do. Maybe a few months of doing it every day will suffice.

Also, get professional liability insurance and don't touch any gas lines until you (a) know what you're doing and (b) have the required papers (if that's applicable where you live).

That's not stuff to mess around with if you are not 100% sure how to do it right. (you'll need pressure test gear and such to do this properly)

I can definitely agree with your point about no such thing as easier money than IT money.

Prior to working in programming (still in college, but I've done a few internships) I worked restaurant jobs--prep cook, dishwasher, busboy, etc. I'd come home from those jobs and not want to do anything for the rest of the day. It was completely mentally and physically exhausting.

Now I'm working for a software company and get to sit in a chair 8 hours a day and take breaks whenever I feel like it. When I worked at restaurants my managers would be all over me if I wasn't moving around and doing something.

Working in software I'm basically paid to do what I would have done in my free time. I find that pretty remarkable.

This means it is what you are good at. If it would be that easy for anyone, everyone would try to be in software development and salaries would plummet. Instead I have many friends whom I tried to direct into software development direction, but after few evenings they would throw it all away saying it is impossible for them to get it.

Unless I'm mistaken, there are also licensing requirements that have to be met to do plumbing professionally. The OP would need to look into those before trying to take work on their own.

My brother-in-law is a plumber, and he's on his way to doing as well as any of us rank-and-file tech guys. The hard part is he's had to go through indentured servitude (ahem "an apprenticeship") of several years, the risks of getting injured, and the risks of being furloughed / laid off the moment there is a downturn in work. As I've learned through him, there are actually a lot of different sub-fields in plumbing too - everything from maintenance and installation on industrial dishwashers to major construction projects.

He's barely 30 but already his body is wearing down from carrying hundreds of pounds of pipe up flights of stairs. He's been laid off twice - and guys that have been in the field longer have told him that he's had it good. I have used the residential side of the company he works for - and they charge the equivalent of $250 / hour.

So, like all professions it has its pros and cons. As a freelance developer though, I'd agree with your synopsis - once you get outside a few tech geographies and particular companies, the pay scale for tech work drops off quickly, as does the excitement of the work. So then money is less the determining factor than the work itself and/or the lifestyle. Do you like sitting in an office or do you want to be on the road going to job sites and people's homes? Do you want to use your body as a machine or your mind? What level of risk of layoff and career competition do you want? There's no passive income in plumbing unless you build a company and sit on top.

See this, boys and girls? This is why people think IT folks are arrogant.

> In my opinion all this stuff I do with hands is way easier than trying to come up with good thought through software/hardware/network system.

> Why is that? Why becoming a plumber actually can be more profitable than trying to solve way harder problems?

Your entire premise of this post seems to be "I can glue two PVC pipes together, therefore I can do what a plumber does!"

So let's consider replacing a water heater, which you mention you can do.

Did you get a permit to put it in? What did you do with the old heater? How much money did you spend on the tools to put it in? Are you super duper sure that you installed it properly and to code? And when you go to sell your house can you prove it, or are you just gonna hope the buyer's home inspector doesn't ask too many questions?

And here's the big one: when you add up all money you spent getting the permits, the fees associated with taking the old one to the dump, the materials, etc. - be sure to also figure out how many hours you spent, multiply by your hourly rate, and subtract.

Gluing two pipes together doesn't make you a plumber. Putting a band-aid on your finger doesn't make you a doctor. Banging up a website in Frontpage doesn't make you a programmer.

He'll know if it was up to code if the place ever burns down and nobody finds fault with the installation. Note that insurance companies just love to find reasons not to pay out and if your installations was crap and your unlicensed work was the cause of the fire then you're in very hot (cold?) water.

That's why water and sewage are less of a problem, they can still cause a crapload (hehe) of damage but the chances of injury or death of others is much less than when working with gas. Especially in places like apartment buildings.

> And here's the big one: when you add up all money you spent getting the permits, the fees associated with taking the old one to the dump, the materials, etc. - be sure to also figure out how many hours you spent, multiply by your hourly rate, and subtract.

I am not aware of any trades that do not charge for permits, materials, and disposal fees on top of their hourly rate. The one time I actually called a plumber, the $150/hr was straight labor.

That said, I agree with the gist of your comment. People often underestimate how difficult it is to do things after only working with the simple cases or because they don't understand what is involved in doing something properly.

Sorry, when I reread this sentence it didn't track well.

The point I was trying to make was around the opportunity cost of doing your own work. That's incredibly important for a freelancer to consider.

For example it'd probably take me 3 hours to install a toilet: driving to the home improvement store, buying the toilet, driving back, hauling it in, cursing at the wax seal...

It'd be cheaper for me to pay a plumber to bring a toilet over and spend 15 minutes (rounded up to an hour) installing it, because those 3 hours can get billed.

Why when I ask someone to help with simple case they still charge me like they are working on high pressure gas pipe?

Professionals and trades generally charge a consistent labor rate, regardless of the specific tasks. Adjusting the rate based on the specific tasks would be very complicated, impractical, and possibly open these people up to legal challenges about what work should be billed at.

Yeah, this is really confusing to me. When I freelance I charge a fixed hourly rate no matter if I'm doing a 30 second site that's all Django scaffolding or something much more difficult.

I also charge by the hour - so I'd take 1000 of those 30 second Django sites any day of the week :-) Heck, some good freelancers have a minimum engagement period in the days.

For a tradesperson this is even more imperative: it's far easier for me to switch from one project to another; our plumber has to load their tools and drive to the next job site. This means the plumber is always going to charge a fixed rate or risk losing money because they took the "$35 unclog the sink" job over the "$220 'the poop is everywhere'" job.

When I do work - I explain to my client that there is no need for my service "to install something" and refer them to less experienced devs who does major work and client invites me to fix something specific, or architect things or something like that. End result - less time billed and more cost effective work.

In the same time other developer can learn stuff and gradually progresses to more advanced level.

Contrast this to any handyman or plumber - they always seems to charge $50+/hr and $75+/hr no matter how simple task is at hands. And I bet if I had to deal with serious stuff, this rate would only go up. I.e. what they do is comparable to installing wordpress for $10/hr work. This is my problem.

Where I live I can do my own installation of water heater, and yes, I had it inspected and i spoke with city inspectors on specific requirements (there were code changes and some additions had to be installed)

Now back to my concern: 1) Plumbers never include inspection into their price, this is always on top of their work 2) I needed to install faucet - it is SUPER simple with today tools available (and yes, I bought these, just because I guess I like to collect tools) And plumbers still ask for $75/hr+

And I talk not about just plumbers, by in general "handy work". plumbers topic I see a bit tricky. Try to bring same argument with just people putting tiles on the wall or laying laminate floor.

>Try to bring same argument with just people [...] laying laminate floor.

Sure, lets. But before we do, let's see what the average pay is for a floor layer [1]: the median annual wage is 35k.

Floor layers aren't professional laborers - and they sure as hell aren't paid like they are!

How about a tile setter? That requires some more skill, right? 37k[2].

So what's your argument again?

[1]: http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes472042.htm [2]: http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes472044.htm

owenmarshall, first - i see a lot of people hired to do work on computers for less then 37k. So 37k for straightforward work - is not that bad. second - last time i hired someone to redo laminate floor they charged for work only ~1400. It was two guys spent two days (less than 8 hours total each day) working not exceptionally in hurry since it is fixed rate project I guess. Doing math it turns out to $43/hr. They are just couple guys who barely speak english. And this was the BEST price. "Companies" were charging 2x-3x for similar amount of work. Charging $43/hr in software freelancing is HARD and you have to justify this price. And no, these guys used help of someone else to post ad on craigslist because computers are hard.

Did you hire those two guys? Or did you hire someone else that paid for tools, carried the insurance, and then hired two cheap day laborers for minimum wage and said "go lay this floor"?

Most of the time it's the former. But if you really paid that much, maybe you're not that good at bargaining?

But let's stop talking about plumbers and tile setters and get to what's really bugging you.

> i see a lot of people hired to do work on computers for less then 37k

> Charging $43/hr in software freelancing is HARD

> (from your original comment) "they somehow charge often more than I can do."

I'm gonna speak frankly here: you're either seriously overestimating your skills as a developer (and getting upset that people won't hire you) or you've managed to seriously undervalue your own work. If I had to guess, I'd guess it's the latter.

I charge well over $43 an hour for actual freelancing - 1099-MISC, pay my own insurance, etc. Even in cases where I take a side gig while already having a job I typically charge more. I think I started around $45 an hour, and that was with a very limited skill set years ago.

Far too many people undershoot the market rate and end up working for less than they should. The problem also is that when you undershoot the market rate you end up attracting clients that don't appreciate what you do and why it's hard, further depressing your pay.

Here's what you should do: take whatever your hourly was when you last freelanced and multiply it by three. See what happens.

(I am not charging $43, but I have friend who had hard time explaining why he is charging $27 for working on the Drupal project, eventually they end up not working together)

Basically, you answered my original question with "You underestimate value of work you do." Thanks for you opinion :)

I'm not gonna write my life story on hn, but I have the exact opposite experience as you. I grew up in a blue collar family. No real white collar mentors or apparent options in that world. So I followed my dad into the trades. I spent my summers in high school as a plumber (apprentice) and became a full-time plumber after high school, eschewing college even though I was accepted to a number of good schools.

After a number of post-high school years of being a plumber it quickly became obvious what type of life this would lead to for me. In particular, the physical toll. You are often carrying heavy equipment or supplies up or down stairs or ladders. You spend your entire day working with sharp edges, saws, and electricity. Accidents occur all the time and any of them can be debilitating.

You also have to consider the risk of the impairment of others and what damage it may cause you. Let's say a co-worker in IT gets drunk at lunch and comes back to work. He may accidentally drop a table or even a database. That sucks for sure, but in the grand scheme of things, your life and ability to continue working aren't impacted. But consider being on a job site with others and the electrician gets drunk at lunch. He could accidently miswire something that could end up with a severe injury to you or someone else. The risks from the mistakes of others upon yourself is much larger in the trades.

There are lot of things that seem similar. New development is akin to new construction. Both have maintenance and service. But IT is essentially a virtual environment. The data is important to many people and can even have lives depending on it. But in the trades, it is a completely physical environment. There is no undo. There is no restore from backup. Mistakes can and do result in physical injury and death. It is the difference between coming home at the end of the day sulking that you had to do some user support and coming home minus a few fingers because you or someone else sneezed at the wrong time.

My dad is retired now, not by choice. He was on a rooftop holding an air conditioner panel. A gust of wind kicked up and he had the choice of either letting the panel blow off the top of the building onto others below or hold onto it. He held onto it. In the process, destroying his back. He was never the same. That doesn't happen in IT.

Plumbers on craigslist are, for the most part, doing lots of little 1-2 hour jobs. That means that there is likely lots of potential empty space in their calendar. They're probably lucky if they pull 20 jobs a week, so the rate has to go up to make a living.

IT work like you're talking about is probably going to be minimum of two weeks at 40-50 hours a week, so you probably have to pull 2-3 jobs a month. So the rate you have to charge to make a living, and the expectations of people hiring goes down as well.

Its the same effect as why I am paid $35/hr for an IT job (plus benefits, so lets say $45/hr) for a regular job, but wen we bring people in for contract work, we never pay less than $125/hr.

The higher rated plumbers and electricians (on Yelp) see to be quite busy. This one particular electrician said he had a 3 week lead time before he could work on our project. I think if you are good and treat your customers well, you will have unlimited business as a plumber or electrician.

Yup. Friend of mine started his own plumbing business after working in the industry for decades. He's made more money with just himself and a few employees than he can probably shake a stick at.

It depends on the area. In the Denver area most plumbers and electricians I've contacted are scheduled out a month or more and some don't even bother returning phone calls. This is a stark comparison to where I used to live in central MN - I was actually able to talk a plumber into reducing his hourly rate for same-day service.

When I was doing freelancing I was doing $75/hr-$100/hr and split my time sheet based on 15 minutes to make sure person do not get overcharged and I will do just hard part of the project and the rest could be done by less experienced developers.

Thought 1: I love hearing that good plumbers are getting paid well. There is such a need for reliable, professional just-solve-my-problem-with-service tradesmen in America. In a just economy, the makers and doers (like plumbers) are well paid and BS jobs (http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/) are hard to find.

Thought 2: You should start taking plumbing jobs, and after 6 months do a big writeup / post that tells the story ("How I raised my rates by leaving software development for plumbing"). I think a lot of people love to read about it. And possibly it could lead to more lucrative software work if that's what you are really looking for.

I worked as an assistant plumber one summer during college. I needed a job and my friend knew a guy.

It sucked. It was unexpectedly back-breaking work. (Granted this was for mostly new construction and not just fixing problems.) It was hot, and often smelled like urine since roofers would piss in the sump hole of unfinished units. The guy I worked for seemed to hate life and looked like a catcher's mitt from being out in the sun so much.

Though I enjoyed the physical challenge, that summer I really learned the value of getting an education. That said, if you hate IT, I'd suggest trying a few different things before jumping headlong into a craft you're not entirely sure about.

What would happen if this question was inverted?

"""

I consider myself a pretty good plumber, with concrete manipulation abilities. In the same time, I'm handy enough to setup my own website in HTML, style it in CSS, and even animate stuff on my static site using jQuery.

...

In my opinion, all this javascript and css stuff is way easier than septic systems or repairing frozen/busted pipes in a turn of the century home.

...

I constantly see craigslist postings for web developers and entry QA positions at $20/hr...

"""

I'm not trying to be excessively snarky, I'm just trying to point out that our society is at the point where different services have reached different natural values. They're typically based on your standard economic factors like how saturated a market is with available employees, how much experience employees bring to the table, and how much they have determined to charge based on competition.

Alternatively, you can just go with Betteridge's law of headlines. :-)

This definitely can be inverted for me or you (if you are good with manual work, not sure if this applies to all engineers)

But ask you handyman joe or plumber you meet when fixing toilet how to make dropdown with jquery and see where it go. My point is that most software engineers can fix leaking pipe (some might decide not to deal with it, but still can do it,) while plumber/handyman CAN NOT deal with typical IT problem even after spending couple evening with youtube. God, I had trouble explaining to guys laying laminate floor about how they can save money by opening checking account and depositing check there instead of going to one of these "check cashing" stores.

Part of the problem with billing as a software engineer is that our work is easily offshored. You can't hire an offshore plumber for $5/hr and if you could, I'm sure plumbers would get a lot more people upset at them charging $100/hr.

Also, I don't think it's fair to plumbers, mechanics, electricians, etc. to say their jobs are a lot easier than programmers. It all depends on the project. Setting up a Wordpress site is probably comparable to installing a new exhaust. And the industrial electrician rewiring a factory is probably comparable to the software engineer setting up a new SaaS site.

Installing wordpress is comparable to installing exhaust to you (although I don't think you can charge even maid's rate for that.) but ask car mechanic to install wordpress and tell me what you hear in return.

I think that's over simplifying it. People specialize. Ask me to make a bagel from scratch and I doubt I could. But those cooks probably get minimum wage.

This is all about competition from offshore work which drives programming rates down and makes customers unwilling to pay very much. The abundance of offshore Wordpress shops is why it's not very well paying work.

First, I don't know if this is really HN material, but that being said, plumbers get paid what they do because they deal with ridiculously nasty stuff, and they have to be on call 24/7 (or go out of business). They also need decent people skills. And insurance ($$$).

And they need to get really dirty sometimes, and the people who live with them have to be OK with that (a shower will only get you so far; there are mental barriers to having sex with someone who just had their arm elbow deep in a nice blend of rancid oil, mold, and shit).

If all that is OK with you, go for it.

It's HN material because it deals with the kind of life decisions IT people make every day, based around money and satisfaction of work and so on.

Besides that, there is almost not such a thing as "HN material." Within a super broad range, anything goes so long as it's interesting to the community.

Plumbers are awesome and I have a great regard for them. When I was looking at buying a house, we had an inspection done. The home inspector found water in the crawlspace and he made excuses about why he couldn't go down there to make a determination of the cause. We called up a plumber and they came for a free estimate. The guy wore a disposable coverall, went down into the water and found the source of the problem. The repair costs would have been too much so we canceled our offer. Next house we did buy however, we took an opportunity to use the same plumbers for any improvement work done.

> they have to be on call 24/7 (or go out of business)

This probably depends on who you work for. Local plumbers service I used, which basically distributes work among its workers is available 8am-8pm only and still charges the same as everyone else. Waiting time 1-2 days for callout.

I am talking about laying down new PVC pipes stuff. And no - I have to wait for plumber to come over to give me an estimate. I am not talking about ones who are on 24/7 calls and dealing with nasty stuff.

Being picky is not going to get you very far.

Someone lists themselves as a plumber, they'll be called for whatever plumbing job is available. If you do the dirty jobs they'll hire you for the nice jobs too. If you refuse the dirty jobs then those plumbers that do do the dirty jobs will will end up running off with your potential customers. Especially in the early years you won't be having too much work that you can afford to send away the jobs (and thus the customers) that you don't want.

You want to build up a reputation that says you are a good plumber, not a picky plumber that doesn't want to get his hands dirty. (In fact, that's one of the reasons plumbers can charge what they do.)

edit: this comment is a nice example of what I mean: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8120404

The reason why poster from this comment you referred called same plumber - because they did dirty work for free. If they would charge $250/hr - $350/hr - it could turn differently (could, not necessary would)

They got the job because they came, showed they had what it takes to get the job done and then took their lumps because they said their estimate was free (so they stood by their word). That's the start of a fruitful business relationship which you can see for yourself worked out well for them.

If they would have charged for their estimate then the job would have probably gone to another plumber. Free estimates are fairly standard for plumbers and will reduce your profit margin, but it is a long term investment in the relationship.

I dunno. A plumber's overhead includes, tools, supplies, and what can be harder labor than the non-trivial work you've accomplished.

Until you are crawling in nasty crawl spaces replacing 4 inch drain lines or doing the more challenging work of replumbing in 100 year old walls with demanding clients warning you to not ruin their plaster and hexie tiles... I wouldn't discount the challenge, risks, and physical difficulty that plumbers face. They have a standard rate which is higher margin for putting a new wax seal in your toilet bowl. but digging long trenches to fix busted main drain lines to the street is far worse than grabbing a coffee on the way to the Herman Miller Aeron.

Depending on where you are, there's also the apprenticeship/licensing process and dealing with the range of niche plumbing areas. There are plenty of basic plumbers, so high competition (you don't just get 40hr/wk starting up). If you get into commercial, then you deal with fairly complex issues and entrenched rackets for middle management to ensure that they get paid more than you.

Do you want to be hands on the pipes or a supervisor? Hands on pipes? You better be tough, never get sick, and ready to deal with a lot of shit - literally. You better work.

I am a recovering software developer that had a terribly failed startup. We raised venture capital, had angel investors, and just totally blew it. I'm 29 at this point, was 27 then. I had to let go of a team of developers, maybe 3 of them, they had family, it was heartbreaking. I still talk to most of them. I went through a really dark period.

Few months later, we still hadn't raised any money to keep things going and I find out my wife and I are expecting. I basically say, 'Fuck it', I need a real job. So I apply anywhere that would even possibly want me, and I end up interviewing at a Mechanical Contractor as a Project Assistant. Just pushing paper for Plumbing and HVAC jobs.

Two years later, I'm running my own jobs, and working directly with union pipefitters and sheetmetal guys. Here's my advice.

Join the union in their apprentice program. You'll be paid well to start with - you definitely, definitely won't starve. You might not be making $150 per hour, but you might make $30 per hour all week long, plus the opportunity for overtime. It'll take a few years, but you'll end up becoming a Journeyman, and that means more like $40-$50 per hour, all week long, with overtime potential, incredible benefits, and more. Working for an established mechanical contractor will help you get more steady paychecks and if you're good, you'll end up becoming a foreman running larger jobs. The foreman that managed the last project I was on - it was a $2M job - made $65 per hour, plus opportunities for overtime and doubletime.

It's dirty work. You'll be so tired you won't have time for coding like you used to.

I consider myself a pretty good plumber with significant problem solving abilities. In the same time, I am able to learn how to use a computer and put together a WordPress site for my small business. I even learned enough CSS and HTML to embed some videos I did.

In my opinion, this computer stuff is way easier than dealing with customers in emergency situations, lugging heavy stuff everywhere, and dealing with the daily...

You see where I'm going.

If anything. Partner with an awesome plumber and do part-time plumbing work while helping create software that helps the plumber build a happy customer base and get out of being the labor plumber before her body is destroyed from all that hard work.

Think, online payment processing, estimate delivery/website, mobile app to take pictures of plumbing situations that can be married to estimates or remediation documentation, lead management, accept images from customers of their issues, etc.

Eventually, you will have built out a suite of tools and will be able to sell that to plumbers and/or customers. Add in reviews, etc. and you've got Angie's List on the run.

Plumbing can be hard work. Being on your back / knees for hours at a time day after will end up getting to you. Also, it sounds like your doing some of the more reasonably easy plumbing. Things are a bit more complex when you have to do things like figure out how to maximize water pressure after N different horrendous bend angles, etc. If you think of it in terms of software engineering, the plumbing you've probably done is probably through intermediate software work. You've set up some CRUD apps at this point (in the plumbing world). There's a reason plumbing is a trade and a craft...it can get very complex and the time they're charging to fix a trivial flush valve on a toilet could just as easily be spent on a commercial plumbing gig with some corporate client who is paying the plumber to set up every toilet in a small hotel (for example).

In addition to being physically hard work, you need to get out and go to the job site. That incurs overhead in the form of fewer billable hours per day. So if you're 30 minutes to/from a 1 hour job, your rate is effectively cut by 1/3.

I'll add that it's pretty comfy sitting on a soft chair in an air conditioned or heated office to work.

I ran straight into this when I was doing chemistry lab demonstrating last year. The job pays pretty well for what's asked of you...but since I wasn't actually at uni at the time, it meant I had about 1.5 hours of commute for a 2 hour lab period where I got paid. Which made the rate far more ordinary.

Still doing the same thing this coming semester, but since I'll be an undergrad and it'll run straight to classes, the value proposition is much better.

I expected this argument, but could not expand my post because of 2000 characters limit.

More often than not I do not need anything complex (like high pressure gas piping)

And ask you plumber to "plumb" CRUD app in a evening after watching couple youtube videos and try to plumb PVC piping and see what is easier.

I am not talking about commercial anything. I am talking about very simple household stuff. All this practice/license/etc arguments are not really valid since it takes significant practice to be a good developer too.

So why not stick to the CRUD apps of the plumbing world and focus on customer service and marketing?

Even something simple like giving customers a time when you will turn up and actually turning up near that time would put you ahead of 95% of tradesmen I have used.

I'd love to have a plumber, or roofer who took a few moments to take some pics of the work they'd done and uploaded it to a website so I could see what they've done and check progress - I'd pay more for that....

[NB We've had some awful experiences with plumbers - including phoning the police on one particularly awful outfit]

> Being on your back / knees for hours at a time day after will end up getting to you.

Maybe that's more of an AskHN for the adult entertainment business....

Yes you should.

Go do it for 6 months full time. Advertise, take jobs, bid, be a subcontractor, hire subcontractors, go to all the plumbing wholesalers and build relationships. Get involved in the world of the professional plumbing company.

You will then see many ways to use IT skills to improve the life of people in the plumbing trade. Write some code, solve some problems, charge $20 per month per person (some sort of SaaS for plumbing companies) and live happily ever after.

Hopefully we can read about you here on HN in a couple years, after you have made headlines for being the Uber of the plumbing trade. It is a way to cross-pollinate your skills and make something that few others could.

You will end up with an unfair advantage http://blog.asmartbear.com/unfair-advantages.html

I struggle myself with why I think I have to be a programmer. More and more I feel like "what am I trying to prove?" when I suffer from the same nagging imposter syndrome and self doubt. If you don't like it as much, don't do it. Go for what makes you happy, relaxed, and fulfilled. Not what you think you should be doing. I'm sure you'll end up with something that takes advantage of your existing skills with software and your aspirations to work more with your hands.

I am still in my life phase where I enjoy creating software. But I enjoy creating something in general, so I might follow you advice later in my life.

im a plumber, not working right now due to a fami.ly illness but, i usually end my day by cleaning all the shit i had to roll around in all day, litterally feces, human excrement . im nothing but a turd herder . when i look at it that way with you in your nice clean office and my work is either on the roof of your building or its underneath or outside in areas you probably would not want to spend 8-10 hrs a day, i think i want to charge even more(i should have been an office worker)

can you pick what you do? If no - why?

No. Because he wants to feed his family.

(I don't pretend to speak for the OP but you have a very naive view of what it is like to be a tradesman that wants to stay in business for more than 3 months. Hint: you take the work you can get at hopefully a price where you make enough money that if there is a lull in business you can still survive. Then there's taxes, tools, breakage, late payers, non-payers and so on, it's not exactly a joyride compared to being a desk-jockey.)

computer software freelance have all the same issues (i would argue even more with unpaying clients since there is less physical contact involved often)

And you answer is counterintuitive - if they have to take all jobs - then there should be pressure from market to drive prices down. In practice I had to go through many guys/companies to get someone same day in my house to estimate work, and two weeks from estimate when they actually would start and they still charge tons of money in my opinion.

Freelance software is a ton easier than freelance plumbing. But don't take my word for it, and please prove I'm wrong.

The market is not 100% efficient, not for freelance plumbers and not for software people. One thing I do know: if I call a plumber and he turns me down for job 'a' I won't be calling him ever for job 'b' (which he might have gladly accepted). You build relationships with people that get the job done, not with people that are afraid to get their hands (literally) dirty.

What is there would be a place where all skilled professional would post offers to do work and describe what kind of work they do. One type of work per account/post or something. And feedbacks and rate for this type of work. So if you had broken off outside AC discharge pipe, you could hire Joe with 5 stars for doing exact this level of work for $25/hr, but once you got problem with busted sewer pipe somewhere under your house you could only find Dan with team of 5 people who deal with only that kind of serious problems for $300/hr for whole team.

In such artificial scenario, would you hire both in different situations or you still would go with more expensive Dan and his team? If you answer would be former, then it is inefficient market.

Not that simple. Customer relations are not price only affairs. If you already hired Dan for the sewer job you'll hire him again for the broken off outside AC discharge pipe because you have a relationship with Dan. And Joe will now have to 'bust' that relationship in order to even get a chance. So until Dan is unavailable (says 'no' to some job you want him to do), ill, dead on a holiday or otherwise indisposed it is very likely that the 'plumber' entry on the phone of the customer will contain Dan's number. And that will be the first person to call in case of trouble.

This is known as mind-share for bigger brands and for smaller relationships like these it is best described using the dutch word 'gunnen' for which I still haven't found a good English translation.

Plumbers make good money because: 1) Demand a. A lot of people have plumbing problems. b. There is shortage in skilled plumbers (especially those willing to do small jobs). 2) Perceived Value a.Working plumbing is a necessity for most people. 3)Fear a. If people toilet is leaking they are worried about damage it may cause. (Fear is one of the reasons rates for security focused IT people generally make better money) b. Most people are scared to do their own plumbing.

A couple years ago my job was outsourced. I took my severance and registered in a Carpentry course. Part of the course was building a house for Habitat for Humanity. It was a great experience and gave me skills I never had before. I can now do all of my own renovations.

I also worked in trades for a while. Trades can make you good money but not right away. When you start in trades you are a glorified janitor and treated like one. It’s very labor intensive work. In Canada it takes about 4 years of experience to get your ticket.

One of the best things I gained from my experience was the appreciation of hard work. The saying “If there is time to lean then there is time to clean” is the rule in trades. You basically have to make yourself busy at all times or you won’t have a job.

Fixed, high demand combined with a low offer explain the high price.

Contributing to reduce the offer of work capacity is that handyman, plumber, gardener and related careers still rely on experience and apprenticeship to qualify people (as opposed to easy access to formal and informal information sources in IT) - how does a subredit for plumbing compares with stackexchange, moocs and all sort of tech manuals availabe?

On the other side, IT gets other forms of compensation, such as a greater sense of "doing something with your life", and that is one reason it can pay less than plumbers. N.B. I'm not saying one can't feel accomplished with a plumbing career, but it is far less common to find one such person than it is to find someone who finds a IT career fulfilling.

You could also say the IT market is just better/more efficient and that there is way more liquidity on IT work than plumber work. If you have a stock and someone is attempting a aggressive takeover (that is, one agent in the market intensely needs what you have), you can ask more than market price and still sell. In plumbing, the client often faces similar situations. Other factor is that there almost always is a time pressure and the client does not have perfect information, calling every plumber in town to gauge prices has a cost in time.

Concluding, I still wouldn't go for plumbing. I (personally) wouldn't be fulfilled with such a career. More relevant is the fact that $125 is probably the most you will ever be able to charge (correcting only for inflation, some fluctuation on demand or offer) while on IT, the cap is likely higher (I don't know the market you are inserted in, but plumbing is more commodity than IT)

You have to factor in how much time you actually work in a day.

Unless you work in a big construction project such that you arrive 9:00 in the morning and leave at 18:00, you will probably need to spend a significant amount of time travelling from one client's house to another. And you cannot charge your clients for that time.

And then there is the question of whether you will even be fully booked all the time.

I never was booked full time when i was doing freelancing. And to get to the project I had to do my research and no one was paying for my research time.

How much you get paid for a job isn't solely determined by how difficult it is. It is determined by supply and demand (and difficulty is one of the ingredients in supply). My impression is that unions and licensing also severely limit the supply of plumbers in any one location, making it a high paying job.

I understand where you are coming from. But keep in mind that there are many factors to consider. Getting a van and buying supplies. Driving time. Having consistent business to bill 40 hours per week etc.

I would be very surprised if your overall net income or free-time was higher being a plumber.

I would be very surprised if your overall net income or free-time was higher being a plumber.

Plumbers run a business. If they run the business well, they can be quite financially successful. Do not expect any free-time running the business, but you might be able to retire early.

My stepfather was a plumber, and he's earned (significantly) more over his career than I'm pretty sure I will. But he had to run a successful business to get there. Maybe it's on-topic for HN after all.

Be interesting to hear from plumbers about the risks that come with expanding the business. It starts with your good name getting around and more people hearing about you. Do you stay at that level, or do you take on staff to do the more boring jobs or to help cover the busier times or to give you an easier week. But with that kind of set up reputation is so important.

Without going into too much detail, his business was severely hampered in development for several years because they couldn't find good (extra) personnel. i.e. kids that graduated only wanted to work for bigger firms, had wage demands he didn't consider sustainable, or simply didn't seem good enough.

During that period they tended to focus on bringing in as much big projects as they could by being friendly with architects and project developers. It's easier to do more with a tiny team if you can batch work on a single site. Getting a good reputation in terms of quality and delivery was obviously very important there - you do not want to race to the bottom on prices.

Around 2008, shortly after the financial crisis, many business got into problems, often also because customers were insolvent. Suddenly it became easier to hire more people, and he did expand the number of workers, and consequently the business, at that point, but never more than what they could reasonably check up on himself. (I reminds me a bit of the story where just after the .com crash, Amazon suddenly announced that for the first time in their history they'd made a profit)

It was basically a slow, very careful growth, taking opportunities when they presented themselves. Customer satisfaction was very important. If you leave people in the cold, literally, they will remember and tell others. This means leaving the house to fix stuff at 10pm Sunday evening in the middle of the winter.

I have to by computer software, computer equipment, pay for courses, spend time researching. If you include everything I am pretty sure it still will not be justifiable to charge same or more for plumbing work than for architecting complex software.

I was talking to my dad about how I repaired a few of my toilets and that I find it hard to believe plumbers charge that much. He then enlightened me to the fact that most calls plumbers get are of the 'messy' kind... Something to think about.

It sounds like you're talking to the wrong "potential" clients. You don't "ask" for your hourly rate, you tell them. I've found the best way to get new clients is through networking and referrals. It requires the ability to sell yourself but if you lack that skill it's something you can learn.

I recommend Brennan Dunn's book Double Your Freelance Rate. It's not as much about your development skills (but you should have those down too) as your ability to manage the project, meet expectations, and relate to the client.

With dev vs plumber, do whichever you most enjoy.

I looked the book up, just out of curiosity, and I can't seem to find it anywhere. It's not available on any bookstore's site (Amazon, Half.com, Barnes & Noble). Even on the author's website (doubleyourfreelancing.com -- named after the book!) the book itself is not specifically for sale. Sure, I can enroll in a $200 course, and the book is provided with it, but I can't buy the book by itself.

That's fine, for me at least. I'm not currently looking to freelance (I was at one time, which is why I'm interested, but I'm pursuing another venture right now). But I don't think OP is going to be able to read it unless he wants to take the author's course!

There's 3 bundle options. The minimum package including the book is $69. http://doubleyourfreelancing.com/rate/

A bit off topic, but there's a quotation I find so compelling that I post it in my office and on the front of my website:

"The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy as an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy; neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water." J. Gardner

I'm in a field (academia) where it is very easy to allow yourself to get away with doing shoddy work as a result of pridefulness.

@OP, it seems that @logicalmind has the exact opposite problem as you. You know, I could start a startup that is like "TradingPlaces", where you get to swap professions by getting first hand training from a master at his craft, maybe gaining access to each other's network and clients over time.

Except, to start a company I would need to be very business oriented, and I'm not (I'm product/sales/service oriented), and I'd need a business co-founder.

Thoughts?

So you have plumbing and software engineering skills. You know how plumbers are struggling with the internet-y side of things? Are you aware of the fact that plumber + {city} is worth $40-60 a click through Google AdWords? Are you aware of the fact that the vast majority of landing pages are none... as in suck badly and don't convert? See the gap you could fill with a solution? Reply and I'll get in touch with you for some ideas.

Interested as well! mzigx2ue4xej813@jetable.org

I'll use my personal email for further communications ;)

yeah, i would be happy to hear ideas.my email is pavelkaroukin@gmail.com

Why not do both?

You can do contract IT work for 15-20 hours a week and then try to fill the gaps with freelance plumbing.

It will take a while to set-up: liability insurance, increasing your skill set, ect.

But, I have always believed in doing multiple, sometimes unrelated projects just so your mind doesn't go crazy.

Who knows, some day you might build a "smart toilet" and make a shit ton of money.

I am not good with my hands, but I am aware of the discrepancy.

I do blame fools who often spend time pontificating here as a depressing factor of my rates. Which btw are close to $100 and I am fully engaged (40+hrs) yet I believe I should be able to get more and do more fun stuff.

And yes, I do believe we are heavily underpaid, just look at lawyers for example

Plumbers don't typically have multi-month gigs. Their overhead is way larger, which is reflected in their rate.

Most people can tell the difference between a leaky pipe and one that is properly plumbed. However, most people cannot tell the difference between well-designed software and shit.

Also, they can take their time choosing a software architect. But if they take their time choosing a plumber, their house fills with shit.

Answering this properly would require a nice mix of philosophy, economics, and a discussion of value. Not sure if I can even come up with a tldr (after I thought about it for a bit)

Having just read the story about the dentist who got into the dental software business ... who not turn plumber then write plumbing company management software? :)

Go for it. Be a plumber for a while but leave some time to keep your software skills sharp / take the "few clients" that pay >$100.

Report back in a few months!

EDIT: here I am not discussing extreme cases, I am talking about day-to-day help without call at 3am and digging into sewer full body.

You basically want to do clean handyman stuff. I would expect the issue to be finding enough customers, although if supply/demand is sufficiently twisted in your area, it might work.

Calling it "plumber" is quite a misnomer as they have to deal with a lot more shit (literally and figuratively).

handymen charge $50+ which is still too much in my opinion for level and rarity of skill they have.

you might find this interesting http://gselevator.wordpress.com/2013/09/04/meet-jack-the-plu...

Do the job that gives you most satisfaction.

I feel the same way, if I had things to do over again I would have gone into a different and likely skilled labor field.

TLDR: perception, complex value proposition, dev project are not making enough money, wholesale / retail projects, & dev projects are expensive to sell.

Better hours, awesome power tools, significantly less politics & frustration. I like solving problems and I spend most of my time keeping clients from sabotaging their projects and dealing with syntax & communication.

A couple points I'd make: 1) Skilled labor have significant fixed costs with equipment and buildings, I have about 5k (maybe) total invested in my little home based web dev business (contact me for quality onshore+offshore web development ;). The fixed costs for skilled labor are easier to understand, for example the phrase "it was cheaper for me to higher it out than buy the tools and probably mess it up the first time".

2) Most software projects are losing money, get on a project where your work is within the direct profit stream and rates are higher, as are expectations.

3) One of the many difficult things about tech projects are that it's really difficult to understand what is hard and what is easy. Estimates are rough even after over 10 years of programming, non technical stakeholders have no idea, that goes double for the ones that tell you about all the cool tech stuff they did in the 90's. With plumbing, and almost any other skill, the value proposition is easier to see.

4) Dev's do not do a good job of appearing to be important. Like it or not perception is a big deal, I loath working with suits, and do what I can to avoid looking like them because looking professional has become synonymous with high quality hair product and low quality work. I realize if I look expensive, act like I know what I'm doing, people assume I know what I'm doing. I usually do, but I'm also usually working at home in a T-shirt, carhartt shorts, and flippy flops, but when clients seem me I dress like Bill Gates & Warren Buffet, not to slick but professional.

5) Many dev clients are not retail, they are wholesale. It's important to adjust rates based off volume & project risk. Joe Shmoe from craigslist is going to offer a low volume project, with the high risk that he's going to mess up his project and blame you because he has no idea what he's doing, those guys get higher rates. Agencies that have a good plan, reasonable volume, and a history of success have earned a lower rate.

6) Dev projects are expensive to sell compared to skilled labor projects, this means sales guys deserve a bigger cut, and since they are good at negotiating they leverage this to get as much as they can. This leaves a smaller piece of the pie for the rest of the team.

www.handybook.com/apply

No, because your passion is not plumbing.

You seem frustrated monetarily, yet seem to enjoy your profession.

Honestly, find a new niche for your services and keep working hard and doing your best in your current field. As long as you are following your dream/passion the end always justifies the means.

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